Web/School 2.0and Accessibility

John E. BrandtMaine CITE

Who are you?

Where are you from? What Web/School 2.0 things have

you tried?

Web2.0

Blogs Wikis PodCasts - VodCasts Social Networking File sharing - Flickr OpenOffice/

GoogleDocs Rich Internet

Applications RSS Syndication Moodle

Web2.0

“…trend in the use of World Wide Web technology and web design that aims to enhance creativity, information sharing, and, most notably, collaboration among users”

Alan November - 1997

Automating Informating

“Informating changes the flow and control of information”

"The real revolution in learning is not about adding technology on top of the current structure of school. Instead, the real revolution is about a transformational shift of control from the school system to the learner."

School2.0

New collaborative computer technologies, in particular the read/write web, distance learning programs, free and open source software, and videoconferencing.

The move from an industrial to information economy, and a change in skills that are valuable to employers.

A culture that is rapidly becoming more transparent and collaborative because of the new technologies, allowing a more open discussion about many aspects of our society, including (and especially) education.

School 2.0

Chris Lehmann Creating the Schools we Need

Collaboration

It is essential is that all students can participate.

How do we ensure all students can participate?

Accessibility

Perceivable Operable Understandable Robust

Perceivable

. . . means that all web site content must be perceivable by all users despite their disability conditions.

Operable

. . . means all web sites must be constructed in a way that allows all users to navigate, manipulate and control content.

Understandable

. . . means the “language” of the web site must be usable to all parties.

Robust

. . . means that all web content must have functionality across current and future technologies.

Good News …

Many of the Web2.0 apps are fairly accessible

Many of the development communities who are building these apps are sensitive to accessibility issues

…and Bad News

It only takes one user to make the application or content inaccessible

What to watch

HTML Entry and Editing Image Insertion and ALT

text Semantic Hyperlinks Ordered Headings (H1,

H2) Imported docs need to

be accessible Rich Media Formats – be

careful

Have a . . .

Clear Accessibility Policy

Easy to understand Users Manual

Lots of opportunities for Training

Someone to regularly Test and Remediate

Where to go for more help?

Maine CITE – Accessible Web Design

www.mainecite.org/awd

Thank you