Designing for accessibility is not just a best practice; it is also a legal requirement. How can we ensure accessibility in digital environments by adhering to standards like the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) and Universal Design for Learning (UDL)?

Illustrations by Storyset

The principle of accessibility highlights the importance of creating inclusive educational experiences for all learners.

Ethical Imperative:

• Inclusion: Accessibility is fundamental to inclusion. Everyone, regardless of disability, has the right to access and participate in education. Excluding individuals with disabilities is a form of discrimination.

• Equity: Accessibility promotes equity by leveling the playing field, providing learners with disabilities the same opportunities to succeed. It addresses systemic barriers that have historically marginalized them.

• Dignity and Autonomy: Accessible design respects the dignity and autonomy of individuals with disabilities, empowering them to learn independently and participate fully. It avoids patronizing or limiting approaches.

• Social Justice: Accessibility is a social justice issue. Denying access to education perpetuates inequality and limits the potential of individuals with disabilities.

Legal Requirements:

• Legislation: Many countries have laws mandating accessibility in digital spaces, particularly education (e.g., ADA in the US, AODA in Canada, Equality Act in the UK).

• Compliance: Organizations failing to comply face legal action, fines, and reputational damage. Understanding and adhering to relevant legal requirements is crucial.

• Standards: Accessibility laws often reference standards like WCAG as the benchmark for compliance. Implementing these standards is essential.

By diving into this activity, you’ll get some hands-on experience in distinguishing the digital design elements that contribute to a fair and inclusive learning environment for all students. 

Practice:

1. Choose a Web Page: Select one from your teaching material, or from a public website, or one that you design or plan to use in your teaching. This could be a web page with texts and illustrations, containing digital document, video, or a graphic illustration.

2. Analise the elements of the web page that can constitute potential barriers for learners with different abilities:

   • Visual:

     • Are images accompanied by meaningful alternative text (alt text)?

     • Is there sufficient color contrast between text and background?

     • Are videos and other visual content described or transcribed?

   • Auditory:

     • Are videos and audio content captioned or transcribed?

     • Are transcripts provided for audio recordings?

     • Is there a visual equivalent for important audio information?

   • Motor:

     • Are interactive elements easy to use and manipulate?

     • Is there sufficient time allotted for completing tasks?

   • Cognitive:

     • Is the content organized logically and presented clearly?

     • Is the navigation intuitive and easy to follow?

     • Are instructions clear and concise?

     • Is there a consistent layout and design?

3. Write a brief evaluation summary, add your recommendations to improve the accessibility of the chosen web-page.

Resources

• Tools for Evaluating Web Content Accessibility (Blog post)

• Web accessibility Checker tools (Blog post)

• Open Resources: Improving Access for Everyone (blog post)

• Diverse and Inclusive Representation in OER (article)

• Accessible Online Course Checklist

•  Accessible Academic Delivery page

• UDL at a glance (video, duration 4:37 min)

• Accessibility when designing online and hybrid courses (University of Michigan, Articles)

• Colour Contrast Analyser (CCA) – TPGi

• WebAIM: Contrast Checker

• WhoCanUse this color combination?

• Colorblind Web Page Filter Testing Tool & Simulator | Toptal®

How do the affordances and constraints of digital learning spaces impact learners physically and mentally? What strategies can both educators and students implement to make online learning healthier and happier for all?

Illustrations by Storyset

Wellbeing in Digital Environments

A dynamic inner balance of contentment, engagement, and enthusiasm constitutes our wellbeing. It encompasses physical health (movement), mental health (cognition), social connections (relationships), and emotional balance (stress management).

Digital technologies shape our lives, but the ways they change our behaviors and interactions can sometimes make it hard for us to feel happy, engaged, and excited.

Excessive digital stimulation and exposure to hectic designs can negatively impact our wellbeing, leading to attention fatigue, visual overload, reduced physical activity, social isolation, and mental health concerns like anxiety and stress. Additionally, prolonged isolation from real-world interactions can cause psychological harm, contributing to feelings of loneliness, social confusion and other mental health issues.

Wellbeing strategies in balancing digital and non-digital experiences:

1. Screen Time: Track the amount of time you spend on various digital devices daily. How your screen time is balanced with non-digital activities? Consider both productive and leisure activities.
   
   

2. Purpose of Use: Identify the primary reasons for your digital usage (e.g., work, social media, entertainment, education). Reflect on how these activities stimulate your brain and whether they include or deprive you from physical movement.
   
   

3. Social Interactions: Compare the time spent on digital interactions versus in-person interactions. Reflect on the quality and depth of these interactions and how they contribute to your mental and physical wellbeing.
   
   

4. Physical Activity: Evaluate how your digital habits affect your physical activity levels. Are you having enough exercise to stimulate your brain and body oxygen supply, which is crucial for human health and wellbeing? Consider activities like walking, stretching, or any form of exercise that keeps you active.
   
   

5. Sleep Patterns: Consider how your digital usage, especially before bedtime, impacts your sleep quality and duration.  Reflect on whether your digital habits are conducive to a restful sleep, which is crucial for brain health.
   
   

6. Emotional Wellbeing: Reflect on how digital interactions influence your mood and mental health. Do you feel more connected or isolated during the time you routinely spend in digital spaces?
   
   

7. Productivity: Analyze how digital tools and habits affect your productivity. Which of these helping you achieve your goals and which are causing distractions? Consider using regular breaks for physical activity, and pay attention how this boosts your focus and productivity.
   
   

8. Content Consumption: Review the types of content you consume online. Which of these contents are enriching emotionally and cognitively, and which contribute to stress and anxiety? Pay attention to how balanced your choices are between stimulating and challenging activities and relaxing and entertaining ones.
   
   

9. Real-world Engagement: Assess how your digital habits impact your real-world activities and experiences. Are you missing out on important moments? Make time for physical activities and exercises that enhance your real-world interactions and overall wellbeing. 

Now, let’s put these concepts into practice! By completing this activity, you will gain insights into how improve your well-being via paying attention to your digital habits.

Reflecting on Your Digital Habits

1. Self-Assessment: Reflect on your own digital habits, particularly in the context of learning. Indicate what types of digital content you routinely consume, and how much time you spend engaging in digital activities. Do you notice any patterns that might be impacting your well-being?

2. Identify Challenges: Do you experience distractions, information overload, or feelings of isolation? Consider how the characteristics of the digital tools and environments you engage with contribute to these feelings and experiences. What kind of stimulation does each provide? How do the features of these digital tools, combined with your habitual use of them, contribute to overloading your perceptual faculties, potentially leading to mental imbalance?

3. Mindfulness and Strategies: What strategies do you currently use (or plan to implement) to balance your digital consumption with your well-being? This could include setting time limits, taking offline breaks, practicing mindfulness.

4. Write and share your experiences and observations with peers. Add your message as a comment to this page.

Resources

Four Tips for a Successful Digital Detox  Stanford.edu Greater Good Project

Digital Pedagogy Toolbox: Cultivating Digital Well-Being – From Fatigue to Healthy Daily Practices (blog post) for some of the reasons for and ways to deal with digital fatigue.

Digital Wellbeing for You, Your Colleagues and Students: Briefing Paper for Practitioners defines digital wellbeing, looks at different aspects of it, and offers a list of positive actions individuals can take to support it.

TRU Digital Detox, designed to help students and instructors think about technology and how it intersects with learning and teaching in new and more complex ways.

John Medina (2008) Brain Rules (watch a brief video presentation of the book's ideas. Video duration - 3:28)

The book presents 12 principles for optimizing brain function, based on scientific research. this video provides examples to illustrate how physical activity boosts brain power.

In this video illustration John Medina emphasizes the profound impact of physical exercise on cognitive function. He explains that regular physical activity increases the production of Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor (BDNF), a protein that enhances learning and memory. Medina contrasts the sedentary lifestyles of modern humans with the active ones of our ancestors, who walked or ran as many as 12 miles a day. This evolutionary perspective highlights the brain’s need for movement to function optimally. The video illustrates practical ways to incorporate exercise into daily routines, such as walking meetings and treadmill desks, arguing that exercise not only benefits physical health but also boosts creativity, productivity, and overall brain power

While there are many different ways to learn, the community-based learning approach taps into the knowledge and wisdom within the community. It brings together groups of people with diverse perspectives, practices, and experiences to achieve a common goal,  promote civic engagement, and address local issues in meaningful ways. This challenge invites you to consider how this approach can be implemented in digital environments.

People illustrations by Storyset

Benefits of Community-Based Learning

• Engages Different Learners: Suitable for various learning styles by engaging different senses.

• Builds Relationships: Focuses on interactions and relationships, unlike solitary traditional learning.

• Accesses Diverse Knowledge: Opens up knowledge beyond textbooks, including undervalued types.

• Diverse Teachers: Learn from practitioners, not just traditional teachers.

• Fits Socialization: Encourages relationship-building, countering the solitary nature of traditional learning.

• Unlimited Potential: Leverages technology to connect with global communities.

Challenges of Community-Based Learning

• Meeting Learning Objectives: Flexibility in objectives is key; let learning flow naturally.

• Finding the Right Community: Access is broad, but finding the perfect fit takes time.

• Extra Effort: Building relationships and identifying opportunities requires more work from traditional teachers.

• Stepping Out of Comfort Zones: The best learning often happens outside your comfort zone, which can be challenging initially.

Examples: Six Ideas for implementing a community-based learning approach in digital spaces.

1. Study Groups: Form small groups of learners who meet regularly to discuss course material, share insights, and support each other’s learning. This fosters collaboration and deeper understanding of the subject matter.

2. Online Discussion Forums: Create an online platform where members can post questions, share resources, and engage in discussions. This allows for continuous learning and interaction, even outside of formal meetings.

3. Guest Speaker Series: Invite experts from various fields to give talks or workshops. This exposes the community to diverse perspectives and real-world applications of their learning.

4. Project-Based Learning: Encourage members to work on collaborative projects that address real-world problems. This hands-on approach helps to apply theoretical knowledge and develop practical skills.

5. Peer Mentorship Programs: Pair experienced members with newcomers to provide guidance, support, and encouragement. This helps to build a supportive network and facilitates knowledge transfer.

6. Community Events and Socials: Organize events such as book clubs, movie nights, or cultural celebrations. These activities help to build relationships and create a sense of belonging within the community.

By completing this task, you will gain insights into how community-based learning can be effectively implemented in digital environments and learn from the experiences of your peers.

Instructions:

1. Identify a Digital Community: Choose an online community relevant to your interests or field of study. This could be a forum, social media group, online course community, or any other digital space where people gather to share knowledge and experiences.

2. Engage with the Community:

   • Participate in discussions, ask questions, and share your insights.

   • Observe how community members interact, support each other, and collaborate on projects.

3. Reflect on Your Experience:

   • Consider how the digital community fosters learning and civic engagement.

   • Reflect on the diverse perspectives and practices you encountered.

   • Think about how this digital community addresses local or global issues.

4. Document Your Observations:

   • Write a brief summary of your observations and experiences with the community.

5. Share with Peers: provide feedback to your peers. 

Resources

• • An example of how OER ties into Indigenous community learning through the TK Labels project

  • The Handbook of Experiential Pedagogies

• • Indigenous OERs: Sovereignty and Tradition: Indigenous Knowledge and Open Educational Resources

• • Review the Community-Based Learning Lesson Plan. Choose one of the four options in the lesson plan to spark conversations at your next class, meeting, or presentation. Try out the activity in a space where it’s safe to fail, and see if it works.

• • Check out additional digital tools listed on the B.C. Digital Literacy repository’s Community-Based Learning page that you would consider testing

How can we create effective learning in digital spaces? What are the best design practices that address learners’ needs and leverage digital capabilities to foster critical thinking and problem-solving skills?

Education illustrations by Storyset

Understanding by Design (UbD) is a student-centered design strategy that starts with formulating the end goals or learning objectives and proceeds through developing learning experiences that will achieve those goals.

Start with the end in mind. First identify the desired learning outcomes and then plan the curriculum and assessments to achieve those outcomes. It involves three steps:

• Formulate learning objectives: What students should know and be able to do after completing the learning exercises you have designed.

• Determine Acceptable Evidence: How students will demonstrate their newly acquired skills and how their learning will be assessed. Use appropriate verbs to specify only demonstrable skills that are to be evaluated.

• Plan Learning Experiences and Design Instruction: Design learning activities (presentations, knowledge checks, discussions, practical exercises, feedback/assessments) aligned with each learning objectives that will lead to achieving the planned results.

Digital environment requires that learning object be accessible online. Thus, the fourth step:

Implement Digital Learning: Publish learning materials for online access. Ensure intuitive navigation by structuring content according to clear headings, logical sequences, and easy-to-follow links. Additionally, ensure accessibility of digital formats by adhering to UDL (Universal Design for Learning) and WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines) standards.

Practice:

Design a digital learning object. This can be your own creation or a reused digital object – an interactive quiz or a timeline (using H5P), an educational video (posted on Vimeo or Youtube), a presentation (using Google Slides), an Infographic or a picture.

1. Define the purpose: one clear, concise learning objective.

2. Know Your Audience: briefly describe who are the learners, including their skills, and needs.

3. Design a digital learning object that directly addresses your learning objective. Describe what learners will be doing to complete the learning activity and achieve the objective. Plan feedback: explain how learners will know how well they achieved the learning objective.

4. Acknowledge authorship: copy the type of license from the objects you reused. For your creations, consider using Creative Commons license with attributions. Make your object accessible (use ALT descriptions for graphic, subtitles for video).

5. Publish for online access (use publicly accessible sites as WordPress or Google Suite – Classroom, Docs, Blogs).

6. Share your description with the URL to where your object is posted or an image as an attachment. Add your message as a comment on this page.

Resources:

• Jay McTighe, Grant Wiggins (2014) Understanding by Design ® Framework

• Writing Learning Objectives. AAMS 2016    https://www.aamc.org/system/files?file=2019-07/learning-objectives.pdf

• CAST | UDL Tips for Developing Learning Goals

• Example: cast-_-key-questions-to-consider-when-planning-lessons.pdf

• A set of posters on how to design for accessibility (UK Home office GitHub)

The internet is full of information, but how can we tell what’s true and what’s not? What strategies can help us spot credible content versus ads, opinions, and misinformation? How can we practice these skills online to make better decisions?

Explore and Reflect:

Begin by watching the COR* episode on lateral reading to consider different strategies for selecting relevant and fact-based search results.

* Civic Online Reasoning lessons, assessments and videos (3:47:00)

What is information literacy?

An ability to evaluate the information from various digital sources, to judge its accuracy and to determine whether the information comes from a reliable and trusted source is critical for Digital Literacy. This skill is very important in our digital world, where anyone can publish any content online, making information so widespread and readily available.

Consider adopting the following information literacy practices, employing the SIFT method for evaluating digital information:

• Stop: Before diving into the content, take a moment to pause and consider your approach. Resist the urge to immediately accept or reject the information. Ask yourself: What website am I on? What do I know about this site or its author? What is the purpose of this information – to inform, persuade, sell, or something else? This initial pause is crucial for preventing impulsive reactions and setting the stage for more critical evaluation.

• Investigate the Source: Go beyond the surface level of the information. Don't just look at the specific article or post; investigate the source itself. Is it a well-known and respected organization? Does it have a clear history and mission? Look for an "About Us" page, check the author's credentials, and see if the site has contact information. Be wary of sites that lack transparency or seem designed to promote a specific agenda without disclosing their bias. If the source seems suspicious or unreliable, the information it presents should be treated with extreme caution.

• Find Trusted Coverage: Look for what other trusted sources say about the information and the original source. Does reputable news media cover the same story? Do fact-checking websites address the claims being made? If multiple trusted sources corroborate the information, it's more likely to be accurate. Conversely, if no reputable sources mention it, or if fact-checkers debunk it, that's a strong indication the information is unreliable. This step helps to contextualize the information and identify potential biases.

• Trace Claims to the Original Source: Many pieces of information are shared and re-shared online, often without clear attribution. It's important to trace claims back to their original source. This can be challenging, but it's essential for verifying accuracy and understanding the context. Look for links, citations, or references that lead back to the primary source of the information. If the original source is unclear or unavailable, the claim should be viewed with skepticism. By tracing claims, you can avoid being misled by misinformation or distorted narratives.

Evaluate a digital source and share your observations.

1. Select a digital source: Choose any article, website, video, or other online content relevant to your field of study or interest.

2. Evaluate using the SIFT method:

   • Stop: Pause and consider the source before accepting the information.

   • Investigate the Source: Quickly check the author, institution, or website to understand their credibility.

   • Find Coverage and Trace: Look for other sources that cover the same topic to see if the information is corroborated.

   • Trace Claims: Follow up on claims, quotes, and media to their original context to ensure they are accurately represented.

   • Compare Multiple Sources: Open multiple tabs and compare the information across different sources to identify any discrepancies or commonalities.

3. Share: Write a brief evaluation of your source and submit it with the URL of your source using the form below. 

Resources

Civic Online Reasoning lessons, assessments and videos. (Create a free account to access)

Basics of Evaluating Online Sources (enroll in a 1-Module Course)

Civic Online Reasoning (enroll in a 3-Module Course)

• Module 1: Search Like a Fact Checker with Lateral Reading

• Module 2: Verifying Claims on Social Media and Click Restraint

• Module 3: Evaluating Different Types of Online Sources

Here are some websites that specialize in uncovering recent fakes and misinformation, these resources can help you stay informed and verify the credibility of the information you encounter:

• FactCheck.org: is dedicated to fact-checking and debunking false claims across various topics, including politics, health, and viral social media posts.

• Snopes.com: is a well-known fact-checking website that investigates rumors, myths, and misinformation circulating online.

• PolitiFact: focuses on fact-checking statements made by politicians and public figures, providing a “Truth-O-Meter” rating to indicate the accuracy of the claims.

• News Guard Tech works with technology platforms, news aggregators, internet service providers, advertising companies, major brands, educational institutions, governments, and researchers to help them spot misinformation and give them more context for the news.

These resources can help you identify and understand the nature of false and fake publications.

• Fake papers are contaminating the world’s scientific literature, fueling a corrupt industry and slowing legitimate lifesaving medical research

• Notice how much effort it takes to uncover misinformation 50 Examples of Fake News in 2024 - Just Facts Daily

• List of fake news websites - Wikipedia