Trends and Futures in Accessible Media in the

Classroom: Access For All

National Center for Technology Innovation•

WGBH National Center for Accessible Media

June 28, 2009 NECC 2009

WGBH’s Media Access Group

• The Caption Center (est. 1972)Captions television, home videos,

feature films, CD & DVD-ROM, streaming video

• Descriptive Video Service (est. 1990)Describes television, home videos,

feature films by inserting narrated descriptions

of key visual elements during pauses in dialogue

Carl and Ruth Shapiro FamilyNational Center for Accessible

Mediaat WGBH

(NCAM - est. 1993)

Research and development facility • Federally funded research projects • National policy development (public/private) • Technical solutions and guidelines • Community outreach • Strategic Partnerships • R&D Projects • Standards and Specifications

Access For All

Access For All

Identifies accessible content through flexible, standardized approach

• Accessibility = Learning environment adjusts to needs of all learners

• Disability = Mismatch between learner needs and ed resources

Access for All Standard: matching learner needs to

resourcesAccess for All serves:• Users with disabilities• Users with diverse learning approaches• Users with diverse hardware and software

• Users in disabling environments• Users with diverse cultural or linguistic requirements

• Anyone who diverges from the hypothetical norm

Teachers able to find accessible resources

DEMONSTRATIONhttp://

tdstage.teachersdomain.org:8001/

Access for All Standard:

Two components1. Accessibility metadata

• Describes and enables discovery of accessibility features of resources

2. User profile • Describes user’s personal needs and

preferences• Enables identification of matching

resources• With or without other personal profiles and

other resource metadata• Automatic caption/audio description display

or enable at resource

Teachers’ Domain

• Most videos captioned- Users enable captions 20% of time- Computer labs with no speakers - Universal design!

• Increasing described videos and images

• Amended lesson plans in development

Instant Impact

• Large user base - new features available to thousands of teachers

• Access icons seen by every user

Access for All Standards:

Current Status

Access for All

• IMS Global Learning Consortium and ISO/IEC (international standard)

• Deployment begun – Teachers’ Domain as most comprehensive digital library user

Access for All: other users

• ANGEL Learning

• SAKAI

Access for All: other users

• ATRC, University of Toronto– Web4All and TransformAble

• http://web4all.atrc.utoronto.ca/ – Inclusive Learning Exchange

• http://inclusivelearning.ca/tile/

• EU4ALL project - ISO Individualized Adaptability and Accessibility in e‐Learning, Education and Training and W3C device profiles standards.– http://www.eu4all‐project.eu/

Promote use of Access for All

• Educational publishers• Digital libraries• School-wide resource libraries

Developers / Publishers / Institutions

• Increased content accessibility• Increased efficiency for users

– one-time investment in metadata, profile changes and algorithms

• Small amounts of metadata yield big benefits

• Increased promotion of existing accessible content

Benefits of Access For All

• Avoids stereotypes and assumptions

• Avoids labeling or classifying users

• Avoids collection of private information

More information•IMS Guidelines for Developing Accessible Learning Applications– http://www.imsglobal.org/accessibility

•Specifications for Accessible Learning Technologies (NCAM SALT site):– http://ncam.wgbh.org/salt/

•ISO / IEC work – http://tinyurl.com/isoiec

Contact InformationThe Carl and Ruth Shapiro Family

National Center for Accessible Media at WGBH (NCAM)

Bryan Gould: Bryan_Gould@wgbh.orgLarry Goldberg: Larry_Goldberg@wgbh.org

One Guest StreetBoston, MA 02135617.300.3400 (voice/fax)ncam.wgbh.org