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Wednesday Workshop

Accessibility

and

Learning Experience Design

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Wednesday Workshop

Thanks for joining us!

To get our sharing started, please visit the Accessibility Resources and Topics form.

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Master of Arts in

Learning Experience Design

Master of Arts in Educational Technology

  • Candace Robertson (she/her): Assistant Director of Student Experience & Outreach
  • Brittany Dillman (she/her): Director of Graduate Certificate Programs
  • Heather Williamson (she/her): Academic Program Coordinator
  • Liz Boltz (she/her): Director

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Materials For You

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Agenda

Establish norms, purpose, and goals

Explore shared definitions and key terms

Explore accessible design (break out rooms)

Consider challenges (break out rooms)

Continue learning!

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Our Community Engagement Framework

  • We believe that accessibility matters.
  • We are all co-learners
  • This is part of a bigger journey
  • Move up, move back
  • All of us bring expertise
  • Other norms? Share in chat or Q&A!

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Accessibility is creating an environment, activity, tool, or resource that can be easily understood and used by everyone.

Accessibility…

  • Reduces barriers
  • Increases sense of belonging
  • Considers representation
  • Supports all learners

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Ableism is a set of stereotypes and practices that devalue and discriminate against people with disabilities. It assumes that the bodies and minds of non-disabled people are the “default,” placing value on them based on society’s perceptions of what’s considered “normal.”

~Disability and Philanthropy Forum, 2024

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Framing Access: Theoretical perspectives on disability

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Inclusive design is design that considers the full range of human diversity with respect to ability, language, culture, gender, age and other forms of human difference.

~ Inclusive Design Research Centre

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Key Term Mapping: You

  1. Go to your Participant Notebook Slide 9
  2. Move the words to map their relationships
  3. Use the connectors if you want

Accessibility

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MALXD

Key Term

Map

Social Justice

Frameworks

Inclusion

Inclusive Design

Accessibility

UDL

Language

Identity

Design Practices

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MALXD

Key Term

Map

Social Justice

Frameworks

Integrative Design

Liberatory Design

Equity X Design

Inclusion

Inclusive Design

Accessibility

UDL

Language

Identity

Practices

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Wednesday Workshop

  • Form Results
  • What we’ll do with them

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Focusing on the Learner

  • “Once you know how intentional it can be, it’s jarring and disorienting to experience it another way.”
  • “I really enjoyed the structure of this course and having consistent schedules/deadlines.”
  • “The course was very easy to follow. D2L was very structured and clear.”

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Exploring Accessible Design

The Details

  • Fundamentals
  • Standards and Practices
  • Workflow

Big Picture

  • Identity
  • Language
  • Design

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Exploring Accessible Design

  1. Choose your focus: The details or The big picture
  2. Join breakout room
  3. Introduce yourselves
  4. Share in exploration and discussion

20 min

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The Details Conversations

  1. Identify mindsets and strategies for approaching accessibility in learning spaces and through web accessibility.
  2. Apply 3 dimensions of inclusive design to your practice.
  3. Reflect on inclusive design strategies in your practice.
  4. Locate web accessibility fundamentals, standards, and principles.
  5. Identify starting points for yourself and others in developing in your accessibility practices.
  6. Evaluate your workflow strategies and brainstorm around challenge areas.

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Fundamentals: Approaching Accessibility

People first.

Informed practices.

More than a checklist.

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3 Dimensions of Inclusive Design

Recognize diversity and uniqueness

  • Replace with ways you do this in your practice or challenges in doing this

Inclusive process and tools

  • Replace with ways you do this in your practice or challenges in doing this

Broader beneficial impact

  • Replace with ways you do this in your practice or challenges in doing this

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How might we do this?

  • Conduct user research
  • Involve diverse perspectives
  • Prioritize accessibility
  • Design for flexibility
  • Test and iterate

Reflect

Replace this text

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Where to Start: Inclusive Learning Spaces

Physiological Inclusion

How does your space…

  • accommodate a variety of physical attributes and abilities?
  • make it easy to use for those with a variety of backgrounds, language, and technical skills?
  • meet the social needs of learners?

Cognitive Inclusion

How does your space…

  • respond to a range of cognitive diversity?
  • support how learners receive and comprehend information?
  • promote engagement with the information?

Cultural Inclusion

How does your space…

  • honor and reflect a variety of social identities?
  • include environmental cues to increase social belonging (verbal, visual, interaction design)?
  • plan for the intersectionalities of learners?

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Where to Start: Web Accessibility

  • Build your understanding.
  • Review fundamentals.
  • Review your technologies.
  • Explore principles and standards.
  • Start it and get better at it.

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Web Accessibility Treasure Hunt

  1. Go to Accessibility Fundamentals Overview from W3C
  2. Locate a resource that is interesting to you. Bookmark it.
  3. Locate the principles on the left menu (or in the text). Bookmark!
  4. Locate the standards on the top menu. Bookmark!
  5. Open the Design and Develop Overview on the top menu. Bookmark!

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Putting Web Accessibility into Action

Identify a practice to start with. Some starting points can be:

  • Headings
  • Color contrast
  • Text emphasis
  • Descriptive hyperlink text
  • Alt text on images and graphics
  • Video transcripts and captioning
  • Table design
  • PDF replacement or remediation

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Workflow and Time Management Tips

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Workflow and Time Management Tips

What is your current flow?

  • Replace with your text

What are the challenge areas?

  • Replace with your text

How can we help you address them?

  • Replace with your text

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Brainstorm: Where to Help Others Start

  • Show them the difference it makes
  • Ground it in equity and social justice, legal and policy ramifications, student success
  • With an understanding that accessibility improves learning for all
  • Something concrete that they use in practice
  • Provide and use templates
  • Shared idea
  • Shared idea

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Rationale for Big Ideas Conversations

My beliefs (big ideas) influence my behaviors.

Naming my beliefs essential for changing them.

Changing my beliefs is challenging.

Changing my beliefs is learning (or a key component).

So, today, let’s learn together to push back against ableist design.

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Learning Experience Design Elements

Learning Spaces

Learning Outcomes

Learning Activities

Learning Assessments

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Big Ideas

🪪

Identity

📚

Language

📐

Design

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For learning spaces, consider…

his/her

their

“There are 7.8 billion perspectives walking around…”

“There are 7.8 billion perspectives.”

Inconsistent onboarding and design

Consistent onboarding and design

@MAET

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Learning Spaces

🪪

Identity

  • Mismatch with known beliefs/bandwidth

📚

Language

  • Ideas here

📐

Design

  • PDFs are problematic!

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For learning outcomes, consider…

Not share about goals

Explicitly share goals in learner-friendly language

“Here’s a quick read.”

“Please explore.”

“Your school”

“Your professional context”

@MAET

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Learning Outcomes

🪪

Identity

  • Ideas here

📚

Language

  • Ideas here

📐

Design

  • Ideas here

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For learning activities, consider…

Do this assignment

Here is the assignment. Let us know if you need customization.

Use this technology

Here are several technologies. Please choose 1.

Group work

Activity designed for learning goals and learner needs.

@MAET

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Learning Activities

🪪

Identity

  • Ideas here

📚

Language

  • Ideas here

📐

Design

  • Ideas here

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For learning assessment consider…

No policies or rationale

Share policies and expectations.

Unstructured evaluation

Rubrics shared ahead of time and used.

Unshared beliefs about what can be earned.

Can all learners earn the highest grade?

@MAET

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Learning Assessment

🪪

Identity

  • Who has power?

📚

Language

  • Ideas here

📐

Design

  • More formative
  • More opportunities to revise

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Gimme

A

Break

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Challenges and Questions for Design

  • Random breakout groups
  • Introduce yourselves
  • Consider a challenge or question
  • Brainstorm to answer this question: How could we design with this challenge in mind?
  • Brittany and Candace will scribe

5 min

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Lingering Questions

Note in your notebook

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Resources

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Master of Arts in

Learning Experience Design

Master of Arts in Educational Technology