Designing for Diversity: Creating Learning Experiences that Travel the Globe

Designing for Diversity

Creating Learning Experiences that Can Travel the Globe …

Jutta Treviranus, FLOE Project, OCAD UniversityUna Daly, OCW Consortium

Jutta Treviranus, FLOE Project, OCAD UniversityUna Daly, OCW Consortium

Welcome

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Una Daly, Community College

Outreach DirectorOCW Consortium

Jutta Treviranus, Director, Inclusive Design Research Centre

Professor, OCAD UniversityCanada

We are diverse, we share many things

Working with a partner …

1.Two ways in which you and your partner are different

2.Two ways in which you are the same

3.For each person, one way in which you are unique from anyone else in the room

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Agenda

• Introductions and Understandings

• Framing the Conversation

• Definitions, Regulations, Guidelines

• Diverse Learners

• Group Activity 1

• Basics for Ensuring Accessibility

• Interactivity Accessibility

• Communities & Resources

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We all face barriers..

• What was your most challenging learning experience? Why?

• What was your most positive learning experience? Why?

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Summary

• What learning barriers and conditions of “learning breakdown” did we discover?

• What conditions of “learning delight” did we discover?

• Click Here for Workshop Participants Project GoogleDoc

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Framing the Conversation

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Education is Changing

• What we learn

• Who we learn from

• How we learn

• When we learn

• What skills and knowledge are of greatest value

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In a global knowledge economy

•Education becomes more important

•Prosperity of society dependent on educational development of its members

•Requires retooling of educational practice

•Requires a diversity of learners

Global education dilemma:

• More student diversity – (migration, increase in disabilities)

• Less time to prepare curriculum

• More curriculum to cover

• Difficult to address needs of average student, let alone students with disabilities, alternative learning needs or language barriers.

• Increase in marginalized, disenfranchised students

Important relearned insight: • Learners learn differently.

• Best learning outcome when learning is personalized.

• Disability - a mismatch between the needs of the learner and the learning environment offered

• Accessibility – ability of the learning environment to adjust to the needs of the learner

• How does this address the education dilemma?

Collective, Connected Effort…

• Growing global pool of diverse resources

• Most are “born digital” so they can be transformed and reconfigured – enlarged, spoken, transcribed or reorganized – if a few simple design principles are followed

• Open license supports the creation of derivatives, modifications or variants

• Can this diversity of resources serve to address the needs of the diversity of learners?

Learning needs that affect learning:

•sensory, motor, cognitive, emotional and social constraints,

•individual learning approaches and motivations

•linguistic or cultural preferences,

•technical, financial or environmental constraints.

Image: cc-by-nc-sa The Advocacy Project

Origin of OER: As Public Good(2002)

• The open provision of educational resources, enabled by information and communication technologies, for consultation, use and adaptation by a community of users for non-commercial purposes

• Digitized materials offered freely and openly for educators, students and self-learners to use and reuse for teaching, learning and research

15Creative Commons CC-BY license, Dr. Judy Baker

ExamplesIncludes –

• Course materials• Lesson Plans• Modules or lessons• OpenCourseWare (OCW)• Open textbooks• Videos• Images• Tests• Software• Any other tools, materials, or techniques used

to support ready access to knowledge

16adapted from Judy Baker’s ELI 2011 OER Workshop cc-by license

Characteristics of OER

• Digital– Easy to modify– Free to distribute

• Open License– Reuse, revise, remix, redistribute

• Low cost– Reduce barriers to education

Labeled for reuse by MrKCoolsPhotostream

What is an Open License?

• Free: Free to access online, free to print

• Open: Shared, usable and re-usable: licensing that is less restrictive than standard copyright

18adapted from Judy Baker cc-by license

Creative Commons licensing

• Works with existing copyright law

• Promotes sharing

• Internationally recognized

• Author/creator can specify re-uses

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Why accessibility?•Recognition of diverse learners

•Higher % in developing countries•Higher % in aging populations

Source: U.S. NCES (2011), UNESCO, Equality Challenge Unit (2011), Canadian Journal of Higher Education (2003), World Health Org.

Country % with Disabilities

Canada, 15 yrs or older 14%

Indonesia 10-15%

United States post-secondary students 11%

Worldwide, UN estimate One Billion

Indonesia, UN Estimate 400,000

Treaties and Laws

•UN Convention on Rights of Persons with Disability (CRPD) - 2007 •Indonesia Ratifies CRPD - 2011•Indonesian Laws

– Improve Social Welfare (1997)– Human Rights (1999)– Public Services (2009)

•Americans with Disabilities Act (1990)•Canadian Human Rights Act (1985)

Morguefile.com

Design & Guidelines

• Universal Design for Learning

• AccessForAll ISO 24751

• Web Accessibility Initiative – 3 guidelines

• Accessible Digital Office Documents (ADOD)

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Universal Design for Learning

• Origins in Universal Design– Embedding Choice for All People in the

Things We Design

• Provide multiple means for learners to– Express knowledge– Represent knowledge – Engage with knowledge

http://www.cast.org/udl/ 23

Web Accessibility Initiative

• Web Content Access Guidelines – Evaluate web content: Perceive, Operable,

Understandable, Robust

• Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines– Support creation of accessible content

• User Agent Accessibility Guidelines 1.0– Designing browser and media players and

interoperability with assistive technology.

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Other forms of diversity

• Internationalization– Language, culture

• Digital Literacy/Illiteracy

• Age-related constraints

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Group Design Round

• Get to know and add detail to your learner

• Pick a learning goal

• Create a learning experience for your learner

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The Learning Experience…

• Find an OER or OCW course to modify or start from scratch

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Design the Learning Experience• The content

• How the content is presented

• How the content is structured, organized and navigated

• Any experiential, interactive, collaborative elements

• Feedback and motivational elements

• Assessment and Evaluation

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Discoveries…

Click Here for Workshop Participants Project GoogleDoc

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Accessibility Tutorial

• Use semantic markup– Structural definitions e.g. styles

• Annotate non-textual items– Tag Images

– Caption Audio & Videos

• Label tables and other complex information

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Creating Accessible Electronic Documents

• Picking a standard for access

• Semantic Structure: Headings, lists, and styles

• Using Color Effectively

• Images and Descriptions

• Naming Hyperlinks

• Table Headers

Styles in Microsoft Word

Using Colors Effectively

• High Contrast– Emphasize differences and similarities

• Color “Coding”– Multiple means of representation

High Contrast

Representing with Color

• Provide multiple indications of meaning conveyed through color...

Images & Descriptions

• A picture is worth a thousand words, but you only need about 7...

Missing Alt Text Example

Content vs. Container• Access capabilities for CONTENT

– Access controlled by author

• Access capabilities for CONTAINERS– Access not controlled by author

• Container limitations must be alleviated through content design when possible.

Naming Hyperlinks• Hyperlinks are navigation aids for AT

users

• Do NOT use “Click Here”

• Examples– Download course syllabus (MS Word, 78KB) – Submit Assignment #3 Here

Table Headers

Video & Audio

• Crowd sourcing video captions

• Voice recognition software

• YouTube: Easy Do-it-Yourself Captioning

Voice Recognition Software

• Generates transcription file– Dragon Dictate for Mac– Drag Naturally Speaking for PC– Free Apps as well

• Requires human editing for accuracy.

YouTube Captioning

• Create your own transcription file– Voice recognition software– Write script

• Auto-Captions on YouTube– Download the auto-generated file– Correct the captions in file and upload

• Use a free Captioning Tool – Capscribe, Magpie, Amara

Interactive Accessibility

• ePub3

• ARIA

• Component Toolkits

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Next Steps

• Communities

• Resources

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FLOE Project• Global, public infrastructure to deliver a learning

experience that matches each learner’s individual needs• uses AccessForAll ISO 24751 interoperability standard, a

common language for describing learner needs and labelling resources that meet those needs

• support for creating resources amenable to transformation and augmentation

• support for filling the gaps• http://floeproject.org• Funded by William and Flora Hewlett Foundation (with

feasibility study funded by US Dept of Education)

Requires...

1. information about each learner’s access needs,

2. information about the learner needs addressed by each resource, (a11y metadata effort and schema.org)

3. resources that are amenable to transformation, and a pool of alternative equivalent resources, and

4. a method of matching learner needs with the appropriate learning experience

Learning Discovery and Refinement

• Learning to learn

• Metacognition

• Determine what works best and refine through use

• Data regarding learning strategies that are most effective for unique learning requirements

FLOE Video• http://www.openeducationweek.org/floe-animation-for-open-

education-week/

Authoring Support

• Handbook for authors - http://handbook.floeproject.org

• Support within Open Author

• Support within OERPub

• http://adod.idrc.ocad.ca/ for simple document accessibility

Strategic Partners

Exploring the OER-AccessibilityTeaching Commons

• Reviewing accessibility info during OER searches– Reviewing info on search results & resource details pages– Locating OER resources that provide accessibility information on

the Finding Accessible OER site• Adding accessibility information for OER resources• Locating accessibility-specific resources, experts, organization

on the OER Accessibility site– The Welcome page offers quick access to resource libraries

• Joining the accessibility community• Reviewing accessibility info for MERLOT services

– Reviewing the Accessibility Policy page

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Resources

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How to handbook on creating accessible learning experiences - http://handbook.floeproject.orgThe Web Accessibility Initiative - http://www.w3.org/WAI/Accessible components for creating interactive Web apps - http://fluidproject.org/ A resource site for educators -  http://snow.idrc.ocad.ca/FLOE Project Website - http://floeproject.org FLOE Community Wiki - http://wiki.fluidproject.org/display/fluid/FloeThe Global Public Inclusive Infrastructure - http://gpii.netThe Cloud4All Project -http://cloud4all.infoThe AEGIS Project - http://aegis.idrc.ocad.ca/Information on Assistive Technologies - http://collaborativeportal.atis4all.euRaising the Floor - http://raisingthefloor.org/OER Commons - http://www.oercommons.org/ (look at learner options tab on upper right)

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Jutta Treviranus, jtreviranus@faculty.ocadu.ca

Una Daly, unatdaly@ocwconsortium.org