I am now taking my daughter's advice on revising for the exam and I started using flash cards. People have already made flash cards and have kindly shared these resources online. However, I wanted to create physical cards so that I can use revising time to not be on the computer.
In this blog, I am going to discuss how to make your Tweets accessible. I have created accessible and inaccessible Tweets using my account to show as examples and used Windows Narrator to record the audio of the screen reader experience.
Inaccessible Tweet
Inaccessible Tweet with many accessibility issues
The tweet lacks image descriptions (alternative text), uses non-Camel case hashtags which are in the middle of the tweet, and way too many emojis. Let’s see how this tweet will be read by a screen reader for a user. Screenreader software is used by people who are blind or visually impaired as well as people who find it difficult to read screen text. Play the audio to hear the screen reader version. The transcript is also available.
Posting this tweet to demonstrate the importance of accessibility
link hash no access hash link “P” “O” “O” “R” accessibility this is
inaccessible too many emojis no alternative text hashtags in the middle without
camelcase clapping hands sign image clapping hands sign image clapping hands
sign image rolling on the floor laughing image rolling on the floor laughing
image rolling on the floor laughing image yawning face image thumbs up sign
image thumbs up sign image thumbs up sign image person raising both hands in celebration
image person raising both hands in celebration image person raising both hands
in celebration image image image link 3:25 PM times the 16th of December 2022
status.
I hope you agree with me that was not a great experience. Now, let’s try to make this tweet more accessible by adding alternative text for images, using Camel case for hash tags, adding only necessary emojis and including hash tags and Twitter handles at the end of the message.
Accessible Tweet
Accessible Tweet showing good practice
Let’s see how this tweet will be read by a screen reader for the user. Play the audio to hear screen reader version. The transcript is also available.
Posting this tweet to demonstrate the importance of accessibility. This is more accessible. Use emojis only when necessary. Add alternative text for images hashtags in camel case at the end. Link hash no access. Link Hash poor accessibility. Thumbs up sign image. Link image demonstrating bad practice of green and red use to differentiate answers. Link image answers differentiated by red and green cannot be distinguished by a person with monochromacy achromatopsia.
The second version of the tweet is more accessible because:
it makes it easier for the user to follow the content as there are no hashtags (or Twitter handles) in the middle of the tweet
Camel case is used for hashtags making them read correctly
Emojis are used sparsely making it easier for the user to understand the Tweet
Images are described.
So here are some things to remember when creating an accessible social media post:
Use hashtags and handles at the end of the post
Use Camel case for hashtags
Use emojis sparsely and only when necessary
If you are using images, describe them by including an alternative text description
Last Tuesday, I ran the first accessibility awareness workshop at the University of Reading with the Student Support and Engagement team.
My colleague, Mira, was also there to help me facilitate the workshop. I planned the workshop to be delivered in person with a lot of activities for the participants to take part in. With twelve people in the room, it felt like the pre-COVID time when we used to have many in-person activities and meetings.
We first looked at the importance of accessibility. I like using the video Experiences of Students with Disabilities created by WebAIM in my workshops. Though it was created a while ago, this short video provides a good insight into students’ lived experiences. The video shows students using various assistive technologies and as the first workshop activity, the participants were given the chance to use Windows Narrator, the built-in screen-reading app for Windows, to get exposure to assistive technologies.
The next part of the workshop focused on what we can do to make content more accessible. We looked at the use of colour. Having sufficient colour contrast between foreground and background is important to make text easily readable. WebAIM colour contrast checker can be used to check colour contrasts and it helps to interpret the colour contrast according to the current accessibility guidelines. This is a short interactive, e-learning activity on Accessibility: Colour Contrast Checking. We also talked about colour vision deficiency and the importance of not using colour alone to differentiate information.
I used a lot of video clips to show how screen readers would read accessible and inaccessible content. I used this to demonstrate document structure, tables, and alternative text. When you see how assistive technologies make use of the metadata it is easier to engage with the accessibility good practices because you know what you do makes a difference.
As the final activity participants in groups looked at a Microsoft Word document ladened with accessibility issues and tried to resolve the problems and make it accessible. We had a lot of time to discuss various issues colleagues have seen over time as well as to refer to the daily experiences of people with hidden disabilities.
At the workshop, we also had Cambridge simulation gloves and Optima Simulation Specs so that the participants could experience how some of the mobility/dexterity and visual disabilities can affect people in their daily lives.
We got very good feedback and the pre and post-survey asking specific questions about accessibility awareness showed a marked increase in awareness. I am already looking forward to the next accessibility workshop!
The accessibility workshop was fantastic for my professional development. I gained a much greater understanding of the topic and how it relates to my individual work context. Rather than it feeling like a complicated added responsibility, I now see accessibility as a mindset that will benefit everyone from students to colleagues. It was very interactive and I have walked away with easy to execute practical examples and strategies. Mathew Haine, Student Outcomes Manager (Awarding Gap)
Listening to and watching a demonstration of the LaTex and how PDF export loses the structure of equations made me think of the number of inaccessible learning materials we could be having. It is definitely something that we all will have to work on.
So I am looking at how MathJax can be included in a standard HTML page like this blog page.
If I try to include the Pythagoras theorem's equation for hypotenuse I will have to type something like hypotenuse = (a^2+b^2)^0.5 because I am not familiar with MathML to make it work.
But now I can use MathJax. You add these two lines into the HTML code.
Sufficient colour contrast is important to make it easier for people to recognise foreground from background. There are three WCAG 2.1 guidelines on accessible colour contrast and they are:
1.4.3: Contrast (Minimum) AA
Text contrast ratio of at least 4.5:1
Large text 3:1
18 point text or 14 point bold text is judged to be large enough
1.4.6: Contrast (Enhanced) AAA
Contrast ratio of at least 7:1
Large text 4.5:1
1.4.11: Non-text Contrast AA
UI component and graphical objects to have 3:1 contrast against adjacent colours
Web AIM contrast checker is the tool I use all the time to check colour contrast. Recently I noticed that they have made it better by allowing the option to pick colour using colour picker. So now there are three ways to provide colour you want to test:
I really wanted to create an accessibility awareness course that is open to anyone. I learned a lot about accessibility from MOOCs such as "Access MOOC" and "Professional Web Accessibility Auditing Made Easy" by Ryerson University when these were available free for everyone. However, a lot has changed since 2016 and now most of the courses are paid for even on MOOC platforms.
My application to a funding body to create an open course was not successful. Since then I have taken the time to create this course for UCEM and I hope I would get the chance to publicly make it available with CC license.
The course consists of sections that offer seven milestone badges leading to a final Accessibility Awareness Badge.
These beautiful badge images were created by my colleague Asma Hussain
Wednesday, 23 June 2021
Emergency Remote Education: Experience from Sri Lanka during Covid-19
Digital Divide
This piece of work looks at Emergency Remote Education (ERE) in Sri Lanka during the Covid-19 first lockdown in March 2020. With Prof. Shirley Williams I worked on this project trying to reach grassroots experience of lockdown homeschooling both in the UK and in Sri Lanka.
The research used an online questionnaire to gather data and as expected the data showed that these came from an affluent group of Sri Lankans as the computer penetration is low within the country. We reached out to school teachers from various schools in different parts of the country to balance out the lack of response from people who did not have ready access to the internet and or the digital literacy to take part in an online survey.
This research showed how important it is to reach all groups of people that represent a study and if researchers are not able to reach them directly how indirectly you could reach them. For example, due to lockdown restrictions, we were not able to reach people face-to-face or distribute questionnaires. But by reaching out to school teachers from various settings we were able to represent, at least in part, the group that would otherwise have been excluded.
97.8% of the students have watched at least one recorded
webinar session, demonstrating the importance of recorded webinars for our students.
Only 144 students (52.7%), however, had used the audio transcript, 14 students
(5.1%) were unaware of the availability of the transcript facility and 115
students (42.1%) indicated that they had not used the audio transcript
facility.
A follow-up question, ‘Did you find the transcript useful?
Why?’, was asked of the students who indicated that they had used transcripts.
Out of the 130 students who answered this free text question, 104 students (80%
of those who responded to this question) agreed that the transcripts were
useful while 14% indicated that the transcripts were not useful. Out of the 92
respondents from non-English speaking countries (excluding respondents from
majority English speaking countries), 40 responded to the free text question, ‘Did
you find the transcript useful? Why?’. Only two respondents said that the
transcripts were not useful. The large majority, 95% of students who have
English as a foreign language and responded to the question, found transcripts
a useful addition to understand what is being said in the webinars.
Many students who have used the automatic transcripts found
them to be useful.
One response stood out for me:
So useful! Amazing. The search
functionality is revolutionary. If I vaguely remember something being said in
the webinar but can't quite remember where or when I used to have to watch
almost the entire webinar again - and it took so long to load. Now, I just type
a word and everything comes up. It's amazing. Ok, the audio transcript is not
always spot on, but frankly it's amazing how much it does pick up especially
with different accents and pronunciation of words and acronyms. Really love it.
The study has some limitations which are
discussed in the paper, including the reliance on anonymous self-directed
surveys. This is UCEM’s first implementation of automatic transcription for
webinar recordings. There could be an element of ‘novelty factor’ affecting the
student responses too.
The study found that many students appreciated the
availability of automatic transcripts despite their less-than-perfect accuracy
level. Students used transcripts mainly as a tool for searching within a video.
This small study shows that students used transcripts in multiple ways:
skipping to a specific location in the video
as notes
as an accessibility aid
to overcome unfamiliar accents and words such as technical terms
to follow the pace of a fast speaker
to study ‘on the go’ – in quiet places, for example
to catch up if distracted
compensating for poor audio and/or connectivity
as an alternative format for video
as an aid for non-native English speakers.
Other key results
from the survey were:
·despite 31.1% of students not using any Zoom
guidance provided by UCEM, 89.3% agreed with the statement: ‘I was able to join
the Zoom session with ease’
·97.8% of the students have watched at least one
recorded webinar session. 89.4% students agreed with the statement: ‘Do you
agree that Zoom provides good quality audio and video?’
·of the students who have previously used
Blackboard Collaborate, 72.9% preferred Zoom
·81.5% of students prefer facilitated webinars.
Students identified three main functions performed by facilitators in webinars:
monitoring chat and supporting the smooth run of Q&A during a webinar;
helping with technology; and helping with non-subject specific information
·many students watch recorded webinars and want
them to be available soon after a webinar
·there were some instances where students in
certain localities (especially parts of the Middle East) could not access the
software due to local restrictions. For these students, the recorded webinars
were made available on a video-sharing platform.
In March when the UK government closed schools and imposed lockdown restrictions, to stem the spread of COVID-19, we all were hurled into a situation that we have never been in before. While adjusting to the life with new measures like social distancing; no pasta, rice, flour or toilet rolls on supermarket shelves; and setting up our “home offices” (wherever there was a space on a table top) – some of us who have young families, had to learn to “homeschool” our children while also doing our fulltime jobs.
As a mother to primary school twins, I can tell you how amazing, frustrating, infuriating and many other adjectives can be added to describe this experience. We started taking in a day at a time first. But soon we reduce that to an hour at a time as we realised even a day is too long time when doing juggling homeschooling with a full-time job.
In April when I was put on furlough I was worried how I would fill my days. But later when I started getting into proper homeschooling, I realised even the furlough time was not enough! My furlough time came at a crucial time as the twins were getting ready for their eleven plus (secondary school entrance tests).
One of the best things we did before the lockdown was collecting a box of hand-me-down books from a friend's place. These books were used workbooks. But I could copy questions (either by hand - yes, I copied them in my new found 'free' time - or using the until then under used home printer). These workbooks together with BBC Bitesize, IXL subscription and the work sent home by school kept us going until the summer school break.
The researcher inside me wanted to gather the experience of eLearning in challenging times and I was not alone there. I soon found collaborators in Japan, New Zealand, Egypt and Sri Lanka who wanted to do similar work and possibly draw comparisons. We wanted to do both homeschooing experience as well as the experience of higher education students – however, with the pressing needs of "Transform" project at work (where we transformed all our Autumn 2020 offering) I was only able to progress on the homeschooling study.
The survey is designed as an anonymous survey and to take no more than 10-15 mins of time. We hope to gather homeschooling experiences from parents and caregivers of young people.
If you have homeschooled a young person during the school closure period due to COVID-19 pandemic and you are a resident of UK (or Sri Lanka) please can you participate in our survey please?
My final version before the edits is published here.
Social
distancing implemented by countries across the world to combat the spread of coronavirus
has caused unprecedented changes in our daily lives. The situation posed a
great challenge to educational institutions across the world, causing them to
cancel lectures and graduation ceremonies, and, where applicable, ask students
to vacate their halls and accommodation.
In adapting
to the situation, most institutions have adopted online learning. For many traditional
institutions this is the first time that they are trying to use technology on
such a large scale. In their hurry to adopt technology to overcome the immediate threat of not being able
to continue, there is always the danger of institutions rushing into using
technologies without proper appraisal (accessibility, security and privacy
concerns, for example) or adequate user training.
There is
also the possibility of excluding groups of users who are not able to engage
with the technologies for various reasons. Some may not possess the required
level of digital literacy while there could also be issues of accessibility
both for people with disabilities and people who do not have the luxury of
broadband connectivity. Therefore, it is important that decision makers address
these issues. For example, if a student with a hearing disability had a
note-taker in class how could we support them now with online lectures? Or now
that most overseas students are in their home countries, can we conduct online
classes and expect them to be present despite the time differences? What if the
technology we adopt is barred in some countries where our students reside?
Living or
visiting a developing country, you may have experienced the difficulties in accessing
the internet away from city centres. The unreliable connectivity often cannot
support high-definition videos while in some rural places you would be lucky to
get electricity!
I hope
these points are considered by leaders at institutions currently going digital.
In my role
as a Learning Technology Researcher and Chair of the Online Learning Research
Centre at University College of Estate Management (UCEM), I scan the horizon,
assess educational technology and consider how we can use it to enhance our
students’ experience. We are always thinking about the practical aspects and
accessibility of the technology we appraise.
As the leading provider of supported online education for the Built Environment, UCEM is better placed than most to face this difficult situation. Sharing our experiences of online learning will hopefully help other organisations learn from us.
Every year I look forward to the RIDE Conference hosted by University of London. Because this is a conference about Research in Distance Education, it is so relevant to UCEM as we are in essence a supported distance education provider.
This year RIDE2020 was on 13th March and at a time when everyone is starting to worry about the spread of Corona virus. When I left Reading I knew there will be few people because on the train to London I got a seat! Circle line from Paddington too was very quiet. On the train I was thinking how to greet people now that most people are not comfortable with shaking hands.
Tweet from Friday 13 March 2020
Conference attendance was I would say less than 50% given the number of empty chairs in the hall, which was a shame really given how good it is. We were encouraged to practice "social distancing" by making use of all the available space. Quite a few sessions were cancelled but some sessions were conducted via Zoom conferencing and it all worked well in the end.
It was lovely to meet so many known faces and also to grow my network by getting to know like minded others. It was great to listen to Prof. Allison Littlejohn and getting to know some interesting and highly relevant work conducted by the London Knowledge Lab (such as iRead and Connecting Displaced People). Afternoon keynote was by Prof. Martin Weller, which was presented remotely. He talked about Open ed as the anti-disruption.
This conference amidst the Covid-19 spread showed that perhaps we need to re-think about attending conferences in person when there is long distance travel involved - especially air travel. Perhaps, we can reduce air travel and be more green and sustainable by presenting our work online. Martin presented his keynote remotely and it was done skillfully. The keynote was engaging and it showed even the keynotes at conferences can adapt to Covid-19 and can also adapt to fight against climate change. Two other sessions I attended too was presented via Zoom and they worked almost perfectly. Once in a while there was few words that we missed due to poor connectivity but it didn't harm the experience.
My next conference is OER20 which is also going to be held online due to Covid-19. So this year many conferences will be run more environment friendly way. Perhaps this crisis is a wake-up call for us to think about being more sustainable and green in attending conferences?
I have run a few accessibility awareness workshops at UCEM recently with my colleague Graham. You can see a video montage of some of the workshop activities.
However, I feel we need to look at accessibility of PDFs separately as it is much more complex (at least to me) tagging and correcting reading order etc.
So I spent some time studying the WebAIM PDF Accessibility and PDF - the Print Devil's Format? and trying to create an accessible PDF from a document that wasn't read properly by the screen reader. Here I am sharing what I learned hoping it will help someone else too.
Best Thing to do ..
... is to make your document accessible before converting to PDF!
It may be much easier to address accessibility issues if you use the source document.
If you don't have the source document you can create it from the PDF by using File > Export To option.
Before converting to PDF check the documents for:
headings
alternative text for images
table structures (make sure table header row etc is indicated)
descriptive links
lists
columns
text size, font (San Serif fonts are easier to read), spacing and justification (left justified letters are easier to read)
colour contrast
not using colour to differentiate meaning
document title
document language
Creating a PDF file
There are various ways you can create a PDF file using a source file. Here I will take the example of a Microsoft Word file in a Windows environment.
Recommended
Creating a PDF using Acrobat Tab's Create PDF and is your best bet to creating an accessible PDF. PDFMaker add-in that gives you facility to create PDF within Microsoft Word will be installed when a compatible version of Acrobat is installed. Make sure in the Acrobat tab> Preferences have a tick in the checkbox against "Enable Accessibility and Reflow with tagged Adobe PDF". This allows creating a PDF file that will reflow when user Zooms it (without having to scroll).
Alternative
However, if you do not have Acrobat Tab, you can use File > Save As then from the drop-down select PDF. Make sure under More options > Options > Document structure tags for accessibility is checked.
Never Print to PDF
Creating a PDF using "Print" to PDF option loses the document's structure and tags that makes it accessible to assistive technologies (screen-readers).
Checking a PDF for Accessibility
If you have followed accessibility good practice and created the PDF using above recommended way there should not be too much to correct in terms of tagging etc.
Check for Reflow
Reflow test is to check that a PDF document can be magnified without having to scroll horizontally to see the text off-screen. To do this use View > Zoom > Reflow. Now you can magnify the page and observe how the document behaves. If a document does not correctly reflow you will have to change the document structure - explained later in the post.
Convert Scanned Text
If the PDF is a scanned document first thing in making it accessible is to make sure that it contains real text. To do this, got to Tools > Enhance Scans and add it. In the PDF with scanned text go to Enhance Scans in the Tools pane and select Recognize Text > In this File.
Changing background colour
You should be able to change the background colour with Edit > Preferences > Accessibility > Replace Document Colours. Sometimes this may not work well; for example, if there are background images.
Read Out Loud
If the document is not a scanned image, the text should be selectable and these could be read by assistive technologies. You can check this by View > Read out loud. Reading order affects the way content will be read out.
Tags and Reading Order
Tags
For me this was the most difficult bit to learn. You can open the Tags pane by View > Show/Hide > Navigation Panes > Tags. This will show all the tags within the PDF in a tree structure. When a screen reader looks to read a PDF, it gets the information from these tags.
Reading Order Tool (called Touch Up Reading Order or TURO)
Accessibility > Reading Order (or Touch Up Reading Order). By selecting the Structure types radio button in the Reading Order dialog. Here you can see the tags associated with items in the document and you can add or change a tag by drawing a box around content with the crosshairs and then selecting the desired tag from the Reading Order window.
I found that removing the existing incorrect structure by using Clear Page Structure and starting clean was easier than trying to correct the structure.
Content vs Tag Order
The content order is displayed by the Reading Order tool. This is NOT the same as the tag order. Once you have created the structure of the document it is easier to order it and drag and drop the tags into right places.
According to WebAIM tutorial's Repair the Content and Tag Order section, the changes made in the Order pane is reflected in both Order pane and Tags pane but they say it can be unpredictable and it is best to complete Order pane first and then verified in the Tags pane.
Table Editor
With Reading Order dialog open you can either select the table and right click to elect the Table Editor or Select the Table Editor from the Reading Order dialog itself. You can also select Edit Table Summary from right click menu to add a summary to the table.
In the Table Editor, borders of the table will be highlighted. In the Table Editor mode you can right click to show Table Cell Properties. Now you can specify whether the cell is a Header Cell or a Data Cell. If the Cell is a Header Cell, then assign the scope as appropriate.
After making the changes, verify table structure with the Tags Panel. Tables with multi-level row or column headers or cells spanning multiple columns or rows may need careful work to ensure they will be presented correctly by screen readers.
To show the Accessibility Tools panel for the first time go to Tools Tab > Accessibility and Add the accessibility tool. From the Accessibility pane select Set Alternate Text Tool. It will identify all images and allows you to add alternate text for these.
Accessibility Checker
Similar to MS Office suite, Adobe also provides an accessibility checker. If you have Acrobat DC you can use the accessibility checker. This tool is also in the Accessibility pane. To show the Accessibility Tools panel for the first time go to Tools Tab > Accessibility and Add the accessibility tool. You can check for Accessibility using Accessibility panel's Full Check. Even if this automated tool does not report any problems with the PDF still there could be.
I am not still sure I am fully confident on making a PDF file accessible. At least I know what and where to look for if something isn't working right :)
Last Tuesday myself and about 14 other staff members from UCEM volunteered at Cedar Court, Extra Care Housing under the scheme organised by UCEM with EmployeeVounteering. This was one of the four employee volunteering days organised by UCEM as part of its centenary celebrations.
I have been a volunteer with The Link Visiting Scheme for several years until my “friend” passed away at the age of 93. I just could not make up my mind to go back because I was so emotionally involved. So I thought to take a break and go back when I am ready. Since then, I have used the Volunteering Day offered by UCEM to do a lesson at a local primary school (half-day) and then when this opportunity came up I jumped at it. I selected an opportunity where it was possible to do art, craft, games and the like rather than physical work mainly because of my previous experience with The Link Visiting Scheme and knew I enjoyed that type of interactivity more.
So when I got details for the day email to say that we will be doing cleaning patio, deck area and the garden at Cedar Court, I must say I thought did I pick the right event. Thankfully it was a sunny October Tuesday (it rained all day on Monday!) and I joined in with few others doing weeding. It was only a small area so it only took us about an hour and a half to finish the clearing the garden ready for winter.
Next we went inside to play games with the residents. Cedar Court provide housing to a wide variety of people, who have mental and physical health issues, learning disabilities and there are also elderly residents who just need that reassurance. It was fun playing games – I played Dominoes while others played card games, Jenga and Mega 4 in a Line (Connect 4). After lunch we had a six rounds of Bingo. It was my first time playing Bingo and on the last round I won the house – but I only got a toffee as we had the boxes of chocolates reserved for the residents.
Painted flower pot
After bingo there were few activities to select from. Nail art, decorating Gingerbread, painting pots or just chatting. I was talking to a resident who picked painting as her activity so I went along with her and we sat beside each other painting our pots and chatting. It was lovely to hear how she had worked for a firm that produced tins for Huntley and Palmers, how Reading had changed over the years and what activities they do at Cedar Court. I must say the activity I enjoyed most was painting flower pots.
After finishing the pot we planted Daffodil bulbs in them. We had many cups of teas over the day but after the final activity there was tea and a selection of yummy cakes.
In the Asian culture that I grew up in, going into residential care (even if it is a nursing home) is looked down upon. Offspring are expected to take care of their parents in their old age. I thought it could be isolating and boring to live in an assisted living accommodation. However, after seeing Cedar Court to me it seems like a houseshare with some people getting bit more help. According to the residents I spoke to, they have lot of activities going on to keep them occupied and they are happy there. Given that we are an aging society perhaps we will be needing more assisted living accommodation to support our aging population? However, residents very much appreciated us being there. I would definitely join another employee volunteering event if it were to be offered, I enjoyed the day very much
It feels great to be recognised for the effort you put in
for your work. Some of the research we do, does not give the results we intend. It tells us that what we wanted is not happening or it is not
effective. But this is part of the research. There could be various reasons for
that, which I will not go into here. After all this post is to celebrate the
prestigious European Distance and E-Learning Network (EDEN) Best Research Paper Award!
EDEN19 Best Research Paper Award - photo by Ben McCammick-Copley
When I started my research into looking at whether off-the-shelf
automatic transcription software was good enough to be used for Built Environment
Education, I never expected it to be recognised this way. Of course, I knew that
at EDEN they awarded the best research paper award every year at their
conference. But I did not know how it was selected nor did I think I will be
that lucky person.
When I got to know that I was one of the eight finalists out
of the shortlisted 23 papers, I was delighted to be one of the best to be
considered in the final round. Going to Bruges was my first visit to Belgium.
One of my colleagues from UCEM asked me to take a photograph with #OswaldTheOwl
if I could. So, on my way to Bruges I made it to the Grand Place to make sure I
captured a picture with Oswald.
Grand Place, Brussels
The conference was well organised (I think I will be writing
another blog about the conference) - undoubtedly the best conference
organisation I have seen. I had the privilege to listen to two of the Best
Research Paper Award nominated presentations on Tuesday 18th June afternoon. They both were PhD research projects and the quality of the work was
very high. So I was really glad that my work had been shortlisted among those
high quality research.
At the Conference Gala Dinner, which was held at the amazing
Market Hall (first constructed in 1240!) they announced the winner of the Best Research Paper Award. The chair of the Jury said it was a unanimous
decision. This years’ theme was “Connecting through Educational Technology” and
the jury had agreed my work Automatic Transcription software: Good enough foraccessibility? A case study from Built Environment Education was well aligned
with the theme. He further said that when they critically evaluated each criterion:
contributes convincingly to the theme(s) of the
conference;
deals with a research question of relevance for
conference participants;
rigorous examination/research methods are
applied;
findings, results and outcomes are convincingly
presented and critically examined;
conclusions are thoroughly discussed (including
aspects like applicability, transferability, and/or further research);
literature is reviewed against the state of art.
Receiving the Best Paper Award from Prof. Alan Tait
there could be no other winner. They commended being open
and honest about my small study and being critical about the limitations of the
study. Methodology, he said, was designed so meticulously that they could not
ask for anything more. This coming from Prof. Alan Tait, a very well-respected
researcher in Distance Education and the chair of the Jury, meant a lot to me.
Though I have published some of my work with CC license in open access journals, this is my first re-mix of CC licensed work . I wasn't sure how much of a change was considered a re-mix. So after talking to Lucy, Information Governance Manager at UCEM I am confident in publishing it with share-alike license similar to the work I adapted. Asma, our Graphic Designer at UCEM, helped me by designing it with her graphic design software and saving it as a PDF.
In this version of work, we wanted to say why we needed to do each of these suggested accessibility enhancing steps. For example, we should not use colour as the only means to convey meaning (e.g. red letters for wrong answers and green letters for correct answers) because colour-blind learners may not be able to access the content as they may not be able to distinguish the different colours. I think giving reasons why something needs to be done in a certain way makes it more real as people can make connections.
This poster was designed to be visual as we are hoping to print it and display it at UCEM. I also created an accessible version of this poster in a text only version which can also be downloaded.
Again I want to thank Lee and Sue for their amazing work. Had they not shared this with CC license we would not have been able to adapt it.
Sri Lanka is a beautiful country having lots to offer: beaches, mountains, natural beauty, wildlife, flora funa, and amazing cultural heritage with UNESCO sites like Sigiriya.
Elephants (@pen_ash from Pixabay)
Recently one of my colleagues, who has a gluten intolerance, visited Sri Lanka. She had got Google translate to translate some sentences to Sinhala so that she could take cards that said what she could and could not eat. She brought them to me to check whether they conveyed the meaning. Google translate has done a decent job, however, the translations were in 'written language' not the language people talk day-to-day. So I modified them a little bit and thought I'd share them here, in case anyone else travelling to Sri Lanka may find them useful.
In Sri Lanka, I have not seen shops actively catering to various food intolerance - may be due to the low demand?
My colleague is back safe and sound and have not have had any problems with food and she thanked me for the translations. So they have been proven ;)
The statements my colleague wanted me to translate are here:
On 15th March, I attended the RIDE2019 conference with two other colleagues from UCEM. We joined the Centre for Distance Education (CDE)'s October event and was really impressed with the event so wanted to come back for the CDE annual conference. I was waiting to get the presentations so that I could link to them but seeing that they are not coming through I thought I might as well note down my thoughts from the event.
The opening keynote was presented by Maren Deepwell, Chief Executive of the Association for Learning Technology She revealed some of the results from ALT survey and trends identified 2014-2018. Highlights were that lecture capture was up 20% and assistive technologies up by 7%. She also talked about the gender bias and suggested the reading Invisible Women: Data bias in a world designed for men by Caroline Criado Perez.
Then when it came to the parallel sessions we decided to go to the three different tracks so that we would be able to cover the whole conference between the three of us - however, in hindsight this was not a great approach as some presentations were not very engaging at all.
David Baume's session What information capabilities do your graduates need and what practices and policies will help them to achieve these? was an interactive session which discussed the importance of guiding students to build information literacy skills. We are trying to be helpful by providing our students with the most relevant articles - especially as distance educators we want our students, often time poor learners who are at higher risk of drop-out (than mainstream university students), to succeed. You provide all materials and students do not have to search for reverent material. So by being more helpful are we hindering them and their skills development in information literacy? David used the analogy of teaching his granddaughter crossing the road. How he helped her realise what were the dangers to look out for. Yes a car is a danger but only if it is moving towards you not away from you. The narrowing down process is where you can help your learner develop their own judgement. So in the first year we can provide most of the materials required but as they move on to second and third year give them more chance of putting their Information Literacy skills to work. It really made me think of our practice at UCEM. With our No Student Left Behind initiative, we have tried hard to provide as much support to students as possible, but are we inadvertently hindering them? Information Literacy skills are not just for the induction week/module - we need to support our students to build their skills over the course of their studies with us.
By the way, now I am using David's method of narrowing down process with my twins teaching them how to cross the road so it was a very worthwhile session :)
Then I attended Sarah Sherman's On your marks, get, set, study! Preparing students to be digitally ready for learning where she presented a course with 4 units they have put together for the UoL institutions.
Unit 1: General Technology
Unit 2: Learning Technologies
Unit 3: Access, sharing and safety
Unit 4: Getting organised.
This Moodle course is an openly licensed one and Sarah offered other institutions to adapt it. Kate has already expressed UCEM's interest in a Tweet.
Plagiarism in Distance Learning: Causes and measures for control presented by Ayona Silva-Fletcher and Clare Sansom was another presentation I really looked forward to since looking at the programme. In this they talked about a research project they have undertaken at UoL after seeing 274% increase in plagiarism cases at University of London World Wide during the past five years. In the study, they have contacted programme directors for UoL institutions with a survey to get an understanding of the plagiarism problem. In their presentation they presented plagiarism as a spectrum from clone, remix, find and replace, 404 error (made up references) to re-Tweets (too much of a chunk stuck in assignment). Some of the main reasons for plagiarism as revealed by this study were:
Lack of knowledge (cultural background, insufficient engagement with materials, ignorance of self-plagiarism)
Not enough time
Pressure
Another disturbing fact that the research shed light on was the fact that if a student gets away with one minor plagiarism offence they go on to re-offend. So does that mean the institutions need to come down hard on any plagiarism offences how minor they are? The presenters offered their proposed solutions: communications, teaching materials (JISC, Indiana University), Turnitin as a learning tool (allowing students to view plagiarism report) and making training compulsory.
I was really interested in hearing about this research and I was wondering whether there could have been another piece of work done in parallel looking at what students (both students who have plagiarised and those who haven't) thought about causes and solutions. Programme directors would be able to give details that are revealed in disciplinary process or what students have told them but asking students would have corroborated the findings and may even give us a completely different perspective.
All in all the event was a great learning opportunity giving me food for thought.
Have you ever been to an event and thought what am I doing here? Conversely, have you also been to an event and thought why did I not know about this series of events before? Well I have.
In this blog post I am going to share my learning from Dr. Ormond Simpson's work.
Dr. Ormond Simpson presented a report about feedback from students with disabilities. I have not been able to locate the document online yet, but once I find it, I will link to the report in the blog post. The report was titled Disability the student voices: feedback from disabled students. The data for the report had been collected by sending an anonymous survey link to current students who have declared a disability. Though this does not reflect on views of students with disabilities who have dropped-out, it gives us a view to the struggles these students have to face in accessing learning.
The range of disabilities reported in this survey showed the varied individual needs and the need to support students for their specific needs. It was also the first-time I heard from a student with light-sensitivity as a disability.
Looking at some of the recommendations from the report, I can see that we, at UCEM, are already practicing some of these while there are other recommendations that we need to embed into our practice.
An important issue raised in the discussion was the ability to share information. Especially with GDPR coming into force it was reported that the details of disability declared to the university by the student during the application process does not get conveyed to the tutor on the course or the course directors. This has resulted in students not being offered the support they should have and students thinking that the university nor the lecturers cared about them.
I find it difficult to understand why GDPR or other data protection laws should affect the lawful use of declared disability data to support a student in a course. Perhaps we should seek consent to share the data with the tutor who is supporting student in the course. In my view, if a student has disclosed a special need, they would expect the course team to support them.
Unless the tutor is made aware, how would they "know" that this student has special needs especially at a distance. For example, if the university has special software to support special needs students but the tutor does not know that the student should be given a copy of this software it would affect the student's experience of learning. Alternatively the software could be made available to everyone, but that could be very costly and in fact unnecessary information for a large group of students.
It is easy to say XYZ is inhibiting us supporting student success but I believe we can find effective ways to overcome such barriers and research events like these bring the issues to light so that they can be addressed.
Some of our tutors wanted to try creating videos while drawing diagrams. So we are looking at Lightboard type video creation in the future. But as a quick solution I was looking at different apps available on iPad which would allow something similar but of course only capturing the whiteboard.
Writing on a whiteboard
Explain Everything was the first app I tried. However, it only gave me option for limited time free trial. So I moved on to see what other apps were available.
I then tried Doceri which did offer me the opportunity to create a free account without a time limit. You can select the resolution I selected the optimised one for iPad screen. It also allowed me to download my creation. However, need to pay if you want to remove the watermark. This is my Doceri creation - Using Doceri App on iPad Quick Demo.
Next I tried ShowMe. Out of the two apps I liked ShowMe but it does not allow you to download or privately save your creation with a free account. Here you can see my Demo of ShowMe app on iPad.
Despite the recommendations I received about Explain Everything I didn't feel I wanted to register and try out a tool that gave me only 14 days of free trial. On the other hand even though ShowMe did not allow me to download my creation I liked that app the best I think it is because I didn't like the frame used in Doceri at all.
There are so many tools out there - many apps. But you have to invest the time to go explore.
I am working towards Digital Professional in Higher
Education badge and at the moment I am finishing my work on the Online Identity
badge. The last activity for the Online Identity badge is to:
Create a blog post
(200-300 words) on the experience of developing your online presence and
comment on two other colleagues blog posts.
To fully participate in the contemporary society, one needs
to be digitally literate as many civic activities are now taking place in the
online space. According to JISC (2014),
there are seven elements of digital literacies: media literacy, information
literacy, digital scholarship, learning skills, ICT literacy, communication and
collaboration, and career and identity management. Beetham and Sharpe’s (2010)
framework show digital literacy as a development process where it is developed from
access and functional skills to higher level capabilities and identity. So, as
a Digital Professionals in Higher Education, we should be able to demonstrate
that we have moved from “I have .., to I can … to I do … to I am ..” – that is
we have developed a digital identity.
The question asks to write about my experience of developing
my online presence. However, my online presence was created over a long period
of time. For example, even my personal blog dates to April 2013. I had finished
my PhD where I looked at the use of ICTs for distance education and was then a Postdoctoral
Research Assistant working with my supervisor Prof. Shirley Williams.
In my thesis I had a chapter on “digital inequality” where I discussed why the
then buzz word “digital divide” was deceptive and in this I used van Dijk’s (2005)
work on a model of successive kinds of access, which is similar to the
developmental process of digital literacy but looking at levels of access. Being
aware of these works, I suppose, have helped me in shaping my digital identity
online.
However, I did not have a personal website until I started
working towards this badge. So, I am going to reflect on my experience of
developing my online presence through my personal website https://sites.google.com/view/tharindu
I wanted my personal website to bring together my scattered
presence on the web to one place where it would be easier to find my work and
contact information. I initially designed the website to have publications,
blog and contact details only. But my colleague, Sandra, was working on CMALT
and she had created her portfolio in a Google Site, which looked good. With this
inspiration I decided to not only put my CMALT portfolio but also FHEA
portfolio online. I had to remove some of the evidence in the portfolio due to
data protection/privacy issues but the section Portfolio in my website now
provides a selection of my instructional design work, CMALT portfolio and its
feedback and my FHEA portfolio. To my surprise, using Google Sites was very
easy. It did not take much time at all. I used images from the stock of CC0
images in Pixabay to add some colour and
visual appeal. I must say I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of the automatic
contrast checking and adjusting tool provided by Google Sites to make the site
more accessible. After creating my website, I thought to myself why did I not
do this earlier?
However, my new website was not getting picked up by search
engines. So I searched on the internet and created Google
Crawler request and also registered with Google Analytics so that
I could see the usage of my site. So this exercise have not only resulted in me
creating my website but also getting to know how new sites are listed in search
engines as well as getting my toes dipped in Google Analytics!
I think making a portfolio available online not only help to
build your personal profile but also helps others working towards
qualifications like CMALT or FHEA to see sample portfolios they can take
inspiration from. For example, I found four part series of blog posts
from Matt Jenner about
his submission for SFHEA when I was thinking of working towards SFHEA and it
inspired me to start writing up my portfolio for the same.
While working towards the Online Identity badge I kept on
thinking about projecting a persona via our digital presence. Many people who
are digitally literate consciously manage their digital identity. So,
effectively we see what they want us to see. On the flipside we also project
what we want others to see. I think it is really important that when we look at
someone’s online identity to be aware of the filters that are already there.
Sharpe, R., & Beetham, H. (2010). Understanding
students’ uses of technology for learning: towards creative appropriation,
Rethinking learning for the digital age: how learners shape their experiences
Routledge. 85-99.
van Dijk, J. (2005). The Deepening Divide: Inequalities in
the Information Society. Thousand Oaks: Sage
