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EASI: Equal Access to Software and Information homepage

EQUAL ACCESS TO SOFTWARE & INFORMATION

PEOPLE NOT TECHNOLOGY
EASI is a non-profit organization, committed to the belief that students and professionals with disabilities have the same right to access information technology as everyone else.

EASI Annual Members use this link for member Webinar information and free registration to member Webinars

Webinars listed by month

April Webinars in 2017

Webinars in May 2017

June Webinars in 2017


What Are EASI Webinars and How Do They Work?

EASI is producing 2 strands of Interactive Webinars on specific accessibility-related topics designed to enable organizations to make their information technology systems fully accessible. One strand consists of single Webinars that are free and open to the public; the other strand consists of groups of 2-4 related Webinars providing state-of-the-art skills and strategies for EASI Annual Webinar Members. Non-members can participate in these member series by paying a registration for a particular group of Webinars. The non-member registration for a 2-part Webinar series is $100 and the non-member fee for the 4-part series is $190. EASI is looking for sponsorships to enable it to provide live captioning for all member series Webinars. Meantime, all the webinar series will be transcribed and the transcription will be posted afterwards with the webinar's archive.

The cost of an individual membership provides a considerable saving over purchasing individual Webinar series. It also provides access to the Webinar archive and a discount on all courses.

EASI is pleased to host Webinar presenters from across the US as well as several other countries. As usual, some presenters are, themselves, adaptive technology users, and others are professionals supporting adaptive technology. Webinars use conference systems that facilitate hosting an accessible event.

Join the EASI E-mail Announcement Listserv to Keep UP on What's Webinars are Next!

What equipment do I need to participate?

You will need working speakers so you can hear the presenter. The room has both text and voice chat. (A microphone is optional). A PC running Windows is the best operating system, but a Mac can access the system. Internet Explorer is the best browser, but others should also work.

We strongly urge you, if this is your first EASI Webinar, to come early to the presentation to iron out unforeseen problems. (The conference room is normally locked, and it is usually opened 45-60 minutes before the event.)


Dick Banks Memorial Scholarship for EASI Webinars and Courses

This scholarship provides people who are unable to procure other financing, with registrations to either the fee-based Webinar series or to EASI online courses. While EASI relies on fees to support our work, nevertheless, we want to share these resources as broadly as possible.

Read about and apply for the Dick Banks Memorial Scholarship

EASI Annual Webinar Membership Program

EASI has 2 membership programs: one for individuals and another for institutions. These annual memberships provide free access to all the fee-based Webinars for a full year, free access to an archive of selected Webinar recordings from several previous years and a discount to all the EASI courses. The institutional membership provides these same benefits to as many people from that institution as are interested. The cost for an individual is $450 and for an institution is $1,500.

At a time when budgets are being cut for training and for travel to conferences, these memberships can fill the training void. EASI strives to keep up on state-of-the-art accessible technologies and the best current practices in supporting accessible information technology.

Besides the benefits of membership for yourself, be aware that you are helping support EASI's free activities providing free Webinars, attending conferencing and maintaining its daily activities.

Read about and register online for the annual membership program

For those who take advantage of the free Webinars, we are thankful to be able to support you. When you attend a genuinely useful webinar, please consider using one of the buttons below to make a donation in appreciation of the information provided. When the Paypal page appears, do not log in! Rather select the button to pay by debit or credit card. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Use this Paypal button to donate $25 PayPal - The safer, easier way to pay online! Use this Paypal button to donate $50 PayPal - The safer, easier way to pay online! --------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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Webinars in April

Free EASI Webinar: Free and Low-Cost Reading Tools for the Common Man

Presenter: Susan Kelmer, Alternate Format Production Program Manager at the University of Colorado Boulder

Thursday April 6

11 Pacific, noon Mountain, 1 Central and 2 Eastern (all daylight saving times)

You don’t need a reading disability to benefit from text-to-speech or other helpful tools that work with technology we already use. Beyond Siri, Cortana, and Google Assistant, what other tools exist that may help you get through reading materials more quickly and with less distraction? And if you're a person with a reading disability but no budget for the Big Boys of reading programs, what tools are out there that can help, for free or no cost?

register for Kelmer's webinar

Accessibility of LMS: Content, Creation and Delivery (a 4-part webinar series)

Thursdays April 20, 27, May 4 and 11

Times: 11 Pacific, noon Mountain, 1 Central and 2 Eastern

Series moderators: Hadi Rangin from the University of Washington and Norm Coombs from EASI

Canvas Thursday April 20

Desire2Learn Thursday April 27

Blackboard Thursday May 4

Moodle Thursday May 11

While we all recognize the need to make Learning Management Systems accessible for students with disabilities as required by federal and state legislation, it is equally important to make them accessible for both staff and faculty with disabilities. Course content is usually created by content experts who may know very little about designing their content to be accessible and who become overwhelmed with this new obligation. Learning Management Systems must find ways to help these faculty. Presenters will talk both about the accessibility features in their system and share what is being done to help non-technical faculty create accessible content. Besidesides making PDF, Word and HTML documents accessible, Faculty will need tools to assist them in providing captions for videos, transcriptions for audio and video description of video action.

How to register for this webinar series

People can either register for all 4 webinars for $195) or select 2 webinars and register for $100. A limited number of scholarships are also available. EASI Annual Webinar Members can register free using their membership.

Register for the EASI 4-part Web Conference series at the link below:

Use this link to register for the EASI 4-part Web Conference Series starting on April 20

Register for 2 parts of the EASI 4-part Web Conference series at the link below:

Use this link to register for 2 parts EASI Web Conference Series starting on April 20

EASI will contact you to clarify which 2 webinars you want to attend.

Read about and apply for the scholarship

EASI Annual Members go to the member-only page for the free registration

EASI Free Webinar: Creating Audio Descriptions for Videos

Presenter Susanne Mistrick Wade Community College NC

Mon. April 24 at noon Pacific, 1 Mountain, 2 Central and 3 Eastern

NOTE!! This is on Monday and the time is an hour later than usual!

SORRY! the registration for tomorrow is closed!

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Webinars in May

Accessibility of STEM courses

We are consulting with leaders in the accessibility of courses in math and the sciences. Our goal is to have this series finalized before the end of April.

Topics that wwill be covered will include authoring accessible math content, reading math and learning how to read tactile graphics.

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Webinars in June

Future Webinars being planned

Creating Columns and Tables in Word and Powerpoint: a 2-part series

A multipart series on the accessibility of Google dox, Google sheets and Google presentations

We are not sure whether this will be a 2-part or 4-part series.

EASI 4-part, Webinar Series: Alt-media Creation and Production

Tentative content to be covered:

We are also organizing several single, free Webinars:

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The TC Conference system has an improved client for the Mac.