Accessibility

This module introduced me to the critical the role of accessibility in teaching in a blended learning environment. While I am very familiar with working with students with disabilities, designing a course to be accessible requires a higher level of planning. One skill I learned was how to add closed captioning to my video.

One disadvantage that I have right now, is that I am not a practicing teacher or site admin. I work as a director and I am taking this class so that I have a solid understanding of how to support the teachers in our district in creating courses in Canvas LMS. As I mentioned in my last reflection, there is a level of intentionality with planning for accessibility that does not allow for winging it. When I would substitute for instructional aides or teachers as a site admin, I could use many low-tech assistive technology devices like the core word board, similar to Universal Core Communication or Zones of Regulation for behavioral challenges. I knew how to wing it and make learning accessible.

In this assignment, the Screencastify was easy to use. Loom was not working for me in creating the video. It just shows that you can't rely on only one tool or service, but to have options or I would have been frustrated or stuck. I considered using Zoom or Microsoft Teams to record, but those are very familiar to me and I wanted to stretch. The part that was challenging was figuring out how to put in closed captions onto the video for Screencastify. I used the directions provided and typed the text into a .txt in notepad. I do not have a Youtube channel as I do not have social media accounts, so I used the Google Drive option. I got the spinning wheel of death and I was not sure that the changes took. To be sure, I added the word document of the transcript for a just in case. I had someone check for me and they said the captions only pop up when the video is played full screen or perhaps viewing it on an iPhone seems to be the issue. I found this article about how to enable closed captioning on the iPhone for accessibility.

The work in this module increased my knowledge of Domain 4: Technical Skills, Competency 4: Instructional Tools, Standard C. Provide assistive technologies to facilitate learning. The assistive technology I provided was closed captioning of the video transcript.