Reading Time: 3 minutesIt’s time to dive back into the Canvas Accessibility Checker and chat about the rest of the issues it checks for. This week, we’ll be taking a closer look at image alt text, tables, and lists. Alt text Canvas checks for a few different issues that can pop up with alt text – if an image has alt text, if the alt text is different from the file name, and how long the alt text is. Canvas does automatically assign the file name as alt text when you upload an image, so you should rarely get the “no alt text error.” For any of the alt text…
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Course Accessibility: Headings, Links, and Color Contrast
Reading Time: 4 minutesToday we’re going to start our dive into the new Canvas Accessibility Checker and tackle a few of the issues it checks for. We’ll cover the rest of the items next week, but for now, we’ll focus on the text-based items. Before we start looking at the individual items, let’s chat about how to get to this tool and run the report. In your course, find the “Accessibility” link in your course navigation and click it. The first time you go to this page, you’ll get a note that says you have not yet scanned your course and a prompt to scan the course. Once the scan is complete, you’ll see a graph detailing the kinds of issues and a list…
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Course Accessibility: Intro
Reading Time: < 1 minuteToday, we’re kicking off a new series on accessibility – Canvas has a new tool they’ve launched, and we want to take this opportunity to also revisit accessibility principles and how they apply to each of us – regardless of whether your class is online or face-to-face. While these may seem like they’re just “extra work” or something that doesn’t make a difference, they’re still best practice. And by preparing our courses and materials to be ready for whatever needs a student may have, we’re showing our love for others in action. Across this series, we’ll explore how Canvas tools can help us in this journey – as well as what they don’t cover but we still need to address. We’re excited to dive in and explore all this with…
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Transform Your Teaching: Creating an Accessible Learning Environment
Reading Time: < 1 minuteWhat accessibility standards need to be considered when designing a course? How do these considerations serve the needs of students? Rob and Jared chat with Dr. Amy Lomellini, Director of Accessibility at Anthology, about strategies for creating accessible courses for the sake of students. Our listener survey is still open, so please let us know how we can make the podcast even better. Podcast links Resources Chat with us!
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Generative AI, In Practice: ALT Text, Part II
Reading Time: 5 minutesLast week, we looked at some examples of alt text that Copilot generated for us and evaluated what we’d need to change before using them. It had done a good job with simple graphics, though the nuance of having elements faded more to the background and the meaning of that was lost on it. Copilot did not do a good job describing a still shot from a movie. But today, we’re going to look at this from a different angle – what can we do to help GAI create better alt text for us? Are there ways to prompt or feed it context to get drafts more…
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Generative AI, In Practice: ALT Text, Part I
Reading Time: 4 minutesNow that we’ve finished our series on Generative AI over on Transform Your Teaching, we wanted to take this opportunity to dive into specifics for some of the ways GAI can help speed along parts of your process. CTL recently worked on a course project that included designing a lot of figures and graphics to be included in lesson pages – and each of those images needed to have alt text written for it. Now, I’m no stranger to writing alt text, and it isn’t the most complicated piece of work to do; but it can take a decent bit of time when you’re starting with a…
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Transform Your Teaching: The What, the Why, and the How of Technology Integration – The How & Accessibility
Reading Time: 2 minutesIn this episode, Dr. Rob McDole and Jared Pyles continue to talk about the “how” of tech integration, but they discuss it from the perspective of accessibility with Lauren Eissler–User Experience Designer and Editor for the Center for Teaching and Learning at Cedarville University. In their conversation, they define accessibility and discuss best practices for making more content accessible to students. Check out the episode to hear more about how structuring written content with headings, captioning videos, and using alt text can help your students in their learning. Podcast links Show Notes Before digging into how to effectively make content accessible, it’s important to ask: “what is…
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Accessibility Best Practices: Color and Text
Reading Time: 3 minutesLast post, we talked about the importance of captions, best practices for graphics, and tips for writing good alt text. Today, we’re looking at two other aspects of accessibility and usability – using color properly and working with text. Color Using color can be a powerful way to accentuate the information you’re presenting. But color shouldn’t be used as the only way to draw attention to or distinguish items. It’s easy to put warnings or urgent information in red, but that kind of visual indicator just doesn’t work for everyone. People who are red/green colorblind, for example, can have trouble distinguishing between and identifying those colors –…
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Accessibility Best Practices: Captioning, Graphics, and Alt Text
Reading Time: 5 minutesToday, we’re going to dive into some accessibility best practices to implement into your courses. We’ll be looking at media in this post, and in our next, we’ll be talking about color and text. Captioning Captioning is likely one of the first things people think of when considering accessibility, and rightfully so. But it isn’t only beneficial for people who are deaf. Captions are helpful when people are in a loud, distracting, or public environment, especially if they forgot earbuds at home. With a captioned video, a student who forgot earbuds in the dorm could still work on that last piece of homework while all their roommates…
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Introduction to Accessibility Series
Reading Time: < 1 minuteOver the next few posts, we’ll be diving into accessibility. It’s easy to hear “accessibility” and think of captions for videos, but more goes into it than just that. Instead of focusing on just specific practices (which are important and we’ll cover), we’ll start with an overarching principle – designing for the whole person, and not the disability (21 Kalbag). If you base your work, whether it’s designing an element or building a course, on empathy and understanding (and good pedagogy), usability and inclusion will be “baked into” the result. This type of designing for the whole person is an element of universal design,…