Accessibility Refresh

Remove Barriers with Improved Accessibility

An accessible course is one where students can learn without experiencing barriers related to visual, auditory, ambulatory, or cognitive disabilities. It also allows for students from different linguistic, socio-economic, and cultural backgrounds to learn and engage with peers and faculty. The great thing is that there are tools to help you make your course more accessible and help students learn.

Student Experience: Ally

Ally in Blackboard has both a student facing and a faculty facing component. On the student side, Ally lets students download Alternative Formats for course content. Alternative formats include MP3 Audio, ePub, and world language translation.

Student Experience: ReadSpeaker

ReadSpeaker is a learning aid that can read everything from files added in Blackboard to small bits of text in discussion posts or assignment instructions.

Ally for Faculty

Ally provides guidance on the accessibility of course content, with step by step instructions for making improvements. Faculty can interact with the guidance ether through the Instructor Feedback Panel for one piece of content at a time, or as an overview through the Course Accessibility Report.

Grackle in Google

Grackle checks Google Docs, Slides, and Sheets for accessibility. It is available to all students, faculty, and staff at STCC. See how to launch Grackle. You can use your own Google Documents or Use the Template of a practice syllabus.

At a Glance

Now that you have had an overview of Ally, ReadSpeaker, and Grackle, remember to tell your students. You can add any of the above videos to your courses and share the comparison chart. As you develop and update your courses use the Ally Instructor Feedback or the Accessibility Report to continue removing barriers!

Accessibility Tool Quick Comparison

Link to an amazingly awesome Accessibility Refresh Google Form

Faculty can review the content, respond to prompts, ask questions, and participate in activities. Responses will be sent to the Center for Online & Digital Learning (CODL) and the faculty member themselves.

This page is part of a dedicated series of learning opportunities and dedicated work time to get a head start on your spring 2023 courses. For a list of all this current semester's sessions, visit the Spring into Spring Course Preparation Series page.

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