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Access the Everyday Instructional Design eBook by Power Learning Solutions

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Book Information

Book Description

Everday Instructional Design: A Practical Resource for Educators and Instructional Designers provides useful background understanding of the principles and processes that guide the design, development, testing, and refinement of online course modules. This book has been developed based on a seriest of instructional design and educational technology courses taught by Rob Power at different Canadian universities, and follows a project-based learning experience that walks participants through the first few weeks of an instructional design and development project. These steps typically span the first six to eight weeks of designing and developing online courses as a contract instructional designer or as an in-house ID specialist. Everyday Instructional Design works through this process, exploring the rationale and pragmatics of all of the steps involved with determining what needs to be developed, creating our initial design plans, developing a prototype of a selected portion of the larger ID project, collaborating with other instructional designers to get "expert feedback" on our works-in-progress, pilot testing our prototypes with a "live" student audience, reflecting on the expert and student feedback we receive, and determining how we can tweak our prototype designs before proceeding with the rest of the course development project.

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Everyday Instructional Design - Simple Book Publishing

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Everday Instructional Design: A Practical Resource for Educators and Instructional Designers provides useful background understanding of the principles and processes that guide the design, development, testing, and refinement of online course modules.

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Useful Tools and Resources - Everyday ID

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Useful Tools and Resources - Everyday ID

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The list of useful tools and resources from the Everyday Instructional Design eBook

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Apps and Resources for Students with Dyslexia or other Learning Disabilities

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Apps and Resources for Students with Dyslexia or other Learning Disabilities

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Great looking resource shared by a Power Learning Solutions Blog reader!

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Teaching a child is hard. Even if a child is neurotypical, there are still many challenges parents will face every single day. When your child has a learning disability, it's even more difficult, and learning disabilities are more common than you might think. As of 2019, 6.7 million students from ages 3-21 in US public schools were served under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. While the act covers many types of disabilities, 33 percent of those students are specifically served for learning disabilities. And these numbers only account for those who qualify for service and are enrolled in public school.

Thankfully, there are options for helping you and your child. One of the most common and most effective ways to help children with learning disabilities is with technology. Whether it's word processors like Microsoft Word or a simple tape recorder, these methods have been a huge aid to so many kids. With the advent of smartphones and apps, there are more ways than ever to use technology to help your child better learn and process information. With how expensive some of these apps can be and with how many there are, it can be difficult figuring out which one is best. That's why I've compiled this list of 20 apps that can be useful for kids and parents of kids with dyslexia and other learning disabilities. If you give some of these a try, I hope they prove useful. Be sure to bookmark this page so you can read it later too!

1. Reading Machine: Decoding What Your Child Is Reading

Learning to read can be difficult for kids, especially if they have dyslexia or another learning disability. The worst part is that books alone may not give your child the support they need. Books can use unusual sentence structures, might not define complex words, among other challenges. Fortunately, Reading Machine can help with these issues. Reading Machine helps struggling young readers make sense of what they're reading with text-to-speech, phonics support, and an excellent dictionary of common English words. The app includes over 125 books for beginning readers. It also provides you with recommended reading lists based on your child's interests and skill level. You can pick up Reading Machine for free on the Apple App Store.

2. Voice Dream Reader: Giving Your Child a Reading Companion for Life

Text-to-speech is one of the most effective ways to aid children with dyslexia who are learning to read. Hearing the words spoken as they read helps them better understand their book, and it can keep them engaged even when traditional reading can get a little dull. There are dozens of text-to-speech apps on the market, but Voice Dream Reader is one of the best. Its suite of features is excellent and includes a scanner for reading printed work and alternate Reading Styles. In particular, the Finger Reading style is great for beginning readers, as it lets them control the reading by running a finger under each word. There is also Spoken Word, which allows your child to listen to books and articles as they read, and an auto-scrolling, full-screen mode that helps eliminate any distractions they might encounter on their device of choice.

That said, the app is a bit more complex than some of the others on this list. It was made for all ages which means it will be up to you to set it up for them and make sure it's working properly. The good side of this is that your child won't ever get too old for Voice Dream Reader. The app can be just as useful to them at age 5 as age 35. With a huge suite of features and content, Voice Dream Reader is an excellent app for children with dyslexia that can help them well into adulthood. You can download it on the Apple App Store today. Sadly, there is no free trial for this app.

3. Writing Wizard for Kids: Helping Your Child Improve Their Handwriting

4. Rainbow Sentences: Teaching Your Child the Basics of Sentences

A major hurdle in teaching kids to read is sentence structure. English can be a bit of a mess to understand, especially for beginning readers. However, Rainbow Sentences is here to help. By using aids such as color-coded words, text-to-speech, and picture-based sentence lessons, the app helps your child learn how to construct English sentences in an easy-to-understand way. It even lets kids record themselves reciting the sentences and play the recordings back to enhance the process. If your child is struggling with putting together complete sentences, I recommend Rainbow Sentences. You can find Rainbow Sentences on the Apple App Store. While there is no free trial, Rainbow Sentences isn't as pricey as some of the others on this list.

5. Ghotit Real Writer: Helping Your Child Write Better Than Ever

Targeted to older users than other apps on this list, Ghotit Real Writer is a text editor for users with dyslexia and dysgraphia. Because of its complexity, I don't recommend it for beginning writers. That said, it packs a number of useful features, such as text correction and word prediction, into an easy-to-use interface. More advanced children and adults can get a lot out of these features, especially the word prediction feature. The app also includes dictionaries for US, UK, Canadian, Australian, New Zealand, and South African varieties of English. Unfortunately, the app loses quite a bit of functionality without an Internet connection. If you want to try Ghotit Real Writer, you can download it on the Apple App Store for iPads, from its website for Macs, and it's also available for Windows. While the price is steep, the Windows version offers a free trial.

6. Prodigy Math Game: Making Math More Fun Than Ever

It is a rare child who enjoys math. Addition and subtraction can be a drag, even if your child understands it just fine. With Prodigy Math Game, your child gets to learn the basics of math in a colorful, engaging video game. Making it a game can increase your child's motivation and give them a better feeling of progression than they might get with normal teaching. For US users, the math questions in Prodigy Math Game stay in line with classroom lessons and are aligned with Common Core standards as well as Texas' own TEKS standards. You can also monitor your child's progress in the game to make sure they're staying engaged both with the app and actually learning math. If you're interested, Math Prodigy Game is available for free on both the Google Play Store and Apple App Store.

7. Mod Math: Giving Your Child an Excellent Math Companion

Much like sentence structure, math problems and notation can be frustrating for beginners. If your child is struggling with this part of math, Mod Math is here to help. From simple addition and subtraction to algebra, the app lets your child plot out their equations with an easy-to-use custom keypad and digital graph paper. Your child can also share their work directly with their teachers from the app if their teacher has an account. You can even import equations from other documents for easy access. While Mod Math is free on the Apple App Store, it does contain microtransactions. If, for example, you want to use percentages, you'll need to buy their Mod Math Pro service or buy the percentage symbol by itself. The cost is low, but it's still disappointing to have to pay for such basic features.

8. Todo Math: Teaching Your Child Math With Simple, Fun Exercises

Part of the issue with teaching math is that the equations and problems can feel a little dry, especially for kids. This lowers engagement and, by extension, hurts their ability to remember the lessons. Apps like Todo Math are designed to help with this. Based on Common Core standards from the US, Todo Math provides your child with thousands of colorful, interactive exercises to help them better understand math. These exercises cover a variety of concepts from counting to telling time on a clock and are appropriate for kids from Pre-K to the 2nd Grade. The sheer amount of content is Todo Math's greatest strength with daily missions and other challenges. These make sure your child stays engaged with learning for as long as possible. The app's pay structure is its greatest weakness. The app places a limit on how many activities free users can do per day. The price for a subscription is also steep and only available in yearly or bi-yearly payments. Even with these drawbacks, the content in Todo Math is very good, and you can find it at no cost on both the Google Play Store and the Apple App Store.

Dexteria's entire family of apps is excellent, especially for children with autism. However, I'm highlighting their Get in Touch With Math app as an excellent learning aid for any child with disabilities. The exercises are simple, engaging, and great for teaching the basics of math. These exercises also test your child's visual memory and fine motor skills. This is great for giving your child a sense of play even when just dragging their finger along a touchscreen. While you can't try it for free, Dexteria Dots - Get in Touch With Math is available on the Apple App Store for a fairly low price.

10. Fuzzy Numbers: Helping Your Child Learn Early Math Skills With Creative Puzzles

11. myHomework Student Planner: Making Sure Your Child Stays On-Track With Their Education

Everyone has trouble keeping track of their schedule sometimes. This is especially true when you or your child are in school. All of the assignments and tests can be overwhelming, especially as they move to higher levels of education. That's why myHomework offers a clean, easy-to-use way for students to remember all those important dates. The app offers a lot of scheduling options, including the ability to outline your child's schedule based on their class periods. While you can download myHomework for free on the Apple App Store, the free version includes ads that can be distracting for some. You can buy a yearly subscription to myHomework to remove the ads. The subscription also unlocks more features such as the ability to sync your schedule up with other devices.

12. AudioNote: Giving Your Child a Notepad and a Voice Recorder All in One

13. Choiceworks: Letting You Build a Daily Routine for Your Child

Teaching your child to maintain a daily routine can be one of the most valuable things you can do for them. It can help them stay consistent later in life with school and builds independence. It's also one of the more difficult lessons to teach, especially when you have your own schedule to keep up with. Choiceworks can help you and your child build this essential skill together.

With Choiceworks, you can use a collection of audio and visual cues to craft your child's routine, as well as rewards for when they finish. For example, if your child wants to read a book before bedtime, you can set up Choiceworks to remind them that they need to brush their teeth first. The app is also completely customizable. You can record yourself telling your child what and how to do the tasks you've given them or take photos to use as visual cues instead of the default images. In addition to schedules, the app comes with three more imageboards: Waiting, Feelings, and Feelings Scale. These can help your child build patience and emotional regulation, even when you're not at home.

You can download Choiceworks from the Apple App Store, but you can't try it for free. There is also a companion app, called Choiceworks Calendar for helping your child keep track of dates and schedules as well. This app is also not free.

14. Bear In Mind: Making It Easier Than Ever to Keep Your Child On-Task

Sometimes, your child doesn't need anything too complex in a scheduling app. They just need somewhere to write their to-do lists and set up reminders. If your child is looking for a simple reminder app, Bear In Mind is one of the best out there. The app's interface is easy to use and highly customizable, with the ability to import images and pick from 35 different sounds and music for alarms. Best of all, Bear In Mind is fully functional offline, making it useful even when your child doesn't have a signal. You can try Bear In Mind on the Apple App Store, but there is no free trial.

15. Chore Pad: Keeping Your Child More Engaged With Their Chores

16. First Phrases: Building Your Child's Communication Confidence

17. Fun With Directions: Giving Your Child a Teacher That Grows With Them

Auditory processing skills can be difficult to learn for some children. Thanks to Fun With Directions, your child has a game to help them better understand these valuable skills. The app starts with simple directions like "pet the dog" and gets more complex as your child progresses. This slowly helps your child build their ability to follow directions and process what they're seeing and hearing. The app's lessons will grow with your child. That said, the app is designed for younger children, and the directions might not be challenging enough after a certain point. You can only find Fun With Directions on the Apple App Store. That said, the app has both an iPhone version and an iPad version. If you're not sure about spending money on the app, you can try the Lite version for iPhone for a lower price.

18. Articulation Station: Educating Your Child at Multiple Levels of Communication

There are plenty of apps that can help your child learn at the word level or even the full sentence level. However, Articulation Station is one of the few apps designed to teach your child how to better communicate on not just the word or sentence level but the full story level. There's a lot to love about it. This means the app can help your child grow from short, simple sentences to telling their own short stories. The app's activities are vibrant, colorful, and engage your child on the auditory and visual levels. These activities include flashcards, matching games, and even full stories with comprehension questions.

That said, the app's pricing model can be a deterrent for some users. While you can download Articulation Station at no cost from the Apple App Store, the app will ask you to pay for some specific content. This includes certain sounds your child might struggle with such as "ch" or "th" sounds. You can either buy each sound program individually or pay for its Pro version to unlock all content. If you purchase a few sound programs before paying for Pro, the app does offer you a discount equal to how much you paid for those programs.

19. Avaz AAC: Offering Your Child Support in As Many Languages As Possible

Most of the apps on this list are primarily targeted toward English speakers. This means they aren't quite as useful on an international level or for multilingual households. If you're looking for a speech app with more language variety, Avaz AAC is a great place to start. Developed in India, the app features 6 Indian regional languages including Hindi, Tamil, and Telugu. On top of that, the app also offers 4 more languages: American English, Australian English, French, and Sinhala. And those are just the languages on this specific app. Avaz also offers regional versions of this app for countries like Switzerland, Sri Lanka, and Vietnam.

On top of this language support, Avaz AAC is a top-quality speech app. It comes equipped with an excellent dictionary, as well as a large number of voice clips. Your child can also use the Symbolstix image library to help communicate even better. It's highly customizable and usable for all ages. There's also an alert button to let your child tell you when they need your full attention and a mistake button for when they need to tell you they made a mistake. Additionally, the app features a training module for new users and their caregivers to make the process as easy as possible. You can try Avaz AAC for free on the Google Play Store and the Apple App Store. The app is only fully functional for 14 days, however. After the 14-day free trial is up, you won't be able to access the symbols or voice clips without a subscription to Avaz. The subscription comes in monthly and yearly payment models, or as a one-time payment for lifetime access.

20. MyTalkMobile: Giving Your Child More Communication Options Than Ever

All these apps are great, but they won't be any help if you don't know which one is right for your child. Fortunately, I found a paper written by experts in the field of special education that has excellent criteria for picking the right app for your child. I especially want to highlight their suggestion to make sure your child is involved in choosing the app. Ultimately, these apps are for your child, and if they aren't interested in the app, it won't help no matter how effective it might be for other children. So, show them screenshots from the app, explain what it's supposed to do if they're old enough to understand, and see which apps catch their eye and which they skip over.

Another thing to look out for is making sure your child stays moving throughout the day. While these apps can be useful, spending too much time with them or with any kind of screen will often hurt more than help your child, especially if they are earlier in their development. Use movement and play in combination with these apps to keep them engaged in the learning process.

Finally, make sure to turn off your child's screens at least one hour before bedtime. The blue light from these screens can disrupt sleep patterns and prevent your child from getting a good night's sleep. Good, restful sleep can be one of the most important factors in keeping your child healthy, happy, and engaged in their education. If possible, it might even be a good idea to turn off your own screen around the same time to set a good example for your child.

There are so many unique challenges to parenting a child with learning disabilities, but there are also so many resources to turn to that can help you do the best job possible. These apps are just some of the ways you can help your child. There are websites, databases, and other resources where you can learn more about your child's disability and learn ways to be an even better parent for your child. While I was never diagnosed with a learning disability, I was diagnosed with ADHD, which can also affect learning. I can't imagine how big of a help it would have been if my parents had access to resources like these when I was a child. Many of these apps offer free trials or free versions to help you see if they're right for you, and I urge you to give some of them a chance.

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20 Useful Apps for Kids with Dyslexia and Learning Disabilities

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Children with learning disabilities face unique struggles in education. These apps are an excellent starting point, especially for parents of younger children.

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A how-to demonstration and useful resources for adding captions and transcripts to ensure your non-narrated, text-only videos are truly accessible for all "viewers."

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​Sometimes we share videos with our students that are not narrated, and that contain just on-screen text. While viewers can technically read the text embedded in the video, this method does not truly meet Digital Accessibility requirements. That's because the use of embedded text in a video is the same as embedding text within an image in a document. It is not machine-readable, and thus it excludes audience members who may need to use a screen reader application for any reason (they may be visually-impaired, have low language reading ability, have a reading-related learning disability such as Dyslexia, or they may be a non-native language speaker who needs to translate your text for better comprehension).

The two best ways to help all potential viewers get the most out of your non-narrated video content are to:

Make sure you have Closed Captions enabled, using the on-screen text for the captions text.

Provide a transcript file for your video.

​YouTube Creators (2021) has an excellent overview of how to add or edit captions either when you are uploading your video, or after your video has already been published. Remember, for a video with no narration (just text on screen), you will need to transcribe that text into the captions editor (either manually, or copy-paste the "slide" text from your video, and insert it to align with the timings when it appears on screen.

​Another option for creating subtitles or captions for a non-narrated video is to use an external video editing application, like Screencast-O-Matic (2019). This option works well if you have a copy of the video file (MP4 or other format) on your computer, but is less useful if you use a tool like PowToon (2022) to create your video and export it directly to YouTube (because you cannot download the video file unless you have a pro-level subscription).

​While the following webinar demonstration video (Power, 2021, April 9) features the creation of captions for a narrated video using Screencast-O-Matic, the steps for creating, editing, and uploading your captions file to YouTube would be the same for a text-only video.

​In addition to making sure your text-only video has Closed Captions enabled, I also strongly recommend adding a transcript file for your visually-impaired users. A transcript file can be opened or downloaded. Your audience members can then use any screen reader application (such as JAWS (Freedom Scientific, n.d.), NVDA (NV Access, 2023), or Google Read and Write (Texthelp, 2023)) to read the on-screen video text out load to them. The following video shows how I uploaded a transcript file to Google Drive, and then added a link to that transcript to the video description for my instructor welcome video in YouTube. Remember to make sure your transcript file meets basic document accessibility requirements before sharing it! For more on that topic, refer to my blog post Helping Everyone Access Your Online Learning Resources (Power, 2020).

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​Sometimes we share videos with our students that are not narrated, and that contain just on-screen text. While viewers can technically read the text embedded in the video, this method does not truly meet Digital Accessibility requirements. That's because the use of embedded text in a video is the same as embedding text within an image in a document.

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A Picture Isn't Always Worth a Thousand Words

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A Picture Isn't Always Worth a Thousand Words

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Guidelines for designing and using accessible graphics.

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​I recently had a conversation with a colleague about using a graphic to accommpany an email about an upcoming event. I was asked for some feedback on whether the graphic complied with Digital Accessibility requirements. The conversation got me thinking about how to make decisions about when to use graphics as part of a message, whether it be for an email, a web page, or instructional materials for my students. My conclusion was that you need to think long and hard about the purpose and content of the graphic -- not just about how the graphic will appear on the page or screen.

​There are lots of cases where the graphics we use contain text. Sometimes it is unavoidable. The questions you should be asking in this case are:

Is the image purely decorative? Or does it convey a key message? If the image is purely decorative, then make sure it does not occupy too much real estate on your page. You don't want to force your readers to scroll down to notice that there is more to the message. Also be sure to "tag" your image as "decorative" (if your application allows it), or leave the ALT tag blank, so that a screen reader will ignore it altogether.

Is the text the focal point of the graphic? If so, then you should NOT use the graphic. Just put the text in the main body of the document or page. You'll save yourself the time it takes to create the graphic, and you won't cause problems for anyone who is using a screen reader application to engage with your content.

Are the graphical elements the focal point of the graphic? If so, go ahead and use the graphic. Just make sure that text is used sparingly to highlight some key points. And make sure that you fully explain the main points of the graphic in text format in the body of the message.

​The following graphic illustrates a common example of graphics that I see in my email inbox where actual text should be used instead of the image:

​There is nothing in this graphic that could not be put in regular text format, and a screen reader cannot "see" the text in the image to read it out to you. Sure, you could repeat the text within the ALT tag for the image, so that a screen reader will read it out... but what's the point? The graphic does not actually clarify or add anything to the message, and you are wasting time creating the graphic and typing the text into the ALT tag when you could simply type it right onto the page! Additionally, text within your image will NOT reflow and resize based on the reader's screen size and orientation, which could also render that text unreadable to your entire audience. You are also preventing anyone who uses an Accessibility plugin from modifying the font, color, or contrast of the text to make it more readable in their specific context. And, besides the message potentially being lost for anyone using a screen reader (if they do engage with the content at all), there is the potential that your intended audience may also view the message as SPAM, and thus ignore it!

​Here is a better example of a graphic that could be used to accompany the same message. In this case, you can see that the image is being used to draw visual readers' attention to some key points. The accompanying ALT text tells a screen reader user why the image is being used. And the main points of the message are included in regular text format in the body of the page.

​If you are going to use a graphic as part of your message or content page, make sure you test that image in "dark mode." Most of the time, we are not working in dark mode when we create graphics. If our graphics have transparent backgrounds, they will display differently for any reader who has adjusted the color scheme of their screen. Parts of the graphic may end up getting "washed out" by a different color screen background, rendering them unreadable. Here is an example of an email message that contains a graphic with a transparent background, as viewed in dark mode on my mobile device. The message was unreadable until I got to my desktop computer!

​The quick fix to this is to remove the transparent background before publishing the graphic, and choose a background color that has a sufficient color contrast ratio with the foreground (text).

​Sometimes using graphics to enhance our message actually detracts from them.

​Make sure that any text in the image is NOT the focal point, that the graphical elements in the image highlight or clarify key points.

Make sure that your primary message is conveyed with actual text in the body of the page or document.

Make sure that the image doesn't inadvertently bury the main message beyond the bottom of the screen.

And make sure that the image is clear and readable on different screens, with different color backgrounds.

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A Picture Isn't Always Worth a Thousand Words...

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​I recently had a conversation with a colleague about using a graphic to accommpany an email about an upcoming event. I was asked for some feedback on whether the graphic complied with Digital Accessibility requirements.

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The Relationship Between User Experience/User Interface, Mobile First Instructional Design, and Digital Accessibility

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The Relationship Between User Experience/User Interface, Mobile First Instructional Design, and Digital Accessibility

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Key recommendations to optimize course page layout, minimize cognitive overload, and minimize Digital Accessibility issues for online learning.

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I frequently received questions about using tables to organize content on web pages or course content pages in an LMS. I also frequently see novice instructional design students do this in order to make content line up for aesthetic purposes. The problem is, if you are not well-versed in HTML coding, and using tools like Bootstrap UI to create engaging, interactive, responsive page elements, then using simple "tricks" like aligning contents with tables, manually formatting text for emphasis, or manually inserting lines on your pages to create visual divisions between content can actually create more problems then they solve!

Insprired by a recent flurry of questions from my ID students, I put together this video to demonstrate what problems you create when you use tables to organize content (among other issues). The key recommendations to optimize course page layout, minimize cognitive overload, and minimize Digital Accessibility issues are:

Stick to a linear design (to-to-bottom flow) for your content pages.

Consider how your pages will look and behave on a mobile device. While you may be creating the page using a large, landscape-oriented screen, most users will consume the content on smaller, portrait-orientation devices.

Avoid using tables to arrange content. Only use tables to present statistical data!

Avoid using the dash key ("-") to manually create horizontal lines on your pages.

Avoid adding extra space between content by adding a hard return (<ENTER>).

Make sure you properly tag text, headings, and images.

Always test your content on different screen sizes and orientations to see how it displays!

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The Relationship Between User Experience/User Interface, Mobile First Instructional Design, and Digital Accessibility

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I frequently received questions about using tables to organize content on web pages or course content pages in an LMS. I also frequently see novice instructional design students do this in order to make content line up for aesthetic purposes.

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If you are not suffering from a color vision deficiency it is very hard to imagine how it looks like to be colorblind. The Color BLIndness S imulator can close this gap for you. Just play around with it and get a feeling of how it is to have a color vision handicap.

As all the calculations are made on your local machine, no images are uploaded to the server. Therefore you can use images as big as you like, there are no restrictions. Be aware, there are some issues for the "Lens feature" on Edge and Internet Explorer. All others should support everything just fine.

So go ahead, choose an image through the upload functionality or just drag and drop your image in the center of our Color BLIndness S imulator. It is also possible to zoom and move your images around using your mouse - try it out, I hope you like it.

If there are any issues with the Color BLIndness Simulator please send a note through the contact page. Thanks. If this simulator is not correctly working for you, you could still try the old version which can be found at Coblis.v1 - Color Blindness Simulator.

As it is not not so easy to describe color blindness it comes in handy, that some smart people developed manipulation-algorithms to fake any form of color vision deficiency. The algorithms transform any picture into the same picture as seen by red-, green-, blue- or completely colorblind people.
I would like to thank Michael from ColorJack for providing the color blindness matrix, which was used for the first version of the Color BLIndness Simulator. The actual version ist based on the jsColorblindSimulator-Project developed by MaPePeR. He made it possible to use just client resources and added some very cool features like pan&zoom. At the moment the HCIRN Color Blind Simulation function is used, which is freely available for non-commercial use. The Color Blind Simulation function is
copyright (c) 2000-2001 by Matthew Wickline and the
Human-Computer Interaction Resource Network ( http://hcirn.com/ ).
It is used with the permission of Matthew Wickline and HCIRN,
and is freely available for non-commercial use. For commercial use, please
contact the Human-Computer Interaction Resource Network ( http://hcirn.com/ ).

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If you are not suffering from a color vision deficiency it is very hard to imagine how it looks like to be colorblind. The Color BLIndness S imulator can close this gap for you. Just play around with it and get a feeling of how it is to have a color vision handicap.

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Manually Adding the New Canvas Badgr App

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Manually Adding the New Canvas Badgr App

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Manually Adding the New Canvas Badgr App

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50+ Instructional Design and eLearning Books

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50+ Instructional Design and eLearning Books

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This post is my master list of book recommendations, compiled and updated for 2023 from my previous book lists and book reviews. These are some of my favorite instructional design and elearning books, plus recommendations from readers of my blog. This update includes several new additions to my previous lists, bringing the total to over 50 books. For 2023, I added new books by Julie Dirksen, Cammy Bean, Cara North, Niels Floor, Susan Nelson Spencer, and Mark Mrohs.
I use Amazon affiliate links when I recommend books. It doesn't cost you anything extra, but I receive a small percentage when you purchase a book from my links. That income helps me break even on the cost of hosting and maintaining this blog.

Contents

Jump right to the topics you're interested in or scroll through the entire list for some new inspiration.

New for 2023

Talk to the Elephant: Design Learning for Behavior Change is Julie Dirksen's newest book explaining behavior science research. If you're looking for ways to change behavior and are open to interventions that aren't necessarily training, this book both shows you how to do that and gives you research to justify a broader approach. Julie explains the COM-B model, an evidence-based model for behavior change, and uses that in examples throughout the book. Use this book to start with the big picture of identifying the problem and what needs to change and then shift down to analyze and prioritize a range of possible interventions.

This is Learning Experience Design: What it is, how it works, and why it matters is by Niels Floor, an early leader in the field of "learning experience design." He emphasizes innovation, creativity, and empathy for learners in the design process. This book explains his approach to LXD and provides templates and processes you can use to guide your work.

Reverse Training Design: Start at the end to revolutionize corporate learning by Mark Mrohs draws other models to design a process that starts with performance assessments and then works backward to design content that supports that performance. This book cites learning science research to support the approach, including challenging the common 70:20:10 model with updated research. Learning science concepts like cognitive load, desirable difficulty, and spaced recall are woven throughout the book.

New books for new instructional designers and career changers

The Accidental Instructional Designer by Cammy Bean, newly updated for a second edition in 2023. This book is especially good for career changers and those who landed in instructional design from other fields. It provides a model for the range of skills that fall under the umbrella of "instructional design." The book includes practical tips on working with SMEs and avoiding interactivity and multimedia for the sake of being flashy. The design models are probably familiar to many with experience in the field. However, they're very helpful to beginners who want to do more than just the same type of course and interaction for every situation.

Learning Experience Design Essentials by Cara North focuses on practical information and realistic examples for new instructional designers and learning experience designers. The book features 30/60/90-day plans in each chapter to help you apply the concepts and use what you learn.

Next-Level Instructional Design: Master the four competencies shared by professional instructional designers by Susan Nelson Spencer is another book for new instructional designers, especially those changing careers from teaching or graphic design. It's designed for people who don't have formal training in instructional design to reach the "next level" by growing their skills. I appreciate how this book connects experiences from other fields to instructional design, helping readers identify what they already know and where they have gaps in their skills.

Everyday Instructional Design: A Practical Resource for Educators and Instructional Designers by Rob Power is available for free and published with a Creative Commons license. This book comes from an instructional technology perspective and is more geared toward instructional designers in higher education environments. The content is based on instructional technology courses Power has taught.

Instructional Design

Getting Started in ID

The Do It Messy Approach: A Step-by-Step Guide for Instructional Designers and Online Learning Developers by Robin Sargent is written for beginners in the field who need to get unstuck and just get started building a sample for their portfolio or another project. The book contains scenarios and activities to help you practice the process in the book.

Improving ID Skills

Performance-Focused Learner Surveys: Using Distinctive Questioning to Get Actionable Data and Guide Learning Effectiveness is the second edition of Will Thalheimer's book on writing effective surveys for workplace training. This edition is significantly expanded with many new and updated sample questions and additional explanations from the first edition, which I previously reviewed.

Make It Meaningful: Taking Learning Design from Instructional to Transformational by Clark Quinn focuses on engagement, motivation, and emotion. This book fills a gap in the field that most other sources don't address (or only address superficially): the emotional side of how we learn. If you're looking for ways to level up your instructional design skills and create more meaningful, motivating training, this book should be on your shelf. If it's out of stock on Amazon, you should still be able to order it directly from the LDA website.

The Guide to Working with Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) is a short (56-page) book by Michele Medved with tips for a productive working relationship with SMEs.

ID Processes

ISD From the Ground Up: A No-Nonsense Approach to Instru c tional Design by Chuck Hodell was suggested by Phrodeo, who used it as a textbook in a course she took.

Marina Arshavskiy's Instructional Design for ELearning was recommended by another student, Alisa. She said, "I will definitely keep using it after I graduate."

Streamlined ID: A Practical Guide to Instructional Design: Miriam Larson suggested her textbook, co-authored with Barbara Lockee.

Elearning

e-Learning and the Science of Instruction by Ruth Clark and Richard Mayer, now in its fourth edition. This is one of the first books on e-learning I bought, and I still refer to it when I need evidence to justify decisions to clients. Have you ever wondered if formal or conversational style is better for learning (conversational)? Have stakeholders asked if your on-screen text should replicate what's on the screen (no, it shouldn't)? This book explains it with the research to back it up.

Michael Allen's Guide to eLearning: Building Interactive, Fun, and Effective Learning Programs for Any Company. All of Allen's books are focused on helping people design e-learning that is interactive, engaging, and useful.

The eLearning Designer's Handbook: a Practical Guide to the eLearning Development Process for New eLearning Designers by Tim Slade walks you through the process of creating elearning from start to finish with real-world examples. Tim's background is as someone who switched from another career, so his book comes from the perspective of someone who made the transition and figured it out. It's full of practical tips for beginners who want to create elearning that isn't awful.

The E-Learning Uncovered series has been my go-to authoring tool reference books for years. E-Learning Uncovered: Articulate Storyline 360 is the most recent edition of the Storyline books. They also have books for Adobe Captivate 2019 and .

E-Learning Uncovered: Lectora by ELB Learning: 2022 Edition by Chris Paxton McMillin and Diane Elkins was released in October 2022. I admit: I don't use Lectora, and I haven't read this book. However, I own multiple other books in this series. These books are consistently useful, practical references to get a thorough foundation in authoring tools.

Scenarios, Simulations, and Storytelling

Instructional Story Design: Develop Stories That Train is by Rance Greene. It provides a systematic process for creating stories for training. Even if you don't consider yourself a storyteller, you can learn to create stories to support learning with this book. Read my review of Instructional Story Design.

Short Sims: A Game Changer by Clark Aldrich teaches you how to create short branching simulations. These interactive learning experiences can often be built in weeks rather than months. The supporting resources for the book include a number of actual short sims so you can see samples for inspiration. Read my full review of Short Sims.

Scenario-based e-Learning by Ruth Clark is similar to eLearning and the Science of Instruction in that it summarizes research findings. This book is specifically focused on developing scenario-based e-learning, including everything from simple branching scenarios to complex simulations.

StoryTraining: Selecting and Shaping Stories That Connect by Hadiya Nuriddin is about finding and crafting the right stories to support and enhance learning.

TED Talks Storytelling: 23 Storytelling Techniques from the Best TED Talks was recommended by Robert Beck. He says, "If IDs keep in mind the elements of a powerful story and how to deliver a spellbinding presentation to an audience, they'll likely design an effective training product."

Games and Gamification

Play to Learn: Everything You Need to Know About Designing Effective Learning Games by Sharon Boller and Karl Kapp. They provide tips for moving beyond shallow "points, badges, and leaderboards" gamification. This is about how to design games that meet learning objectives, rather than generic game design or tool-specific tips.

Visual Design and Usability

Connie's previous book, Visual Language for Designers, was helpful to me in learning about the fundamentals of visual design.

Robin Williams's The Non-Designer's Design Book is a perennial recommendation for learning the basic principles of design and typography.

The Design of Everyday Things by Don Norman isn't a visual design book, but a user experience design book about the psychology of how we interact with objects. This book is a frequent recommendation for IDs interested in improving the usability of their courses.

Agile Project Management

Agile for Instructional Designers: Iterative Project Management to Achieve Results by Megan Torrance. This book details her company's approach to project management that is flexible enough to accommodate change even late in the process. It's not exactly agile software development (for one thing, most IDs work on multiple projects simultaneously). In fact, she calls this LLAMA: a Lot Like Agile Management Approach. You may discover that you're already doing a lot of iterative development (although maybe not with real users). Even so, the practical tips here can likely help refine your process.

Leaving ADDIE for SAM is a classic in the field. Several people recommended this book. (Including some who said they wished their organizations would pay more attention to it and move to a more agile approach).

Learning Science

General learning science

Learning Science for Instructional Designers: From Cognition to Application is another book by Clark Quinn. This is a comprehensive overview of how we learn and remember, including strategies for learning design to take advantage of that research understanding.

Make It Stick: The Science of Successful Learning is geared more towards teachers, professors, and those interested in the psychology of how we learn rather than at instructional designers. The authors have done an amazing job of reviewing, summarizing, and organizing dozens of studies about how we learn. As instructional designers, we often work hard to make learning easier, but "desirable difficulties" can actually increase learning. I do wish the book had some visuals to help explain the concepts. As an instructional designer, you'll need to reflect on your own about how to apply these ideas to your work. Most of the examples are from classrooms, either academic or corporate.

Learning Experience Design: How to Create Effective Learning That Works by Donald Clark covers a broad range of topics related to learning experience design (LXD). Common topics like text, audio, and graphics are covered, but so are interface design, AR/VR, gamification, social learning, and curation. Each chapter includes a bibliography of the sources cited, and the research summarized here is extensive. This book contains a significant amount of research translation related to using multimedia and technology for learning.

Patti Shank's series

Patti Shank's Write and Organize for Deeper Learning is about how to write to better support learning. The recommendations are backed by research, but the book is heavy on practical tips you can immediately apply without getting bogged down in citations. Read my review of Write and Organize for Deeper Learning.

Patti Shank's Practice and Feedback for Deeper Learning is a summary of tactics you can use to create memorable, relevant practice opportunities and provide constructive, beneficial feedback for learners. Everything in the book is backed by research and written to be immediately usable by instructional designers and trainers. Read my review of Practice and Feedback for Deeper Learning.

Manage Memory for Deeper Learning is Patti's third installment in her series sharing research-based tactics for designing learning experiences. This book is focused specifically on how to design around the limitations of human memory.

Patti's latest addition to the series, Write Better Multiple-Choice Questions to Assess Learning, is specifically about multiple choice questions. It's easy to write weak multiple choice questions, but it's hard to write really strong, valid questions. Patti has taken what she's learned over the past few years of teaching a course on multiple choice questions

Debunking myths

Mirjam Neelen and Paul Kirschner's Evidence-Informed Learning Design: Creating Training to Improve Performance debunks myths and fads about learning. It also explains techniques that are supported by research, specifically in the context of workplace training.

Psychology Research

Daniel Pink's explains three principles of motivation that go deeper than just rewards and punishments: autonomy, mastery, and purpose. More money won't always motivate behavior change (in fact, sometimes it might be counterproductive). Helping people improve their skills can be even more motivating, and that's certainly part of what we should be doing as instructional designers.

Atomic Habits by James Clear isn't about learning or memory. So why is it on my book list? It's about changing behavior-and isn't that what most workplace training is supposed to achieve? While this is written for individuals who want to change their own behavior, much of this could be applied to improving workplace performance. If you're looking for ways to change the work environment to encourage specific behaviors, this book is worth reading.

Performance Consulting

Cathy Moore's explains her action mapping process in detail from start to finish. This is about how to move away from passive content presentation and into training that provides real challenges and practice. She also discusses when training isn't the solution and other approaches would be more effective. In that respect, it's more like performance consulting than just instructional design.

Mike Taylor recommended Dana and Jim Robinson's Performance Consulting. Mike says this book isn't very recent, but it remains relevant.

Consulting and Freelancing

Richard Watson has published three ebooks on the practicalities of freelancing in the elearning field. All three combine Richard's personal stories about his freelancing journey with practical tips for creating and running a freelance business. I reviewed the complete series of ebooks. (These are free with Kindle Unlimited.)

Joel Gendelman's Consulting Basics was a critical resource for me when I made the leap from being an employee to being a freelance instructional designer. I recommend this book to people who are just getting started in the freelance world. The tips are practical and concrete. My own consulting agreements borrow heavily from the examples provided in this book. This book is focused on freelance training and training design work.

Peter Block's Flawless Consulting is about treating consulting as a business and building relationships with clients.

Other Topics

Microlearning: Short and Sweet by Karl Kapp and Robyn Defelice provides an overview of microlearning strategy, supported by research, from start to finish. Read my full review.

Interact and Engage! (2nd edition): 75+ Activities for Virtual Training, Meetings, and Webinars by Kassy LaBorie and Tom Stone is full of activities for virtual trainers or anyone running webinars and meetings. Given the increasing importance or virtual instructor-led training in the L&D field, this is a great resource for inspiration to make your next virtual training more than just a presentation with chat.

The Modern Learning Ecosystem by JD Dillon focuses on ways to support learning and performance beyond creating courses. JD explains how to create support in the workflow to

Show Your Work by Jane Bozarth. This book explains how to "show your work" by sharing what you're doing and learning. The book explains the benefits of creating a culture where people share their processes and discoveries.

The Art of Explanation by Lee LeFever of Common Craft explains how to make information easier to understand. Luis Flores suggested this, explaining, "As we create leaner and quicker learning experiences, being able to distill content is a skill that is indispensable."

Ieva Swanson recommended The Essential Persona Lifecycle by Adlin and Pruitt. I have seen examples of personas used effectively for different projects, including creating a learning portal.

Your Selections?

Did I miss one of your favorite instructional design and elearning books? Leave a comment or reply to this email with your suggestions.
Image: Colorful Stack of Books in Library from Storyblocks Originally published 1/17/17 and updated several times. Last updated 11/16/23.

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50+ Instructional Design and Elearning Books: Updated for 2023

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Instructional design and elearning books: 40+ recommendations on ID, eLearning, learning science, gamification, visual design, and more

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A great #OpenAccess eBook created by ID students at USask!

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Book Information

Book Description

AI provides educators and instructional designers with powerful tools to enhance the student learning experience. This guide presents practical examples of AI applications that are versatile and suitable for a broad spectrum of instructional activities, alongside others that have more specific uses. The textbook explores effective ways AI can generate high-quality course content, foster creativity, personalize learning, and drive innovation. Across the 18 chapters, the authors emphasize the need to work together to ensure AI's ethical and responsible use in educational settings.

Authors

Dr. Paula MacDowell; Kristin Moskalyk; Katrina Korchinski; and ETAD 873

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Authors: Dr. Paula MacDowell; Kristin Moskalyk; Katrina Korchinski; and ETAD 873

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AI-Enhanced Instructional Design – Simple Book Publishing

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AI provides educators and instructional designers with powerful tools to enhance the student learning experience. This guide presents practical examples of AI applications that are versatile and suitable for a broad spectrum of instructional activities, alongside others that have more specific uses. The textbook explores effective ways AI can generate high-quality course content, foster creativity, personalize learning, and drive innovation. Across the 18 chapters, the authors emphasize the need to work together to ensure AI’s ethical and responsible use in educational settings.

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Doing a literature review: an 8-step process

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Doing a literature review: an 8-step process

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Harzig, A. (2024, January 1). Doing a literature review: an 8-step process. Harzing.com. https://harzing.com/publications/white-papers/doing-a-literature-review

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Doing a literature review: an 8-step process

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Overview of my presentation in the Middlesex University PhD coursework - with embedded videos of the 8 steps

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23 Essential YouTube Statistics You Need to Know in 2024.

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23 Essential YouTube Statistics You Need to Know in 2024.

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Shepherd, J. (2024, January 5). 23 Essential YouTube Statistics You Need to Know in 2024. Social Shepherd. https://thesocialshepherd.com/blog/youtube-statistics

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As the go-to platform for sharing video content, it should come as no surprise that YouTube has been pretty successful since its launch. To show just how well it's doing worldwide, here are some fun YouTube statistics you should know:

YouTube is the Second Most Popular Social Media Network Worldwide

While you may not consider YouTube to be a typical social media platform, it's still a place for people to connect with one another through videos and in the comments section. When looking at it in terms of active users, YouTube ranks as the second most popular platform in the world. With It ranks just behind Facebook, which currently has control of the number one spot.

As of February 2020, More Than 500 Hours of Video Were Uploaded Every Minute

When it comes to long-form video content, YouTube tends to be the place creators turn to. Therefore, it should come as no surprise that 500 hours of video were uploaded every minute. Between 2014 and 2020, the number of hours of video uploaded every minute has grown by about 40%.

YouTube Premium Had Roughly 20 Million Users as of 2020

As a way to provide ad-free content, YouTube unveiled Music Key in November 2014. Its purpose was to give users a way to consume music videos without being interrupted by ads. Eventually, they launched YouTube Red in October 2015 with the same premise of eliminating ads for paying customers. Ultimately, this service was rebranded to YouTube Premium

in May 2018. As of 2020, there are 20 million paying subscribers who are enjoying ad-free videos.

The Platform Recently Generated $19.7 Billion in Revenue

Between advertising and its Premium subscription service, YouTube raked in $19.7 billion in revenue during 2020. That's a 30.4% increase year-on-year, so it's safe to say they're doing well.

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21 Essential YouTube Statistics You Need to Know in 2022

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As the go-to platform for sharing video content, it should come as no surprise that YouTube has been pretty successful since its launch. To show just how well it's doing worldwide, here are some fun YouTube statistics you should know: While you may not consider YouTube to be a typical social media platform, it's still a place for people to connect with one another through videos and in the comments section.

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More Dangers of the Learning Styles Myth!

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More Dangers of the Learning Styles Myth!

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More than just misdiagnosing achievement issues... new research reveals that belief in Learning Styles (incorrectly) influences teachers' (and students', and parents') perceptions of individual students' learning potential. Very dangerous stuff!

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Using Release Conditions to Award Badges and Certificates (in Canvas)

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Using Release Conditions to Award Badges and Certificates (in Canvas)

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In this video, Rob demonstrates an alternative method for awarding badges or certificates in a Canvas: Free for Teachers course, if you are not able to access the Canvas Badges API integration. This method involves using a quiz as a requirement to complete a module, and then setting a prerequisite to "unlock" a "hidden" module where students can access their digital badge or a printable certificate.

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Using Release Conditions to Award Badges or Certificates

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Assistive Technology in Inclusive Classrooms

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Assistive Technology in Inclusive Classrooms

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The basics

Assistive Technology: What It Is and How It Works
Assistive technology (AT) can be an effective accommodation for children with learning and attention issues. Understanding what AT is and how it works is the first step toward finding the right tools for your child.

The Three Biggest Misconceptions About Assistive Technology
Are students who use assistive technology getting an unfair advantage? Will AT fix a student's learning challenges? Here are the top three misconceptions about AT and how it is used in the classroom and at home.

Assistive Technology for Kids with Learning Disabilities: An Overview
If your child has a learning disability, he or she may benefit from assistive technology tools that play to their strengths and work around their challenges.

The SETT Framework for AT Tool Selection
Learn how to use the SETT (Student, Environment, Task, Tool) framework to identify a struggling student's learning needs and match that with the most appropriate assistive technology options. A case study is provided.

Assistive Technology and the IEP
The law requires that public schools develop appropriate Individualized Education Programs (IEPs) for each child. The IEP is a written plan for educating a child with a disability. The IEP describes the student's specific special education needs as well as any related services, including assistive technology.

"Is Assistive Technology Cheating?" (and Other Assistive Technology Myths)

Assistive technology (AT) refers to a device or software that makes it easier to complete everyday tasks. Common forms of assistive tech for kids with learning and attention issues, like dyslexia or dysgraphia, include text-to-speech or dictation. But is assistive technology "cheating"? Does it give some kids an unfair advantage by making it easier for them than for others? Hear from Jamie Martin, assistive technology consultant, on these and other common myths about assistive technology tools. (From Understood )

AT for literacy

Assistive Technology for Reading
Assistive technology (AT) can be a powerful way to help children with reading issues, including kids with dyslexia. This guide is an introduction to AT tools for reading and where to find them.

Text-to-Speech Technology: What It Is and How It Works
Text-to-speech (TTS) is a type of assistive technology that reads digital text aloud. It's sometimes called "read aloud" technology. TTS can take words on a computer or other digital device and convert them into audio. TTS is very helpful for kids who struggle with reading, but it can also help kids with writing and editing, and even focusing.

Text-to-Speech (TTS)
Learn the basics about text-to-speech, what the research says about how well it supports comprehension, tips on how to get the most out of the technology, and a short list of recommended text-to-speech tools.

Assistive Technology for Writing
Assistive technology (AT) can help kids with different types of writing challenges. AT tools can make the physical act of writing easier, as well as help kids who have trouble with spelling and grammar, and with organizing and expressing their thoughts. This guide provides an introduction to AT writing tools and where to find them.

Dictation (Speech-to-Text) Technology: What It Is and How It Works
Dictation is an assistive technology (AT) tool that can help kids who struggle with writing. Kids can use dictation to write with their voices, instead of writing by hand or with a keyboard - helpful for kids with dysgraphia, dyslexia and other learning and attention issues that impact writing.

Exploring Digital Literacy Practices in an Inclusive Classroom
Get insight into how a 21st century literacies perspective can support inclusive literacy practices that create a community of learners, use digital tools to make the curriculum accessible, and link academic goals with real‐world platforms.

Responsibly Incorporating Technology into Literacy Instruction
In this overview, learn how to capitalize on the benefits of incorporating different types of technology in literacy instruction (such as electronic books, and reading intervention programs) while minimizing the potential pitfalls.

Accessible books for students

Bookshare

Bookshare is an ebook library that makes reading easier for students with reading barriers. Students can access a huge collection of ebooks in audio, audio + highlighted text, braille, large font, and other formats. Bookshare ebooks can be used on almost any device, including smartphones, tablets, Chromebooks, computers, and assistive technology devices.

Learning Ally

Learning Ally offers an extensive library of human-read audiobooks and a suite of educator tools and resources. It provides students who struggle to read due to a reading deficit with equitable access to all the books they need to and want to read, including curriculum-aligned text books and literature, popular fiction and more.

Video: educator voices

"I don't want to look any different"

In an inclusive classroom, every student gets the same opportunity as all his peers to choose the tool that meets his learning needs. See our full video interview with public school assistive technology expert Beth Poss ›

A teacher's view of assistive technology

In this video, teachers of students with a range of learning needs discuss the ways in which assistive technology can help. Teachers provide examples of low- to high-tech tools that are easily integrated into a classroom environment. You can also sit in on an IEP meeting where assistive technology supports are discussed.

More resources on assistive technology

Assistive Technology Basics
Discover a variety of resources for parents, including information about tool types and tips on how to work with schools. (Understood.org)

AEM Navigator
Explore a decision-making tool - designed for use by Individualized Education Program teams - that can help determine the need, selection, acquisition, and use of accessible educational materials. (National Center on Accessible Educational Materials)

TechMatrix
Search a database of over 400 assistive and educational technology tools and resources. The products are searchable by content area, grade level, IDEA disability category, and type of instructional support. (U.S Department of Education/American Institutes for Research)

Assistive Technology: An Overview
A professional development module that offers an overview of assistive technology and explores ways to expand students' access to AT in the classroom. Estimated completion time: 2 hours. (IRIS Center/Vanderbilt University)

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Assistive Technology in Inclusive Classrooms

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Assistive technology is any device that supports the independence of a person with a disability. Assistive technology can be something very simple and low-cost such as pencil grips or text highlighters, or something more sophisticated, such as a computer station with speech-to-text tools. Find many more assistive technology resources here: Topics A-Z: Assistive Technology.

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Accessibility Research Lab Case Study: Inclusive Design in Online Learning

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Accessibility Research Lab Case Study: Inclusive Design in Online Learning

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Accessibility Research Lab Case Study: Inclusive Design in Online Learning | Mohawk College

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Making Learning Inclusive: A Quick Reference Guide on Accessibility Standards

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Making Learning Inclusive: A Quick Reference Guide on Accessibility Standards

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Summary: Accessible eLearning content benefits all learners, improving productivity. Designers rely on accessibility standards to create content that everyone can access easily. In this article, we review the major accessibility standards and share best practices to comply with them.

Accessibility Requirements For eLearning Development

Accessibility in learning is an essential component in developing eLearning content that people with a range of abilities can easily access. Accessibility standards provide instructional and graphic designers with the much needed guidance to design accessible eLearning content that all learners-including those with disabilities-are able to access. Accessible content benefits all learners and improves personal and organizational productivity.

Accessibility Standards As Required By Law

eLearning accessibility standards have been developed to help organizations ensure that the benefits of their content are not limited to only a certain section of individuals. Instead, by following the prescribed accessibility standards and guidelines, organizations can expand the reach of the same information to a diverse set of people, including those with different disabilities.

To ensure content is accessible, it is imperative that organizations know about accessibility requirements for eLearning development. This understanding enables them to design their educational content in line with the eLearning accessibility standards, thereby enhancing the learning experience for all learners.

Some of the accessibility standards that organizations can familiarize themselves with include:

Accessibility standards under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA): The ADA is an accessibility legislation in the US that has been created as a civil rights statute to limit discriminatory practices towards individuals with disabilities. The ADA impacts both public and private entities and covers digital information, products, and services.

Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG): These guidelines encompass all forms of web content, such as text, images, sound, code, and markup that define structure, presentation, dynamic content, and multimedia elements.

Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines (ATAG): Authoring tools are software and services that facilitate the development of web content. These may include HTML editors, content management systems (CMS), and websites. The ATAG not only enables authors to create better accessible web content, but also allows people with disabilities to create web content on their own.

Leverage The Latest Technologies To Design Accessible Learning Content

In addition to being aware of the several guidelines to develop web content that follows accessibility standards, organizations must also be equally aware of the changes and advancements in technology.

The increasing use of new smart devices, innovative tools, and assistive technology has revolutionized how eLearning content is developed. These technological developments are making it possible to deliver content and learning experiences in an interactive way. By combining accessibility standards with the latest technology, organizations can change the manner in which people with disabilities access learning content. Some of the technologies that are revolutionizing the development of learning content, and that which organizations must be aware of, include:

Virtual Reality: Augments traditional learning with the ability to actually go through the experience and maximize the learning.

Augmented Reality: Makes the learning process more interesting by creating virtual tours that learners can undertake from the comfort of their home or office.

Artificial Intelligence: Highlights the areas where a learner needs improvement and helps them focus on those areas.

Machine Learning: Offers customized learning solutions according to a learner's past performance and learning goals.

Big Data: Enables developers to understand which eLearning aspects are useful to the learners. Big data also helps understand the areas that need improvement, as well as the areas where learners may struggle or excel depending on their learning patterns.

Wearable devices: Can be used to deliver learning anywhere with next-level simulation capabilities.

Know Your Learners

Before embarking on developing content that aligns with eLearning accessibility standards, it would be prudent to understand the audience. This understanding will inform the entire development process so that the end solution can benefit a larger audience, comprising people with varying disabilities.

It may be mentioned that one in every ten learners is differently abled. With this information, developers may strive to incorporate information on disabilities when identifying the learning audience and performing organizational learning analysis. Furthermore, educating the learning teams on accessibility guidelines can empower them to better identify the requirements, which will enhance storyboard templates and ensure the applicable accessibility standards are met. Organizations may consider including experts-who are differently abled-in the QA team, as part of the process.

Best Practices To Align With eLearning Accessibility Standards

Organizations may find the following best practices useful when designing a Section 508-compliant course that also meets eLearning accessibility standards.

Utilize tools: Authoring tools such as Articulate Storyline, Adobe Captivate, and Lectora prove useful in developing content that meets eLearning accessibility standards, WCAG guidelines, and Section 508 requirements. The storyline is particularly useful in creating alt tags for images and text, whereas Lectora helps create better captions for multimedia elements.

Easy checks: To ensure the content meets accessibility standards, it is recommended to review the content for accessibility using the W3C's Web Accessibility Initiative's list of Easy Checks. This checklist includes the page title, image text alternatives ("alt text"), headings, contrast ratio ("color contrast"), resize text, keyboard access and visual focus, forms, labels, and errors, drop-down lists, image links, moving, flashing, or blinking content, multimedia (video, audio) alternatives, and basic structure check.

Use Vischeck: Considering that nearly one in 20 people have a color vision disability, Vischeck can be a good tool to simulate colorblind vision for web-based solutions. Vischeck allows content developers to check if people with color blindness can see their work properly.

Guidelines for content structure and clarity principles: Introduction to digital content and eLearning courses has moved the entire process of Learning and Development to the virtual space. This transition creates an indispensable need to make eLearning accessible and accommodate all types of learners, including those with different disabilities.

To reiterate, several learners suffer from some form of disability or other, whereas only a few have access to assistive technology. Therefore, to facilitate access to eLearning content for people with disabilities, developers should include accessibility in learning design in accordance with the prescribed accessibility standards. This can be achieved by following eLearning accessibility standards as described below:

Clear, simple writing: Use content that is simple to understand. Consider using direct voice and avoid being verbose. Follow a well-defined structure to organize information, which makes it easy for users to access relevant content quickly.

Visual appeal: Choose a clear design that is easy on the eye while also being visually aesthetic.

Uncluttered screen: Place content judiciously on a webpage to avoid information overload.

Balance colors: Use the right color coding. Avoid using too many or too bright colors. Balance the contrast between the text and the background, as that will assist people with visual problems to read the content easily. As per the W3C accessibility standards, colors should not be used alone to convey information; they should be supplemented with text to prevent visually impaired people from missing out on any information.

Avoid distracting images: eLearning accessibility standards do not recommend using rolling, flashing, or visually disturbing images, as it can be jarring and degrade the learning experience.

Keyboard operability: The WCAG recommends providing keyboard operability to make content more accessible, especially for users who cannot use the mouse for navigation. Include a visible keyboard focus and tabs in an appropriate order in the content.

Make accessible eLearning core to the design: When accessibility is at the core of the design, which includes templates and storyboards used for creating content, it can help create volumes of content that are aligned with eLearning accessibility standards.

Review for compliance with accessibility standards: To ensure that the eLearning content has been developed using various guidelines, conduct a mandatory review of the content for accessibility. There are several tools such as WAVE and Color Oracle that can help perform accessibility checks and make sure the eLearning content developed is aligned to the accessibility standards and benefits the learners with disabilities.

Parting Thoughts

Technological advancements continue to provide a wide spectrum of learners-including those with disabilities-with the ability to access and benefit from eLearning content. At the same time, more innovative advancements in technology will improve learner accessibility even further. As a result, the existing guidelines and eLearning accessibility standards will continue to evolve as well as lead to the production of more guidelines and standards to ensure accessibility success. Therefore, it is essential that organizations keep pace with the latest updates in accessibility standards and check the latest guidelines prior to implementing any learning technology so that they are fully compliant with the most recent standards.

Read More:

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Making Learning Inclusive: A Quick Reference Guide On Accessibility Standards

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In this article, learn about the major eLearning accessibility standards and the best practices to comply with them.

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OpenDyslexic: ‘Does The New Dyslexia Font Help?’ Review By Teacher And Students

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OpenDyslexic: ‘Does The New Dyslexia Font Help?’ Review By Teacher And Students

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Homeworks for Students - One-on-One, In-Home Tutoring

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October 7, 2012
By: Tina Burgess

Since OpenDyslexic, the new dyslexia font, has been in the news, one teacher decided to try it on Friday, October 5, 2012. The results were unexpected and quite insightful.

The free new dyslexia font OpenDyslexic was developed by Abelardo (Abbie) Gonzalez with the goal "to increase readability for readers with dyslexia."
"Your brain can sometimes do funny things to letters. OpenDyslexic tries to help prevent some of these things from happening. Letters have heavy weighted bottoms to add a kind of "gravity" to each letter, helping to keep your brain from rotating them around in ways that can make them look like other letters. Consistently weighted bottoms can also help reinforce the line of text. The unique shapes of each letter can help prevent flipping and swapping."
According to Abelardo's Open-Dyslexic website, the typefaces include regular, bold, italic and bold-italic styles and is being updated and improved based on input from dyslexic users. "There are no restrictions on using OpenDyslexic outside of attribution."

Free downloads for Safari and Chrome browser extensions and several Apps (WordSmith, Instapaper, Instafetch, Steel's Run, Dox on Box, openWeb, Clicker 6) are available on Open-Dyslexic's download page.

Due to download limitations, the reading material used by the dyslexic students was Open-Dyslexic's "Try It!" demo page and Gizmag's sample pages . Since all participating dyslexic students had successfully learned to read with the "Help" method, everyone read at or above grade level. For challenging words, younger students used "Help" which prevented any kind of disorientation.

The students trying the new dyslexia font ranged from ages 10 to 18. The question they were provided with was,
"Does the new dyslexia font help?"
Below are some of the comments that the dyslexic students shared:

"It helped at first. I really liked it. I didn't have to focus as much as with the regular font. The reading was easier. But after a while, the new font got actually annoying for me because I noticed the darker bottoms and I was really glad to go back to the regular reading."

"I like reading normal books. I don't want to switch back and forth."

"My eyes didn't wonder away or got distracted as easily as with the regular font."

"When I read the normal font, I sometimes skip lines or words and I have to go back and reread it. It takes more time to read something. I can read this new font easier and more quickly but since I didn't reread part of it, I didn't know what I had just read. I rather spend more time and know what I read. I think I prefer the normal font."

"No, that's not for me. I'm only 11, but that's what I think."

"It really didn't help me because I am a good reader. Maybe it is more helpful for someone who struggles with reading. Not every dyslexic is the same."

When asked whether the OpenDyslexic font prevented their brain from turning the letters, the younger students unanimously said that it did help "a little bit". Others said, "No, not really."

The older students commented that because of having learned to read with the "Help" method, they didn't struggle with turning letters anymore, just with skipping words or lines at times. "We struggle with new and complicated words just as much as other non-dyslexic students do. Besides, dyslexia is not just about reading, it is about how our brain works and how we think."

When asked what feedback they would give to Abelardo Gonzalez, the students' answer was quick and simple:

"Can he design an App that gets rid of all the advertisement pictures?"

During the discussion that followed, the new dyslexia font was already forgotten and the students explained that the real problem in reading something on the internet was not so much the font but the trouble of being distracted by images. "The developer of the font had no images on his demo page and that's why it was easier to read and to focus. Our brains like to explore everything; it's our dyslexic thinking. We go from point A to Z before we get to B; it's much more interesting."

[Teacher laughed. "Those are my innovative and observant dyslexic thinkers!]

When asked about her observations during the trial reading and any last comments, the teacher made the following concluding statements:

"First of all, it was interesting to see that the more time the students spent with the new dyslexia font, the less they liked it. I would not have expected that."

"Second, I am glad they got to see two different samples. I wasn't aware of the distraction by the images on the reading for my students. Since I don't have dyslexia, I don't think like my students and I don't notice the same things."

"Third, - truthfully - if I have a choice of having students read easily and quickly, or slowly, I choose slowly. Reading comprehension is one of the biggest challenges we teachers face. Kids read but they don't understand what they read and it creates so many problems, especially in standardized tests which focus heavily on reading comprehension. I rather have my students, dyslexic or non-dyslexic, take more time and understand what they read."

"And, last not least, I have worked with dyslexic students now for over 10 years. My concern with the new dyslexic font is that people are going back to thinking that dyslexia is just about reading. Like my students said before, dyslexia is how the brain works, not just about letters. I do hope that we continue to explore new means of helping dyslexic children, but if there is anything that I learned from my dyslexic students, - it is that we need to explore something in all directions, not just one."

Based on Friday's reading trial, it appears that Abelardo Gonzalez has reached his goal of increasing the "readability for readers with dyslexia"; at least for some dyslexic readers. However, the question raised by the students of whether the distracting images on internet pages can be eliminated for dyslexics in order to increase readability and focus might be an interesting topic for future development and research.

Source: http://www.examiner.com/article/opendyslexic-does-the-new-dyslexia-font-help-review-by-teacher-and-students

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OpenDyslexic: 'Does the new dyslexia font help?' Review by teacher and students - Homeworks for Students - In-Home Tutoring in the Twin Cities

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14 Ways to Make Learning Technology More Accessible

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14 Ways to Make Learning Technology More Accessible

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Ensuring that your learning technology is accessible to all your learners isn't just a goal - it's a necessity. Digital learning solutions like learning management systems or learning apps were designed to make learning opportunities easier to access.

But how successful are they in catering to learners with diverse needs? And what can you do to create a digital arena where everyone has a fair shot?

After all, 1.3 billion people across the world experience significant disability. That's 16% of our total population, or 1 in 6 of us. What's more, 2.5 billion people need at least one assistive product. This is not an issue that learning professionals can ignore.

Digital spaces are an often overlooked area of accessibility. The web was designed to provide universal access to knowledge. So how is it that just 3.7% of the web is accessible to individuals with disabilities?

Here at Growth Engineering, we believe there should be no barriers to learning. With this in mind, in this article, we'll explore 14 impactful strategies to make learning technology more accessible and inclusive. But first, let's start with some definitions.

What is Digital Accessibility?

According to the World Wide Web Consortium ( W3C - more on these folks later), digital accessibility means: 'designing web sites, applications, technologies, tools, products and services in an inclusive manner, and thus lifting barriers to communication and interaction that many people face in the physical world'.

In other words, digital accessibility focuses on making the web accessible to everyone. That includes individuals with a diverse range of hearing, movement, sight and cognitive ability.

As the inventor of the internet, Tim Berners-Lee puts it: 'The power of the Web is in its universality. Access by everyone regardless of disability is an essential aspect'.

The same holds true of the web-based tools that are used to train staff or educate students. Every learner, irrespective of their unique characteristics, should be able to engage with digital learning environments and educational content seamlessly.

As such, you should take strides to ensure that your digital learning solutions are as accessible as possible. If you can achieve this, both you and your learners will reap the benefits. According to Gartner, digital products that meet level 2 WGAC compliance outperform their market competitors by 50%.

What is Inclusive Design?

Inclusive or universal design is both a mindset and a process. It aims to ensure that a product or solution is usable by as many people as possible, especially those who might typically face exclusion. As such, accessibility is a key outcome for inclusive design.

This design approach considers many different aspects of human diversity, including ability, language, culture, gender and so on. Furthermore, the design process doesn't just focus on provisioning access to users. It seeks to meet as many of their needs as possible.

Identifying Barriers in Learning Technologies

To understand why learning technology accessibility is important, let's first examine some common barriers that individuals encounter when learning online.

Hearing Impairment: 1.5 billion people worldwide have hearing impairments. This makes it difficult to consume audio and video content, especially if there are no captions or transcripts available.

Cognitive Disabilities: According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 12.8% of American adults have a cognitive disability. Overly complex language and training materials may create difficulties for these users.

By addressing these barriers, learning technology can evolve into a tool that empowers learners with diverse needs. In the following sections, we'll explore ways to overcome these challenges by implementing accessibility measures.

What's the Impact of Inaccessible Learning Technology?

For those living with disabilities, inaccessible learning environments aren't a mere inconvenience. They're a barrier that hinders participation and prevents progress. The effects of this are varied and often debilitating.

If your learning technology is not designed with inclusivity in mind, then a significant portion of your learners will be excluded from educational opportunities. As a result, you'll perpetuate a cycle of unequal access to information.

And how about the impact on your business? As you might expect, inaccessible learning environments lead to:

Diminished workforce diversity

Limited perspectives

Inequitable skill distribution

All of this has an impact on your ability to innovate, out-compete and boost your bottom line. You can't build a high-performance learning culture if you're leaving learners behind and creating knowledge silos.

The Benefits of Accessible Learning Technology

Of course, there's a flip side to all this. Providing inclusive and accessible learning environments creates a fair playing field. As a result, anyone and everyone has equitable access to information and development opportunities. As you might imagine, this leads to a variety of benefits.

Elevated Engagement: Expanding your reach and improving your user experience has a knock-on effect. Quality improvements lead to higher levels of engagement. And the more actively engaged your learners are, the more likely they are to change their behaviour.

Culture of Inclusion: By prioritising inclusive and accessible tech, you'll help to foster a culture of inclusion, respect and belonging. This sense of community can positively impact the mental health and wellbeing of your learners.

It's easy to see how all these benefits could have a very real impact on your organisation's bottom line. For instance, did you know that inclusive teams are over 35% more productive? They're also 1.7 times more likely to be innovation leaders in their market.

One yet-to-be explored advantage is legal and ethical compliance. That brings us neatly onto our next section.

The Laws and Regulations Governing Web Accessibility

Navigating the web is now part of our everyday lives. According to Statista, we spend six hours and 41 minutes online every day. Much of this time is spent working. In fact, Britons spend 47 days every year using the internet for work purposes.

As a result, governments and regulators across the world have begun to introduce laws and policies that aim to improve levels of digital accessibility. For example, UK web sites are expected to make 'reasonable adjustments' to make their site accessible to users with disabilities under the Equality Act 2010.

In the US, government websites are required to meet Section 508 regulations. Commercial websites are covered under the Americans with Disability Act ( ADA) Title III. This 'prohibits discrimination based on disability in places of public accommodation'.

Learning professionals should seek to provide equal access and opportunities for every individual in their audience. You should strive to eliminate barriers and foster an environment where every learner can thrive.

Many of the laws and regulations focused on digital accessibility reference the WCAG standard. Let's explore that next.

What is the WCAG Standard?

The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines ( WCAG) are an internationally recognised set of recommendations for improving web accessibility. They're published by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), the leading international standards organisation for the internet.

The reach of these guidelines is so extensive that they can safely be considered the benchmark for web site or web application accessibility.

The first version of WCAG was launched in May 1999. The latest version at the time of writing, WCAG 2.2, was published in October 2023. All versions of these guidelines are underpinned by the four following principles:

Understandable: There should be no barriers to understanding your content (such as language or complexity) and all navigation elements should be clearly labelled. When completing a form, it should be easy to identify and correct errors. It should also be easy to re-enter information you've previously added.

Robust: Your content must be robust enough to support and be accessed on a variety of devices, including assistive technologies. It should also be compatible with as many operating systems and browser versions as necessary to support your diverse audiences' needs.

With these principles in mind, consider your digital learning environment. Would your learning management system pass a WCAG audit?

8 Steps to Make Your Learning Technology More Accessible

As we've seen, improving the accessibility of your learning technology is crucial for ensuring everyone in your organisation can benefit from educational opportunities. With this in mind, here are 8 ways to make your digital learning environments more accessible.

Empower Your Learners: Each of your learners has unique needs. As such, they should be able to change their user settings in line with their preferences. This could include text size, colour contrast, screen magnification and so on.

6 Ways to Make Your Learning Initiatives More Inclusive

There's always more you can do to ensure your learning initiatives are inclusive. By implementing the strategies listed below, you'll help to ensure that all your learners have access to the same learning opportunities.

Offer Support: Ensure all learners have access to further support as and when it's needed. You should offer resources such as tutorials, help guides and contact points for assistance. Consider implementing peer support or mentorship programmes.

General Accessibility Suggestions

As a learning professional, you may not also be an expert in inclusive design. With this in mind, we've included some general accessibility recommendations below. These tips may provide useful guidance for your learning platform.

Use sans serif fonts (like the one we use here, Open Sans).

Review your font size and your character, word and line spacing.

Ensure hyperlinks look different to your other text.

Avoid background patterns and pictures.

Use dark text on a light background.

Add white space around your text and images.

Include section headers and a table of contents.

Keep your sentences simple and concise.

Incorporate bullet points and numbering where relevant.

Avoid using technical jargon or abbreviations where possible.

Accessibility on Growth Engineering LMS

Here at Growth Engineering, we firmly believe that learning experiences should be open and accessible to all. Growth Engineering LMS, Growth Engineering Learning App and Growth Engineering Authoring Tool have been built with this belief in mind.

For instance, we utilise an accessibility interface that empowers learners with specific disabilities to adjust the platform's user interface in line with their personal needs. Learners can select from a variety of accessibility profiles or make the adjustments themselves.

What's more, learners can navigate through the platform using their keyboard to jump to specific elements. Growth Engineering LMS is also compatible with screen-readers such as JAWS, NVDA, VoiceOver and TalkBack.

That said, we recognise that there's still more we can do to support learners with diverse needs. As such, we are continually improving our accessibility and updating our solution's options and features. Watch this space.

Final Words

As technology continues to evolve, the journey towards inclusivity and accessibility is both a responsibility and an opportunity. After all, there are clear benefits to ensuring all your learners have equal access to your learning and development programmes.

Implementing the strategies listed in this guide will help you to create a learning environment where every individual, regardless of their abilities or differences, can thrive.

As such, you should embrace inclusive design, integrate with assistive technologies and seek out feedback from your learners. You should also remember that fostering inclusivity requires ongoing commitment and collaborative efforts.

By championing accessibility, your learning technology becomes a tool for empowerment. Before long, you'll have a flourishing community, where each and every learner is ready to unlock their full potential. If that's not a worthy goal to pursue, then what is?
Thank you for reading. Improving accessibility is just one challenge faced by learning professionals. Download 'The L&D Professional's Handbook' now to access 165 tips designed to help you thrive in your job.

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14 Ways To Make Learning Technology More Accessible

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Start fostering an inclusive digital learning environment today. Discover 14 practical strategies to enhance accessibility in learning technology.

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How can K-12 educators promote the use of accessible technology in schools?

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How can K-12 educators promote the use of accessible technology in schools?

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The following content was developed through a joint project between AccessIT and the ADA National Network Centers. It was originally a publication, titled Breaking Down Barriers K-12 and Beyond - An Educator's Guide to Accessible Technology in Schools, which is available for printing as a twelve-page brochure and can be freely distributed for educational, non-commercial purposes.
Hannah, who is blind, has a computer equipped with text-to-speech technology at school. She goes to the computer lab to do a Web assignment with her class. Her text-to-speech system reads aloud all of the text presented at the Web site. The Web site's designer, however, neglected to include text descriptions of the content presented within graphic images; therefore, this content is not accessible to her. Even with her impressive computer system, Hannah is stuck. Hannah sits on the sidelines, surrounded by the enthusiastic chatter of her classmates working together.
Too often, Hannah and other students with disabilities cannot access Web content or operate educational software because of its inaccessible design. They do not have full access to the standard curriculum and are in danger of failing to meet state learning standards and the goals of No Child Left Behind. Excluded from computer-based activities, these students do not receive the benefits technology delivers to their peers who do not have disabilities.

How can teachers and administrators assure that all students have access to technology-based learning opportunities at school? This publication answers this question. It presents key terms and then puts them all together in a way that makes a simple, compelling case for the purchase, development, and use of accessible technology.

What do educators need to know?

It is helpful to have a basic understanding of a few technical terms in order to effectively promote the use of accessible technology.

Assistive technology (AT) can help a person with a disability operate a computer. AT includes grammar checkers, alternative keyboards, hands-free interfaces, and the text-to-speech software Hannah uses.

Information technology (IT) includes computers, software, Web sites, telephones, CDs, videotapes, calculators, and other electronic devices. Many IT products, like the Web site Hannah tried to access, are designed in such a way that they are inaccessible to people with disabilities, even to those who have AT.

Universal design refers to the design of products and environments so that they are usable by everyone, to the greatest extent possible. A teacher is applying universal design when he purchases curriculum with built-in, multiple, and flexible methods of presentation, expression, and engagement. The manager of a computer lab is applying universal design when he purchases adjustable tables in anticipation of students who are small or large in stature or who use wheelchairs.

Accessible information technology is created when producers consider the needs of people with disabilities in the process of designing information technology. More accessible products minimize the need for AT; they are also compatible with existing AT products. If Hannah's teacher assigned the use of an accessible Web site to her students, it would have, among other features, included alternative text for graphics images so that Hannah's text-to-speech system could read the content to her.

AT and accessible information technology work together to allow students with disabilities to participate side-by-side with their classmates as they complete assignments, access information, and engage in collaborations, simulations, and tutorials.

Why is it important that information technology be accessible?

The use of information technology is widespread in schools and employment settings. It has the potential to maximize the independence, participation, and productivity of people with disabilities. However, this potential can only be realized if students are provided with the assistive technology they need AND educators procure, develop, and use accessible information technology.

What should a school's vision be?

Here is an example:
Our school purchases, develops, and uses accessible information technology and applies universal design principles in the creation of its facilities and programs. We also have an efficient system in place to acquire assistive technology for specific students with disabilities.
Promoting universal design is a powerful way to support the goal of No Child Left Behind. Just like ramps installed for people who use wheelchairs also benefit those who are pushing delivery carts or baby strollers, accessible information technology benefits individuals with and without disabilities. For example, captioning on videos benefits students who are deaf as well as those whose first language is not English or who are learning to read.

What can educators do?

Building accessible information systems in our schools requires the concerted effort of policy makers, information technology support staff, assistive technology specialists, teachers, parents, and students. Creating accessible information systems requires a close collaboration between those who teach students with disabilities and those who make information technology decisions, approve purchases, and provide technical support.

Educators should anticipate the enrollment of students with a wide range of abilities regarding learning, seeing, hearing, moving, and communicating; purchase accessible products; and apply universal design principles as they develop facilities and activities. A student with a disability should not be treated as an exception. Rather, curriculum should have built-in flexibility and educators should work together to:

Educate themselves on how technology is used in their school. What software is used? What Web sites are used? What types of assignments are given?

Identify barriers children with disabilities face or are expected to face in technology-enhanced instructional activities. Are computers, software, Web sites and other technology accessible to them?

Develop a district-wide policy that clearly states a commitment to the purchase and use of accessible information technology.

Implement procedures to ensure that accessibility is considered in all stages of technology planning, development, purchase, and support. Examples of taking a proactive approach to accessibility include the purchase of a few adjustable tables for the computer lab, provision of trackballs as well as mice, placement of handouts where they can be reached from a seated position, purchase of flexible curriculum, and use of Web sites that are accessible to people with disabilities.

The technology access barriers Hannah encountered could have been avoided if the school routinely requested that vendors of lab products include accessibility features and that only Web sites that are accessible to students using text-to-speech systems be used in classes.

As with all systemic change initiatives, persistence of advocates and cooperation among stakeholders are key. The ultimate reward is a more accessible school and a more accessible world for everyone. These benefits outweigh the effort.

What resources are there?

School administrators, teachers, and computer lab support staff can seek more information about the design, procurement, and use of accessible technology from the following resources:

This publication was written by Sheryl Burgstahler. Its creation was supported by NIDRR grants #133D010204 and #H133D010306. Additional funding provided by DO-IT, University of Washington.

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How can K-12 educators promote the use of accessible technology in schools?

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The following content was developed through a joint project between AccessIT and the ADA National Network Centers.

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Power, R. (Ed.). (2024). The ALT Text: Accessible Learning with Technology. Power Learning Solutions. ISBN 978-1-7390190-2-0. https://pressbooks.pub/thealttext/

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Contents

Show All Contents Hide All Contents

Book Contents Navigation

1. II. Accessible Learning with Technology

2. III. Designing Accessible Learning

3. V. Assessing and Supporting Accessibility

Book Information

Book Description

The ALT Text: Accessible Learning with Technology compiles tools, resources, and strategies for promoting accessibility in instructional design that have been curated by Dr. Rob Power through his website, Power Learning Solutions. It also features interactive chapters and resources developed by students from instructional design and educational technology courses facilitated by Dr. Power at various Canadian higher education institutions. The aim of The ALT Text is to provide readers with an appreciation for the importance of accessibility issues when designing teaching and learning resources, the guidelines and regulations that inform accessible design, the barriers to accessible learning with technology, and tools and strategies to support accessibility and eliminate barriers for students.
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Show All Contents Hide All Contents Book Contents Navigation II. Accessible Learning with Technology III. Designing Accessible Learning V. Assessing and Supporting Accessibility The ALT Text: Accessible Learning with Technology compiles tools, resources, and strategies for promoting accessibility in instructional design that have been curated by Dr. Rob Power through his website, Power Learning Solutions.

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Book Information

Book Description

Welcome to the Video Production Basics DIY Guide presented by USask Media Production.

This Video Production guide is aimed at sharing a piece our extensive experience and expertise with you, our USask community, as a DIY support and resource to help you make your production project great. Here we'll explore the 5 stages of production and offer you production planning templates and checklists that will save you time and improve the quality of your project as well as share tips, tricks and best practices for you to plan, produce, edit and distribute your media production effectively and efficiently.

Subject

Filmmaking and production: technical and background skills

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Video Production Basics DIY Guide - Simple Book Publishing

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Welcome to the Video Production Basics DIY Guide presented by USask Media Production. This Video Production guide is aimed at sharing a piece our extensive experience and expertise with you, our USask community, as a DIY support and resource to help you make your production project great.

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Learning Without Limits: Increasing Tech Accessibility in the K-12 Classroom

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Learning Without Limits: Increasing Tech Accessibility in the K-12 Classroom

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Technology Solutions That Drive Education

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There are a number of steps school districts can take to achieve these goals, Horowitz says. To begin, school leaders should look at AT as a type of accommodation and differentiate between AT devices and AT programs and services.

To appropriately meet the needs of students with disabilities, district leaders must also understand how AT helps them gain access to the general education curriculum. Personnel on schools' decision-making teams responsible for implementing technology solutions must also be familiar with students who have disabilities and know the steps for evaluating the effectiveness of AT for individual students.
DISCOVER: Educators make the case for increased technology professional development in K-12.
Providing Adaptive and Assistive Technology to K-12 Students

When it comes to finding the most beneficial AT to help both students and teachers, Horowitz points to the Universal Design for Learning. This model prioritizes the ability of students and teachers to select technology solutions that increase engagement, facilitate action, sustain effort and encourage communication.

From an implementation perspective, this could mean the addition of peripherals such as purpose-built mice, keyboards and headsets, or could include software tools that automatically add closed-captions or help teachers record video lessons for later review.

Horowitz recommends resources such as the Educating All Learners Alliance Tech Tool Library, which helps educators and parents search for specific tools and learn more about their accessibility features. He notes, however, that "it's not so much about the devices themselves but rather the things the devices can do and deliver."

As schools move back toward in-person learning models, Horowitz recommends creating a shared understanding of key terms related to AT adoption, use and outcomes. He also highlights the need for diligent procurement processes. These processes should ensure any services or products are compliant with state and federal Information and Communication Technology Accessibility regulations, which provide assurance that educational technology suppliers "have the expertise to ensure their products can accommodate the needs of a wide range of learners," he says.

Accessible technologies make it possible for schools to eliminate potential barriers and deliver learning without limits. But, as Horowitz makes clear, technology itself is only part of the equation for sustained supportive success. "While selecting the right AT is a critical first step, implementing AT solutions with the whole child in mind is going to yield the best outcomes," he says.
MORE ON EDTECH: How have educators adapted to special education distance learning?

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Learning Without Limits: Increasing Tech Accessibility in the K-12 Classroom

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There are a number of steps school districts can take to achieve these goals, Horowitz says. To begin, school leaders should look at AT as a type of accommodation and differentiate between AT devices and AT programs and services.

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Academic Integrity: Considerations for Accessibility, Equity, and Inclusion

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Academic Integrity: Considerations for Accessibility, Equity, and Inclusion

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Academic Integrity: Considerations for Accessibility, Equity, and Inclusion

Purpose: This report summarizes existing research related to academic integrity, accessibility, equity, and inclusion, with a particular focus on individuals with learning disabilities and neurodevelopmental disabilities. It provides an overview of the literature up to and including August 2021, highlighting key issues and existing gaps. The literature review is supplemented with a discussion of key issues and recommendations for practice. Methods: Our research question (RQ) was: What does the research literature show about academic integrity and related terms (i.e., academic misconduct, academic dishonesty, and plagiarism) in students with disabilities (i.e., learning and neurodevelopmental disabilities) in post-secondary settings? To answer this question, a methodical search of databases was undertaken, relevant research was compiled, and articles were summarized and categorized. Results: We ran two searches each using different sets of key words. Although our searches proved unsuccessful, we provide a brief annotated bibliography of sources we knew to exist prior to our search. In addition, we offer a comprehensive discussion exploring why the searches failed, along with a discussion of some broader issues related to academic integrity and student accessibility. Implications: Scholarly and practitioner inquiry into the connections between academic integrity, accessibility, equity, and inclusion have been slow to develop. This presents opportunities for further inquiry, though we offer the caveat that such studies should be undertaken in the spirit of student success and supports. Most often discussion of the academic integrity and students with disability focus on the legitimacy of the academic accommodations. As more stakeholders become aware of the need to understand the connections between academic integrity, accessibility, equity, and inclusion, there is room for further recommendations for policy, policy implementation, and support through technology, education, and intervention programs. Additional materials: 82 References; 2 Tables

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Academic Integrity: Considerations for Accessibility, Equity, and Inclusion

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Purpose: This report summarizes existing research related to academic integrity, accessibility, equity, and inclusion, with a particular focus on individuals with learning disabilities and neurodevelopmental disabilities. It provides an overview of the literature up to and including August 2021, highlighting key issues and existing gaps. The literature review is supplemented with a discussion of key issues and recommendations for practice. Methods: Our research question (RQ) was: What does the research literature show about academic integrity and related terms (i.e., academic misconduct, academic dishonesty, and plagiarism) in students with disabilities (i.e., learning and neurodevelopmental disabilities) in post-secondary settings? To answer this question, a methodical search of databases was undertaken, relevant research was compiled, and articles were summarized and categorized.
Results: We ran two searches each using different sets of key words. Although our searches proved unsuccessful, we provide a brief annotated bibliography of sources we knew to exist prior to our search. In addition, we offer a comprehensive discussion exploring why the searches failed, along with a discussion of some broader issues related to academic integrity and student accessibility.
Implications: Scholarly and practitioner inquiry into the connections between academic integrity, accessibility, equity, and inclusion have been slow to develop. This presents opportunities for further inquiry, though we offer the caveat that such studies should be undertaken in the spirit of student success and supports. Most often discussion of the academic integrity and students with disability focus on the legitimacy of the academic accommodations. As more stakeholders become aware of the need to understand the connections between academic integrity, accessibility, equity, and inclusion, there is room for further recommendations for policy, policy implementation, and support through technology, education, and intervention programs.
Additional materials: 82 References; 2 Tables

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Designing with Intent (interactive book)

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Designing with Intent (interactive book)

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This learning object is intended for students within the BA and BEd program at Ontario Tech University. It provides basic but essential information and knowledge on how to design accessible digital presentations.

https://h5pstudio.ecampusontario.ca/content/46898

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It looks like Flip (formerly FlipGrid) is disappearing. Microsoft is going to retire the Flip website and app over the next couple of months. Here's what that means for us, and some examples of how I'm adapting my EdTech toolbox:

Power, R. (2024, June 5). I'm "Flipping" Mad. [Web log post]. Power Learning Solutions. https://www.powerlearningsolutions.com/blog/im-flipping-mad

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​It looks like one of my favourite EdTech tools is about to disappear. Well, not completely... but changes that have recently announced mean that I’ll no longer be able to use the features of Flip…

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The Prompting Playbook: Strategies for AI Engagement

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The Prompting Playbook: Strategies for AI Engagement

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Joycelyn Kelly

Themes: Ethical challenges in using AI, Teaching Strategies
Audience & Subject: Grades 4-6, Grades 7-8, Grades 9-12; Digital media

In today's evolving digital era, adopting emerging, innovative educational technologies and shifting pedagogical practices can revitalize engagement in education for both students and faculty, facilitating bridging the digital divide. This approach also equips students with essential 21st-century skills and competencies, preparing them for real-world challenges. In recent years, new advanced AI technologies have brought both opportunities and challenges for educators in adapting to the evolving education landscape. With the introduction of ChatGPT (generative pre-trained transformer) by OpenAI on November 30, 2022, AI-driven chatbots, particularly those based on a natural language processing (NLP) system have revolutionized educational practices and interactions by generating human-like responses with end users (Dempere et al., 2023). In addition to AI chatbots, generative AI applications like Midjourney and DeepBrain AI are diffusion models of AI designed to create diagrams, images, and videos from prompting inputs (Menekse, 2023). To harness and optimize generative AI's potential, developing five key skills is vital for effectively identifying and utilizing suitable generative AI tools: problem formulation, exploration, experimentation, critical thinking, and reflection (Acar, 2023). Enhancing interactions with generative AI language models requires the formulation of precise and effective prompts, known as prompt engineering, which is a crucial skill in the information age (Lo, 2023). The art of formulating precise and thoughtful prompts is essential for enhancing the interaction between AI applications. This activity focuses on developing strategies for interactions with generative AI, crafting effective prompts to communicate with generative AI, and turning abstract ideas into innovative outcomes.

General Guidelines

1. Start with Clear Objectives: Define what you hope to achieve with AI interactions to ensure that prompts are focused and purposeful.

2. Understand AI Limitations: While AI can process and generate large amounts of information, it is limited by the data it has been trained on and may not understand the context as humans do.

3. Use Simple, Direct Language: Avoid ambiguity by using straightforward language in your prompts to obtain clearer and more accurate responses from AI.

4. Be Specific: Provide detailed information or examples within your prompts to guide the AI toward the desired type of response or action.

5. Iterative Prompting: If the first response from AI does not feel right, refine your prompt based on the feedback, treating the process as iterative.

6. Incorporate Feedback Loops: Regularly reflect to assess the effectiveness of AI interactions and use the feedback to improve future prompts and strategies.

7. Ethical Considerations: Consider the ethical implications of using AI, including data privacy, bias in AI responses, and the potential impacts of AI decisions.

8. Stay Informed About AI Developments: AI technology evolves rapidly; staying updated on the latest tools, capabilities, and best practices can enhance your engagement strategies.

9. Promote Transparency and Accountability: Be transparent about how AI is used and maintain accountability for the outcomes of AI interactions, especially in educational or professional settings.

Overview

The activity aims to empower participants to design and refine AI prompts that effectively communicate their specific needs to AI applications, leading to more precise and relevant outputs. The goal is to build confidence in interacting with AI tools across various education and professional development domains.

Description

Students use ChatGPT to request information about certain topics, summarize articles, write revisions, and establish a logical core connection or outline for a paper via multiple questions (Luan et al., 2023). According to OpenAI (2023), ChatGPT design, in terms of functionality, creates appropriate answer patterns depending on user input, making text communication more natural and intuitive. Choose a GPT and use the PAIR framework by Acar (2023), which consists of four steps to develop AI skills:

1. Problem formulation: Students define the problem or challenge they want to solve.

2. AI tool selection: Students choose the best generative AI tools to help them with their problems. Explore, compare, and evaluate different generative AI tools and their features.

3. Interaction: Students use the generative AI tools to solve their problem. They experiment with different inputs and outputs to see how the generative AI tools affect their problem-solving process and outcome.

4. Reflection: Students assess and report their experiences with the generative AI tools.

Possible Challenges

AI Misinterpretation: Overly complex or vague prompts may lead to inaccurate or irrelevant responses. Additionally, AI may lack an understanding of context, and ambiguous queries will require contextual information in prompts.

Ethical Considerations: Always consider your sources and ethical implications when using AI applications, including data privacy, bias in AI responses, and the potential impacts of decisions made by AI.

Support Materials

Some ideas for prompts to get started:

Acar, O. A. (2023, June 15). Are your students ready for AI?. Harvard Business Publishing. https://hbsp.harvard.edu/inspiring-minds/are-your-students-ready-for-ai?

Dempere, J., Modugu, K., Hesham, A., & Ramasamy, L. K. (2023). The impact of ChatGPT on higher education. Frontiers in Education, 8, 1-13. https://doi.org/10.3389/feduc.2023.1206936

Lo, L. S. (2023). The art and science of prompt engineering: A new literacy in the information age. Internet Reference Services Quarterly, 27(4), 203-210. https://doi.org/10.1080/10875301.2023.2227621

Luan, L., Xi, L., Dai, Y., Hu, H., & Sun, Q. (2024). Exploring the cognitive dynamics of artificial intelligence in the post-COVID-19 and learning 3.0 era: A case study of ChatGPT. Asian Journal of Distance Education, 19(2), 1-10. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10990472

Menekse, M. (2023). Envisioning the future of learning and teaching engineering in the artificial intelligence era: Opportunities and challenges. Journal of Engineering Education, 112(3), 578-582. https://doi.org/10.1002/jee.20539

OpenAI. (2022, November 30). ChatGPT: Optimizing language models for dialogue. https://openai.com/blog/chatgpt/

About the author

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Artificial Intelligence in Education Conference: Shaping Future Classrooms

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Joycelyn Kelly Themes: Ethical challenges in using AI, Teaching Strategies Audience & Subject: Grades 4-6, Grades 7-8, Grades 9-12; Digital media In today's evolving digital era, adopting emerging, innovative educational technologies and shifting pedagogical practices can revitalize engagement in education for both students and faculty, facilitating bridging the digital divide.

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Artificial Intelligence in Education Conference: Shaping Future Classrooms

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Artificial Intelligence in Education Conference: Shaping Future Classrooms

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Skip to content

Book Information

Authors

Aman Sahota; Amanda Paul; Cal Armstrong; Chris D. Craig; Donna Farquharson-Goheen; Heather Leatham; Ilan Danjoux; Janette Hughes; Jean Darnell; John Workman; Joycelyn Kelly; Kathleen Pierce; Laura Morrison; Lena Palermo; Li Li; Marjan Mahmoudian; Mervi Salo; Stephanie Kuntz; Stephanie Thompson; Stephanie Vranchidis; Tess Butler-Ulrich; and Tricia Dwyer-Kuntz

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Artificial Intelligence in Education Conference: Shaping Future Classrooms - Simple Book Publishing

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Skip to content Aman Sahota; Amanda Paul; Cal Armstrong; Chris D. Craig; Donna Farquharson-Goheen; Heather Leatham; Ilan Danjoux; Janette Hughes; Jean Darnell; John Workman; Joycelyn Kelly; Kathleen Pierce; Laura Morrison; Lena Palermo; Li Li; Marjan Mahmoudian; Mervi Salo; Stephanie Kuntz; Stephanie Thompson; Stephanie Vranchidis; Tess Butler-Ulrich; and Tricia Dwyer-Kuntz

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Draft 3.0 UDL Guidelines

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A collection of web and mobile based tools to help teachers and learners exploit digital resources

Curated by Nik Peachey

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A collection of web and mobile based tools to help teachers and learners exploit digital resources

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APA v7 Citations for Digital Tools and Applications

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APA v7 Citations for Digital Tools and Applications

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Rob's ever-growing list of APA v7 citations for common digital tools and applications

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Digital Application and Tool APA v 7 References.pdf

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Comprehensive Accessibility Training for Shipping High-Quality Web Applications

https://testingaccessibility.com/

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Setting up a screen reader testing environment on your computer

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Setting up a screen reader testing environment on your computer

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When you're designing and developing for accessibility, performing manual testing using a screen reader is important to catch and fix accessibility and usability issues that cannot be caught by automated accessibility checkers. You can catch the majority of issues by performing testing using the screen readers that your users rely on the most.

If you haven't already, you want to set up a screen reader testing environment on your computer, and invest a little learning time to get acquainted with the most relevant screen reader commands and shortcuts that you will need to perfom basic manual testing with a screen reader on a day-to-day basis.

In this chapter, we will walk through setting up a screen reader testing environment on your computer. We will discuss software options you have to do that (both free and premium), and what screen reader and browser combinations to test with. We will also go through enabling accessibility testing on a Mac (which requires a little manual work to do). And finally, we will learn about a few useful features and cheasheets that make testing a little friendlier when you're just getting started.

macOS vs Windows screen readers

Both Windows and macOS come with screen readers built into them that are available for free. The built-in Windows screen reader is called Narrator. The macOS built-in screen reader is VoiceOver.

According to WebAIM's screen reader user survey, more than 90% of screen reader users reported being on Windows. And according to the same survey, the two most popular screen readers are JAWS (Job Access With Speech) and NVDA (NonVisual Desktop Access) (which are both Windows screen readers), followed by VoiceOver.

If you're already on Windows or if you own a Windows machine, you're already halfway through setting up your screen reader-testing environment.

If you're on a macOS computer, you shouldn't test solely with VoiceOver. It is more opinionated and does not always reflect what the majority of screen reader users experiences.

If you're on macOS and you have no access to a Windows machine (whether an actual machine or a virtual one), you can test your work with Windows screen readers using any modern browser instead. We'll get back to this in another section.

Setting up Windows screen readers

JAWS is the most popular and feature-rich screen reader. a JAWS license isn't free and is faily expensive. But you can still use it to perform testing for your work. JAWS will run in full in demo mode for 40 minutes at a time, until it is activated on your computer. While this is a limitation for longer testing sessions, the 40 minutes are usually more than enough to perform basic testing.

NVDA is a feature-rich, free alternative to JAWS. We will install and set up NVDA in the following sections.

Download NVDA screen reader on Windows

Go to the NVAccess Web site. Click the Download link. That will take you to the NVDA download page.

NVDA is available for free, but a donation is strongly encouraged.

Click the Download button. Wait for NVDA to download. And go through the installation wizard when it's done.

Visualize NVDA's current focus target with Visual Highlight

To make testing with NVDA more convenient (especially if you're new to screen reader testing), I recommend enabling NVDA's Visual Highlight feature.

To enable it, go to Preferences > Settings > Vision > Visual Highlight, and check the Enable Highlighting option.

What this does is it shows a focus highlight around the element that NVDA is currently focused on - whether it's in a webpage or anywhere on your system. This feature is useful for partially-sighted screen reader users who want to track the location of the NVDA navigator object and the currently-focused element. Seeing where the screen reader's current focus is at is also helpful for you when you're performing testing, especially if you're recording your screen for an educational video, for example. ^^

Enable NVDA speech viewer

Another helpful feature you can enable is the NVDA Speech Viewer log window.

Click the NVDA icon in your taskbar (on the bottom right of your screen by default), and go to NVDA > Tools and enable Speech Viewer. You also have the option to open the speech viewer log window by default on NVDA startup.

The speech viewer log window contains the text that NVDA speaks, which can be helpful when you're just getting started with screen reader testing. Just keep in mind that its usefulness of sometimes limited because the log often does not fully represent what is announced.

Setup keyboard layout for testing with NVDA on a Mac

If you're on a Mac, go to NVDA > Preferences > Settings > Keyboard and Choose " Laptop " Keyboard layout instead of the default Desktop option. The desktop layout relies on many keys which do not exist on some Mac keyboards. You can also set this preference in NVDA's start popup menu.

If you're using JAWS, there is a similar option in the JAWS startup wizard to choose the Laptop keyboard layout instead of the default Desktop layout.

Map the Insert key to another key on Mac

The insert key is the default modifier key used by most screen readers on Windows. If you don't own an external keyboard that has an insert key, you might need to use a software work-around to make up for the lack of the insert key on your keyboard.

NVDA settings include an option to set the caps lock key as the NVDA modifier key. You can do that if you prefer. I personally prefer to not do that because it interferes with typing when the caps lock is On.

Alternatively, you can use a software program to map one of your less-used keyboard keys to the missing insert key. I use Karabiner Elements.

Setting up Karabiner Elements on macOS

Karabiner is a free app. To use it:

1. Download the app from the Karabiner Elements Website. You want to download it on your Mac, not in your virtual machine.

2. Run through the setup, and make sure to enable access in your System Preferences settings if it is blocked by macOS (which it probably will be by default).

3. Once it is installed and your keyboard is recognized, go to Simple Modifications.

4. Choose the device(s) you want to create a mapping for, and then click Add Item to map an unused key to the insert key.

In my Karabiner, I mapped the right option key to the Windows insert key. And I also mapped the right cmd key to the print screen key, which can be used in combination with other keys to quickly turn Windows High Contrast mode On and Off (which is a shortcut that will come in handy in another chapter).

That's it. Now if you open your VM and fire up a screen reader, you can use the right option key (or the key of your choice) as a modifier key in place of the insert key.

Virtual accessibility testing in your browser

If you're on macOS and you have no access to a Windows machine, you can test your work with Windows screen readers using any modern browser instead. You can do that using a service called AssistivLabs.

AssistivLabs is to screen reader testing what BrowserStack is to cross-browser testing. It remotely connects you to real assistive technologies (like NVDA, JAWS, and Windows High Contrast Mode) using any modern web browser.

AssitivLabs currently only offers testing with Windows screen readers and assistive technologies (like Windows High Contrast Mode and Windows Magnifier) for most accounts; testing using macOS assistive technologies will be available in the future.

AssitivLabs is a paid service - it's not available for free by default. But it is very helpful for when and if getting access to a Windows machine is otherwise not possible.

Note that Practical Accessibility course enrollees will get a 6-months unlimited free trial to Assistivlabs. 🎁

Enable keyboard accessibility on a Mac

To complement your screen reader, you should enable keyboard accessibility on your Mac.

Keyboard accessibility is not enabled by default on macOS. If you've ever tried to tab your way through interactive and focusable elements on webpages and couldn't, that's why. (Frustrating, I know.)

You need to manually enable keyboard accessibility on macOS by going to System Preferences > Keyboard, and enabling the " Use keyboard navigation to move focus between controls" option in the Shortcuts tab.

On macOS 13+, you'll go to System Preferences > Keyboard, and then enable the Keyboard Navigation (Use keyboard navigation to move focus between controls. Press the Tab key to move focus forwards and Shift Tab to move focus backwards) option.

Once you've enabled system-wide keyboard accessibility, you want to also enable keyboard tabbing in Safari.

In Safari, go to Preferences > Advanced. And enable the " Press tab to highlight each item on a webpage " option.

Now you can tab your way through webpages as you should.

If you're on an older version of macOS or you want to enable these settings in Firefox and Chrome, I've added a couple of resources to help you do that in the recommended resources section at the end of the chapter.

Which browser and screen reader pairings should you test on?

Screen readers work best when they are paired with the browsers they are the most compatible with. When performing testing, you can catch most accessibility issues (sometimes even all of them) by pairing each screen reader with the browser it is most commonly used with.

On macOS

VoiceOver works best with (and should, therefore, be paired with) Safari. If you use VoiceOver with Chrome or Firefox, for example, you might get unexpected results because VoiceOver is optimized to work with Safari not with other browsers.

On Windows

Narrator works best with Edge, and has difficulty interfacing with other browsers. But Narrator isn't most users' first choice.

JAWS - the most popular of all screen readers on Windows - works best with Chrome and Firefox. When perfoming testing, pair it with Chrome.
NVDA works best and is commonly paired with Firefox.
Mobile screen readers

Throughout this course, we will focus mainly on desktop screen reader testing. But you should test your work using mobile screen readers as well.

In WebAIM's ninth screen reader user survey, 90% of respondents reported using a screen reader on a mobile device. According to WebAIM, this number has increased over the last 12 years. WebAIM also notes that participants with disabilities (91.6%) are more likely to use a mobile screen reader compared to individuals surveyed without disabilities (71.4%). So it is very important that you test your work on mobile to ensure that it works for a large group of screen reader users.

VoiceOver on iOS/iPadOS is the most popular mobile screen reader. VoiceOver comes bundled with iOS/iPadOS. Like its desktop version, you want to use it in conjunction with mobile Safari.

On Android, Talkback (the built-in screen reader) is best paired with Chrome.

Guides to browsing and navigating content with a screen reader

Make some time to learn how to navigate and browse web content with each screen reader. It might take some time and feel like a steep learning curve at first, but by doing that you will gain an invaluable skill for your accessibility work.

Here is a list of official user guides that are helpful for getting started:

And to get a high-level (yet practical) overview of how someone using a screen reader browses the Web, I recommend watching the Browsing with assistive technologies video series by Tetralogical:

Screen reader keyboard shortcut cheatsheets

When you're just getting started with screen reader testing, and you want to test with at least three screen readers across different platforms and devices, it can be difficult to remember all the keyboard shortcuts for each screen reader right away.

Deque University provides useful screen reader keyboard shortcuts and gestures cheatsheets, that you can either reference on your computer, or print out and have them handy during your testing.

Resources and recommended reading

Hat tip and thanks to Adrian Roselli for pointing out that the Focus Highlight NVDA add-on is no longer necessary since focus highlighting has been built into NVDA 2019.

And thank you to Corentin H. for providing the screenshot of keyboard accessibility preferences on macOS 13.

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Setting up a screen reader testing environment on your computer

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The personal website of Sara Soueidan, inclusive design engineer

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Three Google Slides Accessibility Settings You Should Know How to Enable

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Three Google Slides Accessibility Settings You Should Know How to Enable

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Three Google Slides Accessibility Settings You Should Know How to Enable

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Curious how teachers use AI in the classroom, professor creates popular online platform to enhance learning

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Curious how teachers use AI in the classroom, professor creates popular online platform to enhance learning

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https://www.stpetersburg.usf.edu/news/2024/professor-creates-popular-online-ai-platform.aspx

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Curious how teachers use AI in the classroom, professor creates popular online platform to enhance learning

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A new online platform featuring more than 100 tools seeks to help educators incorporate artificial intelligence (AI) in the classroom to enhance learning. Created by USF St. Petersburg Education Professor Zafer Unal, TeacherServer provides free AI tools to assist planning, assessment, preparation, research and more.

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Storying Universal Design for LearningAuthors

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Storying Universal Design for LearningAuthors

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Storying Universal Design for Learning - Simple Book Publishing

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Book Description: This resource compiles post-secondary student voices on accessible teaching practices and universal design for learning (UDL) components that have been integrated into their classes. Students reflect on meaningfulness and engagement, accommodation plans, course design, and instructor supportiveness.

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Great infographic by Art Schneiderheinze...

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500 million+ members | Manage your professional identity. Build and engage with your professional network. Access knowledge, insights and opportunities.

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Accessible and Equitable Artificial Intelligence

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Accessible and Equitable Artificial Intelligence

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Accessible and Equitable Artificial Intelligence Systems - Technical Guide - Accessibility Standards Canada

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AI systems and the processes, resources, services and tools used to plan, create, implement, maintain and monitor them need to be accessible to people with disabilities. People with disabilities and users of AI systems should be able to be active participants in all stakeholder roles in the AI lifecycle.

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Debunked

Accessibility only affects a small group of users

Not that small. Around 15% of the world's population, or estimated 1 billion people, live with disabilities, they are the world's largest minority. The number of people with disability is dramatically increasing.
More details

Making a website accessible is costly and time-consuming

It may not be the case if accessibility is considered from the beginning of the project and a development team has proper skills. When accessibility has become a habit, the development time doesn't change or changes a little.

We can quickly add accessibility before the release

Won't work. Maybe easy things such as alternative text or form labeling may be added at the end, but some complex UX should be planned to be accessible. In some cases, making features accessible at the end of development process may require the full refactoring.

Accessibility is only about adding alternative text to images

In fact, missing alternative text for images is one of the biggest accessibility issues. But besides this, there are many things to be considered while making accessible website - headline structure, functional controls, color contrast and much more.

Web accessibility is just a developer's responsibility

It's a team effort. Designers create accessible UIs, developers build it, QA engineers do the accessibility testing, PMs make sure that accessibility is included in the team processes, legal team checks if a product is risk free from an accessibility perspective, content managers adjust content to be compliant.
More details

Accessibility only helps people with disabilities

Fortunately it helps everyone. It's a known fact that applying accessibility principles improves overall user experience and makes a website more convenient to use.

Making websites accessible doesn't bring any additional benefits

To list just a few of them - more users, more revenue, better reputation, less risks to be sued, better competence of development teams and many more. At the end doing a good thing doesn't always have to require a profitable reason.

Accessibility can be fixed by the accessibility overlay

Absolutely no. There is an initiative signed by hundreds of professionals which advocates the removal of the web accessibility overlay.

Using automated tools is all I need to do to make my website accessible

That would be easy, but no. Usually automated accessibility testing can only find 30-50% of all accessibility issues. In fact, some websites can be built in a way that automated tests will pass even though the website is totally inaccessible.

Accessibility is optional

Until your company got sued. Learn about the Netflix and Domino cases to understand that the price for not being accessible may be too high. There are many laws that may require a website to be accessible.

Accessibility is only about preventing lawsuits

Accessibility is about your users. Of course, preventing lawsuits is important for any company, but user satisfaction and company reputation bring a lot of value as well.

Accessibility is only about following the WCAG

Usually it starts from WCAG, but in real life a compliant website may still not be fully accessible. Accessibility is about understanding the need of all users as well as about empathy and awareness.

Accessibility can be achieved by only adding ARIA attributes

Of course, ARIA is an important part of accessibility, but the golden rule of ARIA is"Don't Use ARIA". Many ARIA attributes may not be necessary if semantic HTML tags are used.

We don't need to be compliant

Maybe you need. There are a number of laws and regulations which may require a website to follow accessibility principles. It's definitely worth checking them.
More details

Only accessibility experts can implement accessibility fixes

Luckily no. Everyone with some accessibility skills can implement and test websites for accessibility. In fact, it's not only easy to learn, but sometimes it's quite a fun process. It doesn't require a specific experience to run the easy checks.

Accessibility is like a feature - you do it once and then you have it

Accessibility is a practice, not a feature. It means that one should take care of it regularly, both when working on features or doing maintenance work. The knowledge about accessibility should be passed on when a new team member joins or when requirement changes.
More details

Accessibility can be fixed by providing a separate website version for disabled people

That was the wrong assumption back then. Since that time, many development teams have learned the hard way that maintaining several versions of the website and keeping all the content up to date costs much more than creating the only one fully accessible website.

People with disabilities don't use the web

That's wrong. In fact, in some cases internet is the only way how disabled people can communicate to the world. Also, where "abled people" use their natural feelings such as sight and hearing, people with disabilities must rely on technologies.
More details

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A small project debunking common accessibility myths.

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A faculty guide to unlocking accessibility in eLearning presentation deck.

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A faculty guide to unlocking accessibility in eLearning presentation deck.

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Download the faculty guide to unlocking accessibility in eLearning

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Get details and access to the top three resources to help you confidently deliver more accessible eLearning. Download the presentation PDF.

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Just released! Seven Videos on the Effective Use of Video

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Just released! Seven Videos on the Effective Use of Video

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Just released! Seven Videos on the Effective Use of Video | Tony Bates

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I was asked some time ago: ‘What is the most important thing you have learned from your 50 years of research into learning technologies?’

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A great resource put together by the UK's Association of Learning Technologists Accessibility Special Interest Group

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PDFs and accessibility - PDFs in HE and FE

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Documents in PDF format are the backbone of many higher education courses and are a staple format for publishers producing e-books and digital journals. But there are significant accessibility issues that currently undermine an institution’s efforts to reduce risks posed by inaccessible content. They also pose problems for publishers attempting to meet the demands of the European Accessibility Act.

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Designing Accessible Learning, 2nd Edition

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Designing Accessible Learning, 2nd Edition

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Updates on the W3C's working draft fir the WCAG 3 guidelines.

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Accessibility-related behavior in Storyline may differ, depending on which version of the product you are using, and we are not always able to update this resource immediately when new versions are released, new behaviors are discovered and/or old behaviors sunset. That is to say, the behavior described here may not always exactly match the behavior you encounter when using or testing eCourses, and regardless of the guidance offered here, you should always test each aspect of an eCourse before offering it to learners.

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Watch: How Do blind People See the Computer?

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Inclusive Design for Accessibility | Web Development | eBook

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A practical guide to digital accessibility, UX, and inclusive web and app design. Instant delivery. Top rated Web Development products.

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Designing for Access: How WCAG and UDL Work Together

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Designing for Access: How WCAG and UDL Work Together

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Designing for Access: How WCAG and UDL Work Together

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Combining WCAG 2.2 and UDL creates inclusive, accessible online learning experiences that support all learners from the start.

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ACCESSIBLE ME's 2-Minute Quick Accessibility Check

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ACCESSIBLE ME's 2-Minute Quick Accessibility Check

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A roadmap to meet UK & EU regulations on accessibility!

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How Inclusive Is Your Digital Content? Find out by answering a few short questions. Complete the quick check below to see if your organisation is unknowingly excluding users.

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How to check web accessibility of a PDF file

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Introduction

Ensure that all content can be accessed with the keyboard alone.

Keyboard accessibility is one of the most important aspects of web accessibility. Many users with motor disabilities rely on a keyboard. Some people have tremors which don't allow for fine muscle control. Others have little or no use of their hands, or no hands at all. In addition to traditional keyboards, some users may use modified keyboards or other hardware that mimics the functionality of a keyboard. Blind users also typically use a keyboard for navigation. Users without disabilities may use a keyboard for navigation because of preference or efficiency.

Potential Problems

There are many ways that a webpage can introduce difficulties for users who rely on a keyboard for navigation. Below are a few of the most common issues.

Focus indicators

A keyboard user typically uses the Tab key to navigate through interactive elements on a web page-links, buttons, fields for inputting text, etc. When an item is tabbed to, it has keyboard "focus" and can be activated or manipulated with the keyboard. A sighted keyboard user must be provided with a visual indicator of the element that currently has keyboard focus. Focus indicators are provided automatically by web browsers. While their appearance varies based on the browser, the focus indicator is typically shown as a border or highlight (called an outline) around the focused element. These outlines can be hidden by applying outline:0 or outline:none CSS to focusable elements.

In addition to the default outline, you can use CSS to make the focus indicator more visually apparent and keyboard-friendly by ensuring the focus indicator is highly visible with sufficient contrast, and by adding a background color or other visual focus style to links and other interactive controls. The outline can be styled to match your site design but should be readily detected when navigating with the Tab key.

Items that should not receive keyboard focus

Links, buttons, and form controls are natively accessible to keyboard users, so should be used for interactivity whenever possible. Page elements that are not interactive to mouse or touch users should not be made keyboard focusable (such as by using tabindex). Making non-interactive elements keyboard navigable will cause confusion.

Inaccessible custom widgets

If a native HTML element is not sufficient, then a custom-made control or widget might be necessary. All custom controls must still be accessible to keyboard users. You may need to use tabindex="0" to ensure an element can receive keyboard focus. ARIA may also be necessary to ensure that the control or widget is presented correctly to screen reader users. The ARIA Authoring Practices outlines necessary keyboard interactions and ARIA coding necessary for many types of custom widgets. To be made highly accessible the following must occur:

The interaction is presented in an intuitive and predictable way

JavaScript event handlers work with a keyboard and a mouse.

The interaction uses standardized keystrokes.

Lengthy navigation

Sighted mouse users are able to visually scan a web page and directly click on any item. Keyboard users must press the Tab key or other navigation keys to navigate through the interactive elements that precede the item the user wants to activate. Tabbing through lengthy navigation may be particularly demanding for users with motor disabilities.

Long lists of links or other navigable items may pose a burden for keyboard-only users. The following best practices can facilitate efficient keyboard navigation:

Keyboard Testing

Testing with a keyboard is an essential part of any accessibility evaluation.

The following table includes many of the most common online interactions, the standard keystrokes for the interaction, and additional information on things to consider during testing.

Navigate to interactive elements

Keyboard focus indicators must be present.

Navigation order should be logical and intuitive.

Button

Enter or Spacebar - activate the button

Ensure elements with ARIA role="button" can be activated with both key commands.

Checkbox

Spacebar - check/uncheck a checkbox

Checkboxes should be used when one or more option in a group can be selected.

Radio buttons

Radio buttons should be used when only one option from a group can be selected.

Select (dropdown) menu

You can also filter or jump to options in the menu as you type letters.

Dialog

Modal dialogs should maintain keyboard focus.

Non-modal dialogs should close automatically when they lose focus.

When a dialog closes, focus should usually return to the element that opened the dialog.

Menu bar

↑/↓ - Previous/next menu option

Enter - expand the menu (optional) and select an option.

←/→ - expand/collapse submenu

A menu bar dynamically changes content within an application. Links that utilize Tab/Enter are NOT menu bars.

Tab panel

Tab - once to navigate into the group of tabs and once to navigate out of the group of tabs

This is for 'application' tabs that dynamically change content within the tab panel. If a menu looks like a group of tabs, but is actually a group of links to different pages, Tab and Enter are more appropriate.

The ARIA authoring practices document provides additional information for these and other common interactions. Be sure to test keyboard accessibility on mobile devices-users with disabilities often utilize an external keyboard with phones and tablets.

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Ensure that all content can be accessed with the keyboard alone. Keyboard accessibility is one of the most important aspects of web accessibility. Many users with motor disabilities rely on a keyboard. Some people have tremors which don't allow for fine muscle control. Others have little or no use of their hands, or no hands at all.