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Re: Table Directions in educational format

for

From: glen walker
Date: Apr 14, 2020 11:39AM

If I go back several decades into the last millennium, I remember the type
of table you're talking about in my Spanish class. Note that if you posted
an example of what the table looks like, it did not format correctly. The
table was serialized similar to if I use the down arrow with a screen
reader to walk the DOM but the way you described it made sense.

I'm not as familiar with tables in Google Docs but I know in Word Docs I
can mark column headers but cannot mark row headers. If you can provide
your tables in html, that has the best accessibility. You can have both
column and row headers (and header groupings). You weren't asking about
the accessibility of the tables themselves but rather if you had to
describe the format of the table every time, but the accessibility of the
table is also important.

In html, you can describe the table with the <caption> element. See
example 5 in the <caption> spec,
https://www.w3.org/TR/html53/tabular-data.html#example-5a2a7373

Whether you have to describe the layout of the table every time is
debatable. I would think the first couple or so times that the table is
introduced you might want to reinforce how the table is laid out but in
subsequent lessons it might not be needed. But you can always have a
separate document that explains the table layout and the student can refer
back to that document when needed. Having a link to that document in all
subsequent documents might be helpful.


On Tue, Apr 14, 2020 at 8:09 AM Laurie Kamrowski < <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:

> Hi everyone!
>
> My school is creating our own text for our Spanish 101 class, and
> distributing it for free for the students via Google Docs. We are creating
> 15 separate files for each of the 15 weeks of class, and one of the things
> that we are covering is the conjugation of the stem-changing verbs. There
> is a table of sorts that has long been established in teaching Spanish
> called the boot table or the boot verbs.
>
> My concern is over the cognitive accessibility. I am worried that every
> week, if we are using the 'boot table', do I need to include the
> explanation of the table every time that we use it? This is what I am
> referring to:
>
> //begin excerpt. This is the actual explanation text that I have created:
> Stem-Changing Table Explanation
>
> To properly explain these tables, imagine a table, two columns wide and
> three rows deep and it consists of the six variants of each verb. The first
> column, from top to bottom, consists of the ‘I' form, the ‘you' form and
> the ‘active' form. The second column, from top to bottom, consists of the
> ‘we' form, the ‘formal you' form, and the ‘they' form. The table would look
> like this:
>
> Column 1
>
> Column 2
>
> I
>
> We
>
> You
>
> You (Formal)
>
> Active
>
> They
>
> If we were to only select the forms that will change, which is the entire
> first column, and the only the bottom cell of the second column, the
> resulting shape looks like a boot. To clarify, the only forms that change
> stems are ‘I', ‘You', ‘Active', and ‘They'. The stem undergoes the change
> only when stressed.
>
> Column 1
>
> Column 2
>
> I
>
> We
>
> You
>
> You (Formal)
>
> Active
>
> They
>
> //End excerpt
>
> I'm inserting that whole explanation into any file that has the 'boot
> table' in it. It takes an entire page to place it, and I am worried that it
> may just get in the way and cause cognitive overload all by itself if it
> appears in every file.
>
> My possible solutions:
>
> 1. Leave it in every week, regardless.
> 2. Only include it in one week, trusting that the faculty will present it.
> This makes me nervous because while we have an amazingly dedicated Spanish
> professor who is developing this, we have also had adjunct faculty who
> literally presented a blank moodle shell in an online only course (no
> longer works for us, but it still lessened the quality of the education
> that the students enrolled in that class received).
> 3. Compile the entire text into one single file, placing a link to the
> explanation text every time it is called. I would have to have approval
> from the professor to compile it.
>
> Any ideas or input would be greatly appreciated.
>
> Thank you for your time,
>
> Laurie Kamrowski
> She/Her/Hers
> Accessibility Specialist
> Mid Michigan College
> > > > >