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What does accessibility mean to you?<\/strong><\/h4>\n![\"Accessibility](\"https:\/\/emedia.rmit.edu.au\/oedvedesign\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/Accessibility-results.jpg\")
Michael Meehan – Box Hill Institute<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nPanel member, Michael Meehan directed this question to the audience. Whilst the question was simple, it was a clear indicator that accessibility is diverse in its meaning and applications across members of the educational community.<\/p>\n
Michael stated that whilst everyone has different definitions and approaches when it comes to addressing accessibility within education, we need to change our approach and have it in the forefront of our thinking at all times.<\/p>\n
Michael indicated that Box Hill Institute continues to see growth patterns of the number of students identifying with disabilities annually. In 2015, they had 733 students who identified with disabilities and have since had a consistent growth pattern with data in 2018 indicating that 2292 students identifying with disabilities are enrolled at Box Hill Institute.<\/p>\n
With these three-fold growth patterns moving forward, Box Hill Institute have made a commitment to increase their staff ratio of employers to at least 6% of people working with disabilities (2019) with the objective of 12% staff ratio by 2025.<\/p>\n
Michael expressed that accessibility is essential in ensuring equity and inclusion. Whilst Box Hill Institute has a strong commitment to accessibility for all, it\u2019s still increasingly evident that moving forward we need to change our mindset.\u00a0 Michael shared a moving experience he was part of involving a recent student graduation ceremony.<\/p>\n
In a typical student graduation format, students were instructed to line up and enter the stage from the left-hand stage door, walk across the stage collect their graduation certificate from presenter (Michael) and then exit the stage to the right.<\/p>\n
Peter a student in a wheel chair, who was part of the graduation ceremony was positioned on the right hand side of the stage door. As each student entered from the left side of the stage Michael simply read their names from the student\u2019s name badge, presented their certificate and moved onto the next and so on. Peter missed his turn because he was located on the right-hand side of the stage as the event\u2019s team simply located the accessibility ramp in that position and Michael was unaware he was there.<\/p>\n
Michael believes simple things need to change and in Peter\u2019s experience we need to question why the ramp wasn\u2019t positioned on the left-hand stage door with the student cohort for inclusion and accessibility. Accessibility needs to be in our mindset at all times.<\/p>\n
Collaborating with teachers, support services, events teams and speaking directly with end users are future approaches that need to be adopted and be in the forefront of our thinking for real change to happen.<\/p>\n
Most people in education understand that accessibility is essential when designing learning experiences and resources however often there is a gap of dividing the responsibilities. Panel member, Andrew Normand quoted \u201caccessibility takes time and responsibility\u201d and raised three key questions that his team adopts when exploring learning and designing digital spaces with accessibility on the forefront.<\/p>\n
\n- How do we divide responsibilities?<\/li>\n
- How do we identify solutions and think outside the box?<\/li>\n
- What are our sources of support and what can we do to build support?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
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Andrew presented a detailed and formative responsibility checklist that covers important areas that need to be addressed when designing with accessibility in the forefront.<\/p>\n
Integrating translation and accessibility into learning spaces is an ongoing process. Learning designers, trainers and multimedia teams need to continually explore ways of more than just translating materials for readability purposes but consider the learning experience for the end user.<\/p>\n
Andrew raised the point that often translated and accessible versions of resources are produced in limited time frames and focus on the translation process rather than the educational learning experience.<\/p>\n
When addressing accessibility, designers and multimedia teams generally concentrate their focus on the translation aspect when it comes to learning activities and resources and overlook the bare basics of the educational objectives of \u201cWhat does the end user need to learn?\u201d and \u201cWhat are we trying to teach them?\u201d<\/p>\n
Andrew supported this theory by presenting an excellent example of how alt tags can be incorporated to meet learning objectives and implement a teaching voice approach.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/emedia.rmit.edu.au\/oedvedesign\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/alt-text-graph.png\")
Andrew Normand – University of Melbourne<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n![\"Figure](\"https:\/\/emedia.rmit.edu.au\/oedvedesign\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/Alt-text-example.png\")
Andrew Normand – University of Melbourne<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nAndrew believes the educational community has come a long way with accessibility in education, but we still need to address the gaps, build support structures and digital capital to close the technology gap.<\/p>\n
Awareness starts with getting accessibility on the agenda. Sharing stories can play a big impact when creating awareness, stated learning solutions expert Brendan Carter.<\/p>\n
Brendan raised a valid point stating that most educational providers and designers can meet the basic standards and guidelines surrounding accessibility however the focus should be on connection and the end user\u2019s overall learning experience. Inclusive design and user interface such as colour, typography, content and structure all need to be considered, but how does one incorporate accessibility as part of an everyday work flow for the educational community?<\/p>\n
Panel member, Michael Meehan directed this question to the audience. Whilst the question was simple, it was a clear indicator that accessibility is diverse in its meaning and applications across members of the educational community.<\/p>\n
Michael stated that whilst everyone has different definitions and approaches when it comes to addressing accessibility within education, we need to change our approach and have it in the forefront of our thinking at all times.<\/p>\n
Michael indicated that Box Hill Institute continues to see growth patterns of the number of students identifying with disabilities annually. In 2015, they had 733 students who identified with disabilities and have since had a consistent growth pattern with data in 2018 indicating that 2292 students identifying with disabilities are enrolled at Box Hill Institute.<\/p>\n
With these three-fold growth patterns moving forward, Box Hill Institute have made a commitment to increase their staff ratio of employers to at least 6% of people working with disabilities (2019) with the objective of 12% staff ratio by 2025.<\/p>\n
Michael expressed that accessibility is essential in ensuring equity and inclusion. Whilst Box Hill Institute has a strong commitment to accessibility for all, it\u2019s still increasingly evident that moving forward we need to change our mindset.\u00a0 Michael shared a moving experience he was part of involving a recent student graduation ceremony.<\/p>\n
In a typical student graduation format, students were instructed to line up and enter the stage from the left-hand stage door, walk across the stage collect their graduation certificate from presenter (Michael) and then exit the stage to the right.<\/p>\n
Peter a student in a wheel chair, who was part of the graduation ceremony was positioned on the right hand side of the stage door. As each student entered from the left side of the stage Michael simply read their names from the student\u2019s name badge, presented their certificate and moved onto the next and so on. Peter missed his turn because he was located on the right-hand side of the stage as the event\u2019s team simply located the accessibility ramp in that position and Michael was unaware he was there.<\/p>\n
Michael believes simple things need to change and in Peter\u2019s experience we need to question why the ramp wasn\u2019t positioned on the left-hand stage door with the student cohort for inclusion and accessibility. Accessibility needs to be in our mindset at all times.<\/p>\n
Collaborating with teachers, support services, events teams and speaking directly with end users are future approaches that need to be adopted and be in the forefront of our thinking for real change to happen.<\/p>\n
Most people in education understand that accessibility is essential when designing learning experiences and resources however often there is a gap of dividing the responsibilities. Panel member, Andrew Normand quoted \u201caccessibility takes time and responsibility\u201d and raised three key questions that his team adopts when exploring learning and designing digital spaces with accessibility on the forefront.<\/p>\n
- \n
- How do we divide responsibilities?<\/li>\n
- How do we identify solutions and think outside the box?<\/li>\n
- What are our sources of support and what can we do to build support?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Andrew presented a detailed and formative responsibility checklist that covers important areas that need to be addressed when designing with accessibility in the forefront.<\/p>\n
Integrating translation and accessibility into learning spaces is an ongoing process. Learning designers, trainers and multimedia teams need to continually explore ways of more than just translating materials for readability purposes but consider the learning experience for the end user.<\/p>\n
Andrew raised the point that often translated and accessible versions of resources are produced in limited time frames and focus on the translation process rather than the educational learning experience.<\/p>\n
When addressing accessibility, designers and multimedia teams generally concentrate their focus on the translation aspect when it comes to learning activities and resources and overlook the bare basics of the educational objectives of \u201cWhat does the end user need to learn?\u201d and \u201cWhat are we trying to teach them?\u201d<\/p>\n
Andrew supported this theory by presenting an excellent example of how alt tags can be incorporated to meet learning objectives and implement a teaching voice approach.<\/p>\n
Andrew Normand – University of Melbourne<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n Andrew Normand – University of Melbourne<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n Andrew believes the educational community has come a long way with accessibility in education, but we still need to address the gaps, build support structures and digital capital to close the technology gap.<\/p>\n
Awareness starts with getting accessibility on the agenda. Sharing stories can play a big impact when creating awareness, stated learning solutions expert Brendan Carter.<\/p>\n
Brendan raised a valid point stating that most educational providers and designers can meet the basic standards and guidelines surrounding accessibility however the focus should be on connection and the end user\u2019s overall learning experience. Inclusive design and user interface such as colour, typography, content and structure all need to be considered, but how does one incorporate accessibility as part of an everyday work flow for the educational community?<\/p>\n
![\"DAT](\"https:\/\/emedia.rmit.edu.au\/oedvedesign\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/DAT-image.png\")
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