What good is a website if you can’t see it or use it properly? Food for thought . . .
I spent the past week in Houston facilitating a three-day conference / training workshop entitled “Managing a Website Redesign Project.” This was a program that I had designed about eight months ago for higher education marketing, communication and web professionals. While its main focus was on project management, we—the 50+ of us in the room— discussed a number of related topics, including usability and accessibility.
During this particular discussion, the participants were asked to identify each of their site’s target audiences and their corresponding needs / requirements. Keep in mind that these were the people who manage their institutions’ main websites and were experienced, dedicated higher education administrators. Yet, it was interesting that one group of individuals was consistently overlooked during this exercise: individuals with disabilities—be they prospective students, donors, current students, or just members of the general public.
According to Usability First, “1 in 5 people in the United States has some kind of disability and an estimated 30 million people are impacted by inaccessible computer and software design. The number of people with disabilities is only increasing, as it has increased 25% in the last decade, especially among those 50 years old and above. And among the 31 million seniors aged 65 and above, 16 million reported some level of disability (Census Brief 97-5). But accessibility actually affects a much larger percentage of the population, as many people who do not have permanent disabilities have temporary conditions that can affect the way they operate for a period of time.”
Those of you who have read my other posts may recall that I had eye surgery a few weeks ago. While I’ve been steadily improving, there was a week where I had significant difficulty reading anything on a computer screen, especially on our eCollege course shell. That, in turn, made completing my assignments on time a significant challenge. It certainly opened my eyes—pardon the pun—to the difficulties faced by students who have permanent eye conditions.
As we continue to design online learning environments, I want to challenge both myself and my classmates to consider our prospective learners in greater depth. This includes their strengths, weaknesses and challenges.
In the meantime, I’d like to provide a few more helpful resources on accessibility and usability:
Usability First
Usability & Accessibility Center, Michigan State University
HTML Center’s Usability & Accessiblity Forum. This forum includes links to helpful tutorials.
Thanks for reading my accessibility and usability rant. I promise to now get off my soapbox, at least for a little while . . .
Sunday, September 30, 2007
Sunday, September 23, 2007
A Surprising Treasure Trove of ID Whitepapers
What a week! Craziness just seemed to abound . . . and now we're on to the next one . . .
One of the highlights from the previous week was an hour-long conversation with Ken Thomas, the president and founder of Rocky Mountain Alchemy, an instructional design firm based here in Denver. Having spent 20+ years in the field of instructional design, Ken has an informative and very real perspective on the challenges and opportunities involved with eLearning. You can read more about our interview on my practitioner profile page.
Prior to this conversation, I spent some time on the Rocky Mountain Alchemy website and ran across a treasure trove of whitepapers in Ken's Laboratory. In my search for instructional design ideas, I've spent numerous hours reviewing academic papers, blogs and online communities, but have avoided the consultants' websites. Why? Most of their whitepapers are designed to showcase their services and to sell you on their approach to instructional design.
Ken's collection is a welcome change. He's not trying to sell the reader on anything in particular. Instead, he sees himself not only as an instructional designer, but also as a coach whose role is to mentor fledgling designers. Consequently, his papers are concise, deliberate and readable.
I highly recommend that you check these whitepapers out. They're worth the time!
One of the highlights from the previous week was an hour-long conversation with Ken Thomas, the president and founder of Rocky Mountain Alchemy, an instructional design firm based here in Denver. Having spent 20+ years in the field of instructional design, Ken has an informative and very real perspective on the challenges and opportunities involved with eLearning. You can read more about our interview on my practitioner profile page.
Prior to this conversation, I spent some time on the Rocky Mountain Alchemy website and ran across a treasure trove of whitepapers in Ken's Laboratory. In my search for instructional design ideas, I've spent numerous hours reviewing academic papers, blogs and online communities, but have avoided the consultants' websites. Why? Most of their whitepapers are designed to showcase their services and to sell you on their approach to instructional design.
Ken's collection is a welcome change. He's not trying to sell the reader on anything in particular. Instead, he sees himself not only as an instructional designer, but also as a coach whose role is to mentor fledgling designers. Consequently, his papers are concise, deliberate and readable.
I highly recommend that you check these whitepapers out. They're worth the time!
Sunday, September 16, 2007
In the Eye of the Beholder
It's been an interesting week . . . I had eye surgery and have been recovering somewhat slowly ever since.
However, as I've been trying to do my coursework in 15-minute increments--trying not to strain the ol' eyeballs--I started thinking about eLearning for the visually impaired. Too often, I make the assumption that my learners will have full use of their eyes and ears. However, that's not always the case; learners come in all shapes and sizes and levels of abilities.
This little bout of pondering lead to a Google search on "eLearning for the visually impaired." Here are a few of the resources that I ran across:
e-Learn VIP (eLearning for Visually Impaired Persons) - This consortium has a newsletter that provides some interesting insights into designing elearning for those who are blind or visually impaired.
Customisation of an eLearning Environment for Visually Impaired Students -- This article from the Waterford Institute focuses on "how both Human Computer Interaction (HCI) and eXtensible Markup Language (XML) technologies can provide individual customisation of an eLearning environment for Visually Impaired Students."
There are a number of other available resources, but I'm at the end of my 15 minutes. I'll likely add a few more later!
Betsy
However, as I've been trying to do my coursework in 15-minute increments--trying not to strain the ol' eyeballs--I started thinking about eLearning for the visually impaired. Too often, I make the assumption that my learners will have full use of their eyes and ears. However, that's not always the case; learners come in all shapes and sizes and levels of abilities.
This little bout of pondering lead to a Google search on "eLearning for the visually impaired." Here are a few of the resources that I ran across:
e-Learn VIP (eLearning for Visually Impaired Persons) - This consortium has a newsletter that provides some interesting insights into designing elearning for those who are blind or visually impaired.
Customisation of an eLearning Environment for Visually Impaired Students -- This article from the Waterford Institute focuses on "how both Human Computer Interaction (HCI) and eXtensible Markup Language (XML) technologies can provide individual customisation of an eLearning environment for Visually Impaired Students."
There are a number of other available resources, but I'm at the end of my 15 minutes. I'll likely add a few more later!
Betsy
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
A Sustainable Approach to eLearning
While I have yet to become a BIG fan of ebooks, I'm learning that they can be valuable resources. As I was doing some research this week, I ran across an ebook entitled Reusing Online Resources: A Sustainable Approach to eLearning . Since I'm always looking to improve my efficiency and to not reinvent the wheel, I decided to take a closer look.
Turns out that this is a great compilation of chapters and ideas from eLearning scholars and practitioners. It is a long read, so I'm still working my way through it chapter by chapter. However, thus far, it's a resouce that I would recommend you check out.
Turns out that this is a great compilation of chapters and ideas from eLearning scholars and practitioners. It is a long read, so I'm still working my way through it chapter by chapter. However, thus far, it's a resouce that I would recommend you check out.
Sunday, September 9, 2007
YouTube Studies
I ran across an interesting article entitled YouTube Studies on the Inside Higher Ed website the other day. While the use of YouTube is becoming increasingly pervasive, especially amoung young adults, there hasn't been much written about its potential (or lack thereof) for educational use.
Alexandra Juhasz, a professor of media studies at Pitzer College, is changing that. This fall, she's offering a class called “Learning From YouTube,” which is drawing a fair amount of attention from her colleagues in both media studies and ILT. Some thinks she's crazy to open herself up to possible mocking from her students and other YouTube patrons, while other educators are waiting to see if YouTube can be successfully used to promote teaching and learning.
You can view the class syllabus, read aloud by Juhasz. She expounds on the topics she expects to cover, one of which is pedagogy — how learning takes place online vs. in person; from peers vs. from a professor.
It's worth a look. I plan to revisit this experiment throughout the semester and will post any applicable and interesting updates.
Alexandra Juhasz, a professor of media studies at Pitzer College, is changing that. This fall, she's offering a class called “Learning From YouTube,” which is drawing a fair amount of attention from her colleagues in both media studies and ILT. Some thinks she's crazy to open herself up to possible mocking from her students and other YouTube patrons, while other educators are waiting to see if YouTube can be successfully used to promote teaching and learning.
You can view the class syllabus, read aloud by Juhasz. She expounds on the topics she expects to cover, one of which is pedagogy — how learning takes place online vs. in person; from peers vs. from a professor.
It's worth a look. I plan to revisit this experiment throughout the semester and will post any applicable and interesting updates.
Wednesday, September 5, 2007
The Role of Attention in a Knowledge Society & eLearning
Although formal learning is often segmented into courses and “opportunities,” knowledge seems to know no boundaries. This semester, I am taking two courses, Policies and Planning for eLearning Programs and Instructional Message Design. Knowingly or unknowingly, the instructors for both courses provided their students with readings on the role of attention and perception in learning. While both the authors of these papers and my instructors varied in their approaches to the topic, there were some distinct commonalities that factor into my dual role as both student and instructional designer.
One of the first points that caught my eye was the role attention plays in a “knowledge society,” a term that is bandied about by scholars and the media alike. In their 2004 paper “Paying Attention to Attention: New Economies for Learning,” Suzanne de Castell and Jennifer Jenson wrote:
"The primary currency of an information society—that is, a society, in which information is designated as the main commodity produced, marketed and consumed—is necessarily attention. And education, which has always sought, however imperfectly, to cultivate a “knowledge society,” has therefore always had attention as it’s primary currency."
If that is true, why has much of our formal education taken place in the classroom setting where the transmission of knowledge primarily flows one way—from teacher to student? Why is a lecture format the preferred method for both secondary and post-secondary schools?
Apparently, I’m not the only one with these questions. In his paper, “Attention – an Information Design Perspective,” Rune Peterson delved into the origins of the lecture. Here is a brief excerpt from that paper:
"Many teachers spend most of their time in the classrooms talking to their classes. It appears that teachers generally teach the way they were taught, following the traditional approach to education, providing prepackaged information to students. No doubt, the lecture method has been the most common method of instruction in western education for centuries. In its early forms, the lecture method was a practised art form, a form of theatrical performance designed to grab and to hold the attention of the students. Until the advent of low-cost books, the lecture method was actually the most economical method of transmitting information. However, modern teachers are usually not selected for their lecturing and theatrical skills."
Having sat through more than one horrendously boring lecture during my undergrad days and when I was working on an MBA, I would agree that a number of professors are not skilled in the fine art of oratory. However, the dullness of a lecture is not just limited to the physical classroom environment. Unfortunately, it can also be transmitted to the online environment where the equivalent of a lecture is pages and pages of dense copy.
There are certainly online cures for this malady, including discussions, group projects, simulations, games and learner-centered projects. However, as I’ve learned in previous courses, implementing these strategies is more difficult than it seems. My quest as both an elearner and one who currently designs live and online professional development opportunities is to learn how to create effective and engaging learning environments. After all, knowledge is boundless, and, I should also say, boundary less.
I’ll keep you posted on my progress!
Betsy
One of the first points that caught my eye was the role attention plays in a “knowledge society,” a term that is bandied about by scholars and the media alike. In their 2004 paper “Paying Attention to Attention: New Economies for Learning,” Suzanne de Castell and Jennifer Jenson wrote:
"The primary currency of an information society—that is, a society, in which information is designated as the main commodity produced, marketed and consumed—is necessarily attention. And education, which has always sought, however imperfectly, to cultivate a “knowledge society,” has therefore always had attention as it’s primary currency."
If that is true, why has much of our formal education taken place in the classroom setting where the transmission of knowledge primarily flows one way—from teacher to student? Why is a lecture format the preferred method for both secondary and post-secondary schools?
Apparently, I’m not the only one with these questions. In his paper, “Attention – an Information Design Perspective,” Rune Peterson delved into the origins of the lecture. Here is a brief excerpt from that paper:
"Many teachers spend most of their time in the classrooms talking to their classes. It appears that teachers generally teach the way they were taught, following the traditional approach to education, providing prepackaged information to students. No doubt, the lecture method has been the most common method of instruction in western education for centuries. In its early forms, the lecture method was a practised art form, a form of theatrical performance designed to grab and to hold the attention of the students. Until the advent of low-cost books, the lecture method was actually the most economical method of transmitting information. However, modern teachers are usually not selected for their lecturing and theatrical skills."
Having sat through more than one horrendously boring lecture during my undergrad days and when I was working on an MBA, I would agree that a number of professors are not skilled in the fine art of oratory. However, the dullness of a lecture is not just limited to the physical classroom environment. Unfortunately, it can also be transmitted to the online environment where the equivalent of a lecture is pages and pages of dense copy.
There are certainly online cures for this malady, including discussions, group projects, simulations, games and learner-centered projects. However, as I’ve learned in previous courses, implementing these strategies is more difficult than it seems. My quest as both an elearner and one who currently designs live and online professional development opportunities is to learn how to create effective and engaging learning environments. After all, knowledge is boundless, and, I should also say, boundary less.
I’ll keep you posted on my progress!
Betsy
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