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Syllabus for Barrier-free e-learning

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.

 

Barrier-free E-learning

 

Certificate in Accessible Information Technology

Everyone who completes the course will receive an EASI document of completion. This course will also count as one of the 5 courses for the EASI Certificate In accessible Information Technology.

 

Course schedule and Registration

(Registration is $350 with a discount for EASI Annual Members, students and for participants from overseas)

Schedule: 2017 March 6, July 11

register from this link using check, PO or Credit card

 

The course text which is strongly recommended is
Making Online Teaching Accessible written by Norman Coombs

The book can be purchased from Jossey-Bass, Amazon and Barnes & Noble either as a paperback or in e-book formats for the Kindle, Nook or for Adobe Digital Editions. An accessible DAISY version can be obtained from Bookshare.org. Because it is available in electronic format, you can even obtain the text at the last minute. It will be a valuable suppliment to the online course content.

Course Description

Barrier-free E-learning has been significantly updated and also enriched with new multimedia. The course now is based on the realization that course content authors, faculty and instructional designers, are placing that content inside a courseware or learning management system. Most of the Web accessibility issues relate to that interface, and only a few accessibility features are relevant to the actual course content. This makes creating accessible content much simpler. The revisions focus on a limited set of accessibility issues and also stress how to achieve accessibility using familiar software that designers are already using.

University, business and public schools all are adopting one or more forms of online learning technologies for delivering education and training. Online learning is simultaneously praised and roundly condemned. In any case, it is sweeping across America and into other countries. One of the results of the rapidity of this explosive growth is that, until recently, little attention has been paid to making these technologies accessible to people with various disabilities. Modern adaptive computer technology has the potential to provide the most level learning space in history for these students. However, the wrong technology choices may erect new and needless barriers to the full inclusion of these students.

The information in Barrier-free E-learning will be useful for:

This month-long course will be taught by Professor Norman Coombs, a leader in e-learning for more than a decade, winner of Zenith's Master of Innovation award and New York State's CASE Teacher of the Year award in 1990 both for his work in the use of this technology in innovative ways to provide an inclusive educational setting. Coombs estimates that he has taught some 5,000 students in more than 40 countries.

 

Most LMS systems can now be accessed via smart phones and tablets besides from traditional computers. Not enough atten has been given to whether access via these apps provides a full interaction with the LMS for students with disabilities as is experienced from a computer. W are currently exploring this topic and what is learned will be integrated into this course.

Course Lessons

 

 

Week 1: Accessible Online Learning Is a Three-legged Stool

Lesson 1: Introduction to Online Learning

Lesson 2: Online Learning and Students with Disabilities

 

Week 2: Using Tools You Already Use and Know

Lesson 3: Creating Accessible Content With MS Office

Lesson 4: Creating Accessible Content With PowerPoint

Week 3: Going Beyond Authoring with MS Office

 

Lesson 5: Accessible Content for Science Technology and Math

 

Lesson 6: Creating Accessible Content Using Multimedia

Week 4: Pulling It All Together

 

Lesson 7: Putting Content Online and Checking Its Accessibility

Lesson 8: Supporting and Managing Online Accessibility

 

register from this link using check, PO or Credit card