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From: Laurie Kamrowski
Date: Thu, Aug 13 2020 3:55PM
Subject: What three aspects of accessibility in an educational setting do you consider to be most helpful?
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Hi everyone!

I am doing a welcome back Zoom session for our faculty, and I was asked to
cover the three most helpful aspects of accessibility in an educational
setting.

This is like trying to pick my favorite child. I have no idea where to
start. I am thinking that uniformity would be a good thing to help with
cognitive disabilities, but I really can't differentiate.

I mean, I was also thinking that we could demonstrate how screen reader
software can help even sighted users so that anyone can study without
having to be chained to their computers - mostly as a way to make it not as
scary to people who aren't familiar with accessible tech?

I don't know if this helps paint a picture, but we are currently
receiving a little pushback from faculty about accessibility, someone told
some of them that accessibility has been suspended since Covid hit, and
although I have confirmed with the DOE that this is 100% false, its a bit
of an uphill battle.

Any input would be so seriously appreciated. Thank you so much!

Laurie Kamrowski
She/Her/Hers
Accessibility Specialist
Mid Michigan College

From: Mallory
Date: Fri, Aug 14 2020 6:17AM
Subject: Re: What three aspects of accessibility in an educational setting do you consider to be most helpful?
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I'm not sure I can help you with the 3 bestus thingies, because I dunno if you want to
- hit the largest number of physically disabled users (if so, keyboard accessibility (motor), captions (hearing) and sufficient contrast (low vision) are the three, tho I always add zoomability to the contrast)
- focus on code (then screen readers are a good one, plus keyboard and naming controls (button names) and images (alts))
- focus on coga (possibly a larger group than mobility impairments and hearing, so this would be your reading level, consistency and robustness in finding/understanding content)

But I did want to send along a thread I found on twitter which has a frustrated teacher and in the replies are several other frustrated teachers, specifically about captions. They're held responsible for them but are not given the time, techniques, equipment or training to do them.
https://twitter.com/professor_dave/status/1284120758432813056
(again, this is a thread, so several messages tagged together by the author but also various replies)

I think if you can add in a feedback time chunk to the call where faculty can express where they're confused or frustrated regarding accessibility, you can catch things early-- maybe there are solutions for a problem someone is running into that they're unaware of, or maybe there's a faculty need that the school's not aware of. I think many people will really appreciate it and may help this year be a success.

cheers,
_mallory

On Thu, Aug 13, 2020, at 11:55 PM, Laurie Kamrowski wrote:
> Hi everyone!
>
> I am doing a welcome back Zoom session for our faculty, and I was asked to
> cover the three most helpful aspects of accessibility in an educational
> setting.
>
> This is like trying to pick my favorite child. I have no idea where to
> start. I am thinking that uniformity would be a good thing to help with
> cognitive disabilities, but I really can't differentiate.
>
> I mean, I was also thinking that we could demonstrate how screen reader
> software can help even sighted users so that anyone can study without
> having to be chained to their computers - mostly as a way to make it not as
> scary to people who aren't familiar with accessible tech?
>
> I don't know if this helps paint a picture, but we are currently
> receiving a little pushback from faculty about accessibility, someone told
> some of them that accessibility has been suspended since Covid hit, and
> although I have confirmed with the DOE that this is 100% false, its a bit
> of an uphill battle.
>
> Any input would be so seriously appreciated. Thank you so much!
>
> Laurie Kamrowski
> She/Her/Hers
> Accessibility Specialist
> Mid Michigan College
> > > > >

From: Laura Fathauer
Date: Fri, Aug 14 2020 7:19AM
Subject: Re: What three aspects of accessibility in an educational setting do you consider to be most helpful?
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It seems you have two things you can highlight:
1. Accessibility is still required and even more important with the
increase in technology-mediated environments.
2. the adage that accessibility is "necessary for some, helpful for all."

If I were to put in a third for faculty, I might put in there that if
they can learn chicago and APA formatting, they can learn
accessibility. Some of the content basics would probably just be
slight modifications to their current document creation process- e.g.
using styles in word.

Laura

On Thu, Aug 13, 2020 at 5:55 PM Laurie Kamrowski < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:
>
> Hi everyone!
>
> I am doing a welcome back Zoom session for our faculty, and I was asked to
> cover the three most helpful aspects of accessibility in an educational
> setting.
>
> This is like trying to pick my favorite child. I have no idea where to
> start. I am thinking that uniformity would be a good thing to help with
> cognitive disabilities, but I really can't differentiate.
>
> I mean, I was also thinking that we could demonstrate how screen reader
> software can help even sighted users so that anyone can study without
> having to be chained to their computers - mostly as a way to make it not as
> scary to people who aren't familiar with accessible tech?
>
> I don't know if this helps paint a picture, but we are currently
> receiving a little pushback from faculty about accessibility, someone told
> some of them that accessibility has been suspended since Covid hit, and
> although I have confirmed with the DOE that this is 100% false, its a bit
> of an uphill battle.
>
> Any input would be so seriously appreciated. Thank you so much!
>
> Laurie Kamrowski
> She/Her/Hers
> Accessibility Specialist
> Mid Michigan College
> > > >