The CMALT Guidelines state that:

"Statements about your involvement in supporting the deployment of learning technology might relate to providing technical and/or pedagogic support to teachers or learners, advising on [...] technical and usability issues, developing strategies or policies, managing change, providing training or other forms of professional development, securing or deploying dedicated funding and so on, all within the context of the educational use of learning technology."

Exploring accessibility for this portfolio has been quite a revelation for me, and has really helped me improve my practice (see Core Area 3a). Conversations with colleagues showed that other teaching staff are also concerned about accessibility too, but aren’t really sure what to do. I certainly wasn’t before starting this portfolio! It seems clear that a lot of support is needed in this area. However, from my experience coordinating tutors at the International Pathway College (IPC) and working in my current department, a lot of teachers aren’t very technically confident, and so generally don’t attend the quite technically-focused Programme Design & Learning Technology (PDLT) training sessions. Because of this, I considered how I could share what I’ve learnt about accessibility to support teaching staff in a less technically-focused way to help teaching staff build confidence and basic skills.

To explore what support might be useful to help teaching staff create inclusive resources, I gauged current practice and desired training through a survey. This was completed by 12 teaching staff from the Learning Enhancement (LE) team, the IPC and Language & Linguistics; although this is a small sample, it gave some insights into the needs of teaching staff.

Implications of the findings

These findings confirmed what previous informal feedback had suggested; teaching staff have a desire to create inclusive materials, but don’t feel confident to do so. To support teachers, the areas that I think it's important to focus on in introductory inclusivity training are:

• the benefits of proactive, inclusive design compared to reactive adaptations for specific barriers.
• raising awareness of the needs of a diverse range of students, particularly those with SpLDs.
• introducing simple, effective strategies, and the technical skills to implement them.
• highlighting that inclusive design isn’t necessarily time-consuming or technically complex.

In terms of legislation, the most relevant WCAG 2.0 standards for teaching staff are those relating to making sure content is perceivable and understandable (see Core Area 3a).

The priority areas above were chosen to have a high impact, but with a low access point; I think it’s really important to get tutors on board and show how simple inclusivity can be. The aim isn’t to turn everyone into experts, but to give an ‘a ha!’ moment that helps them think about inclusivity more, and see that they can make useful adaptations without being a technical specialist.

Evidence:

• 1c_Creating accessible materials survey

Original proposal based on needs analysis

Based on the key areas identified in the needs analysis above, I developed a workshop proposal for TELFest 2019 with the title ‘Creating inclusive learning materials: simple but effective strategies’. The aims were developed from the survey findings:

• to raise awareness of inclusive design principles.
• to raise awareness of barriers that students may face in accessing digital materials and identify strategies to avoid them.
• to practice the technical skills to implement these strategies.

To meet these aims I included discussion for participants to share experiences and activities that I’d found useful when learning about accessibility, such as learning about difficulties through user stories, and applying skills by improving a poor exemplar. The inclusive strategies proposed related to text legibility, alt text, subtitles / transcripts and visibility to screenreaders. I purposely chose not to discuss the accessibility legislation specifically, as I thought the technical focus of the WCAG 2.0 standards may be intimidating in an introductory session.

My reflection

I felt the session went really well, and participants did well at implementing the strategies in the final activity. It was very well attended, which again shows there is a lot of interest from teaching staff in developing the skills to create inclusive materials. Initially I had been disappointed that there wasn’t time to include alt text for images and other strategies that assist screenreader users. However, after delivering the workshop, I think that the strategies included were at an appropriate level for an introductory session. As I said above, the aim is to get people thinking about inclusive design, and show that it’s not too technical. In light of this, in an introductory session I think it’s important to stick with simple strategies (that still have a big impact), and avoid overloading participants with too much information. Designing for screenreaders is a bit more complex, and so might be more effectively introduced in a follow-up workshop.

Participant feedback

Feedback from participants at the end of the session was positive; many told us that they’d found the session useful, and we’ve had some requests from staff at other institutions to use the materials in their training sessions. Here’s a couple of comments we received in emails from participants:

• “I thought your presentations at TelFest were clear and concise, and I was hoping to take a similar approach in instructing our staff.”
• “There is something really powerful about seeing a single idea expressed in a single slide – like using text over the top of an image, for example. You don’t have to have a learning difficulty to see how it can be problematic. Same with the high-contrast text and background. It is so much more effective than giving staff a list of Do’s and Don’ts.”

I’m really pleased by the second comment in particular, as it seems that the visual contrasts of poor and inclusive design helped to clearly demonstrate how effective simple strategies can be.

Evidence:

• 1c_TELFest 2019 workshop proposal (my original proposal)
• 1c_TELFest 2019 workshop slides (collaborative workshop)
• 1c_TELFest 2019 workshop materials (folder shared with participants: contains session slides, poorly designed document to improve and a more inclusive example)

In early 2020, I ran the TELFest workshop for my colleagues in Learning Enhancement. The session needed some adaptations to adjust to the needs of the team - while most are also teachers, many aren’t very technically confident (and likely less confident than teachers who choose to attend a technology enhanced learning conference), so they would benefit from a bit more support.

Key adjustments made from TELFest workshop

• The session was 90 minutes long, rather than 60 minutes, with no additional content. This allowed a slower pace and more demonstrations of implementing strategies.
• The group was a lot smaller (8 people, compared to 40+ in the TELFest workshop), which gave a lot more opportunity for discussion and questions, which I think is helpful to reinforce the session content.
• The needs analysis above and my experience working in the team showed that a lot of the team like to have text-based guidance to use as a reference when doing more technical tasks. To support this need, I produced two one-pager Google Docs from the session (1c_Inclusion for SpLDs - summary and 1c_How to... do the technical parts) which can be used as reference guides and printed off if preferred.

Evidence:

• 1c_Inclusion for SpLDs - summary
• 1c_How to... do the technical parts
• 1c_LE Development session: inclusive design (Team drive with session materials and other resources)
• 1c_LE Development session feedback survey

In general, I feel that for teaching staff who might not be very technically confident (or not hugely interested in TEL), it’s important to keep this support quite informal. I see this type of in-department support as a first step in raising awareness and developing confidence, so I think it should be focused on students’ needs and simple, effective strategies, rather than the technical/legislative bits behind accessibility. Once teachers feel a bit more confident, I hope that this will help them feel comfortable to access some of the more technically-focused PDLT training on inclusive design and Xerte to further develop their skills.

Evidence

• 1c_Useful resources folder (LE development)
• 1c_Sharing notes on inclusive video webinar
• 1c_Inclusivity corner

Note: This information is also included in Core Area 4 - it's also included here for convenience.

My proposal for an adapted session on 'Inclusive Design for Dummies' has been accepted for the UoY's Learning & Teaching Forum 2020/21 workshop series. This is based on the development session I ran for Learning Enhancement colleagues (see above), and is pitched at a similar introductory level, but considers the needs of a wider range of students. It seemed that the previous workshop I ran wasn't very effective at helping participants learn about the difficulties faced by students, so this workshop will present this through user stories to give greater context. Based on my experiences above, I think that focusing on simple strategies has been very effective to introduce inclusive design and show the impact it can make for students’ learning, so I’ll continue to take this approach. As with ongoing support for the LE team, my aim is to help less technically confidence feel start to think about inclusivity more, and help them feel comfortable to access more in-depth PDLT training. Because of this, I purposely chose a light-hearted title and used an informal style in the abstract.

My collaborator at TELFest 2019 has also invited me to present my section of our workshop at the Innovations in Teaching in Higher Education conference in April 2020. This conference is for SpLD practitioners, so I'll focus on strategies for inclusive materials, rather than raising awareness of difficulties associated with SpLDs. Vicky has requested a very hands-on session, so I think this workshop will fit in well.

Evidence

• 4_Teaching & Learning Forum workshop proposal (Inclusive Design for Dummies)
• 4_Innovations in Teaching in Higher Education - Conference programme