Creating a Student-Friendly Blackboard

1. Creating a Student-Friendly Blackboard Stephanie Robbins – Program Support Specialist, Assistive Technology Initiative Kara Zirkle – IT Accessibility Coordinator, Assistive Technology Initiative

2. Learning Objectives: • Define E-Learning and explain the benefits of accessibility for e-learners • Identify accessibility barriers that individuals with disabilities may experience within distance education learning/training environments • Share strategies for creating accessible documents (can be helpful for all students) • Identify the built-in accessibility features: - Blackboard Collaborate - Microsoft Office - Adobe

3. E-Learning & Accessibility • E-Learning is defined as self-paced, web-based training and instructor-led virtual training (Asynchronous and Synchronous). • The instruction is delivered via print, voice, video, and/or computer technologies • The communication is interactive in that the student receives support and feedback from the instructor via email, LMS or other online resources. The feedback may be immediate or delayed. • Accessibility (as it relates to e-learning), means that your e-learning course should be accessible to a variety of users. For example, learners with disabilities, the aging population and those for whom English is a second language.

4. Barriers found in E-Learning • All Disabilities: • The application or video player may not be accessible to user of assistive technology. • Mobility • Input method could be slow due to fine motor or AT causing problems not allowing student to effectively participate in real-time “chat” • Fine motor skills could make it difficult to select small buttons • Blind and Visually Impaired: • Description of visuals may not be described (i.e. whiteboard) • Documents, journals and presentations may not be accessible. • Videos may not be audio described • Cognitive Disabilities: • The pace of the class may move too fast to process all the information. • Participation may be more difficult when allowed to be done on your own time. • Deaf and HOH: • The lecture/training may not be captioned. • Videos may not be captioned.

5. Benefits of Accessibility for E-Learning Students • More independent for those needing alternative modes of transportation. • Large amount of resources can be found and used in one location • Equivalent interaction of all individuals (ex: someone who is deaf could still actively participate in the same manner without an interpreter for class discussion) • Not having to self disclose and still be a equal participating student. • Increased physical and emotional comfort. • Allowing students to work at their own pace and in their own environment makes them more comfortable even when using AT. • Electronic resources – ease of use with AT (more accessible than a paper copy).

6. Benefits of Accessibility for E-Learning Providers • Meeting regulatory standards • Reaching a broader audience • Demonstrating social responsibility • Increasing your own effectiveness as an e-learning provider • Training tailored to individual needs • Anonymity (E-learners are not required to reveal their disability) • Enhanced effectiveness for all learners More info on the handout “What, Why & How” Accessible E-Learning

7. What does it mean to be Accessible? • Now that we have reviewed the Barriers and Benefits of Accessibility and E-Learning – Faculty may be asking the question, how does that apply to me? • There are various areas to consider to make a course accessible. We are going to cover a few of these areas now.

8. Roles and Responsibilities: How are you involved with accessibility? Teaching Faculty and Staff

9. If you answered “No” to any of these questions, you may be allowing inaccessible products to be ….. • Purchased, • Developed, • Maintained, • Used …… By individuals with disabilities What can you do to help?

10. Blackboard Learn Accessibility for Blind/Low Vision • Blackboard Learn v9.1 has partnered with National Federation of the Blind (NFB) and has been awarded a Nonvisual Accessibility Gold Certification, making it the first LMS to achieve certification. • This helps to ensure that the overall use of Blackboard Learn v9.1 is fairly accessible to users with screen readers. • Here is an example of how someone would submit an assignment using a screen reader: Jaws Demo • Faculty need to ensure any content posted in Blackboard is accessible (accessible documents, websites used in class, videos are audio described.) • Ensure all “Building Blocks” – Additional Applications such as McGraw-Hill, Respondus, etc. are accessible to all students.

11. Collaborate Accessibility for Blind/Low Vision • In order for the student to have access to the shared materials, it will depend upon the proficiency of the student, what technology they are using and the support of the faculty member. • Mac VoiceOver has worked well, followed by Jaws and WindowEyes, depending the stability of Java, specifically Java Access Bridge. • Faculty should always “Share” the entire desktop, rather than individual applications. This will allow for the student to have a better chance of accessibility and compatibility of all technologies working together to provide access. • Documents and other handouts should be provided ahead of time via Blackboard for students to become familiar with in case technology at its finest won’t work.

12. Blind • Audible Notifications Audible notifications are system messages sent by Blackboard Collaborate Web Conferencing to notify users when certain important events occur within the session. These notifications are presented as sounds. Examples: Hand Raised, Hand Lowered, Participant Joined, Chat Message Received

13. Adding Audible Notifications • From the Edit menu, select Preferences… • In the left pane of the Preferences dialog, under General select Audible Notifications. The Audible Notifications preferences panel appears on the right side of the main Preferences dialog. 3. • To hear the sound used for a notification, click on its Preview icon in the right column of the panel.

14. Low Vision • Hosting Options The Hosting Options dialog box allows you to define how to display the Blackboard Collaborate Web Conferencing Application Sharing window while you are hosting an Application Sharing session. • Chat Options • Text size Options

15. Adding Hosting Options • From the Edit menu, select Preferences… • In the left pane, under Application Sharing, select Hosting Options. • The Hosting Options preferences panel appears on the right side of the main Preferences dialog. • Change Options - Hide Content Area (unchecked) - Shared Region Highlight - Other Options

16. Adding Chat/Text Options(User options) • You can set the font size of the text in the conversation pane anywhere from 7 points to 109 points, in increments of 2 points. • To change the font size: From the Tools menu, select Chat and then Increase Font Size or Decrease Font Size • Changing the Notes Text Option: Select the font size from the Text Size menu in the tool bar of the Notes window. (Or, right click in the notes section)

17. Blackboard Learn Accessibility for Deaf/Hard of Hearing • Any audio or video posted in Blackboard should have a transcript or be captioned. For any Mason faculty, please contact our office for Free captioning. (ati@gmu.edu or visiting our website: http://ati.gmu.edu/media.cfm). • If group work is required, ensure that students have access to a way to communicate with other students.

18. Collaborate Closed Captioning • Asynchronous Courses that are post recorded should be captioned prior to posting. Mason faculty can contact ATI for free captioning of courses (ati@gmu.edu or visiting our website: http://ati.gmu.edu/media.cfm). • Synchronous Courses should provide real time captioning support. To do this, students must contact the Disability Office to determine accommodations needed. If captioning needs to be provided the faculty should activate the Closed Captioning Screen in their course so that the captionist has access to the course.

19. Synchronous Closed Captioning • To grant the Closed-Captioning permission to an individual Moderator or Participant, select the Closed-Captioning permission in their Participant Options menu. (For further details, see the Moderator's Guide.) • When users are granted the Closed-Captioning permission, they will see the Closed-Captioning button added to the title bar of their Audio & Video panels; this is the button they will use to open the Closed-Captioning window to enter caption text.

20. Entering Closed-Captioning Text • Once you have been given permission to enter the closed-captioning text, open the Closed-Captioning input window by doing one of the following: • Click on the Closed-Captioning button at the top of the Audio & Video panel. • From the Window menu, select Show Closed-Captioning.

21. Closed Captioning Continued Note: The view window keeps a history of the captions. If you close and reopen it, it will retain the captions that you received when the window was previously open. It will not, however, display any captions entered by a captioner while you had the window closed. The Closed-Captioning window enables you to do the following: • Read closed-captioning text; • Change the closed-captioning source • Change window display options • Save the closed-captioning text

22. Case Study: Asynchronous Challenge • A professor worked all summer to record their entire 15 week course – embedded video and documents included. • The professor hoped to focus more time on student questions and answers throughout the course.

23. Case Study:Asynchronous Solution • If the professor included captioning in either the PPT, or the post produced video this would ensure full accessibility for individuals who are deaf or hard of hearing and help cognitive disabilities and those with ESL. • If more examples and detail was given when recording this helps give more audio description for blind and low vision. • If embedded videos were selected based upon the most accessible then we can ensure captioning and audio description. • If documents were made accessible and provided in original format, this would allow students to review documents outside the recorded lecture, using their AT.

24. Case Study:Synchronous Challenge • A student wants to take the class who is hard of hearing but does not know sign language. • This is a web conferencing course where real time audio and video is being used.

25. Case Study:Synchronous Solution • (Assuming the student is registered with the Office of Disability Services and has notified the professor prior to class) • The professor would work with the Office of Disability resources to coordinate Captioned Audio Real Time (CART) services to be used via web-based, allowing the student to essentially have a captioned course.

26. Case Study:Collaboration Challenge • A student who is deaf and a student who is blind are in the same course. • They were inadvertently put into the same group that needed to collaborate on outside projects for the class. • Students were expected to use available online collaboration tools, these tools were student selected.

27. Case Study:Collaboration Solution • First solution – put them in separate groups. If that isn’t possible: • The solution for the deaf student was to use Google +, allowing him to lip read or have an interpreter with him via video or he could independently use chat and still work as a group. • The solution for the blind student was to use Skype due to a more accessible program, allowing her to both video/audio and text chat. • Skype allowed multiple audio, but not video. Skype however did not distinguish between the different speakers or typists. Students can type or speak their name, prior to their group response.

28. Document, Presentation and Simulation Accessibility • Increasing number of distance education courses… • Number of electronic documents posted on websites are not accessible • Common Technologies Used: • Microsoft Word • Microsoft PowerPoint • Adobe Captivate

29. Microsoft Office 2010: Wordand PowerPoint • Add alt text to images and objects • Specify column headers in tables • Use styles in long documents • Use short titles in headings • Ensure all heading styles are in the correct order • Ensure that all slides have unique titles • Include closed captions for any audio or video (You can create template for PowerPoint, example: good contrast, showing Notes pane (can be used as internal captioning) Ctrl+Shift+N - JAWS keystroke for notes) • Ensure that the reading order of each slide is logical • Increase visibility for colorblind viewers • Use hyperlink text that is meaningful • Use simple table structure • Avoid using blank cells for formatting • Structure layout tables for easy navigation • Avoid using repeated blank characters • Avoid using floating objects • Avoid image watermarks

30. Microsoft Built-In Accessibility Checker When you go to file, you’ll see on the left side a “Check for Issues” and when selecting that you’ll find “Check Accessibility” http://www.microsoft.com/enable/training/office2010/default.aspx

31. Third Party Solutions • PDF Accessibility Wizard (PAW) • Plug-in installs directly into MS Office 2007 and 2010 • Allows document creators to convert a scanned PDF document into a tagged, accessible PDF document • Accessible Wizard for MS Office • Plug-in installs directly into any MS Office app (2007 - i.e., Word, PPT) • Walks document creator through issues within document and how to make them accessible

32. Adobe Reader Accessibility Features • There are some helpful accessibility features in the free Adobe PDF reader. For example, any PDF file open in Adobe reader can be read aloud with the "Read  Out Loud" option.  • Under the 'View' menu, select 'Read Out Loud', then 'Activate Read Out loud‘. • The Read Out Loud feature of Adobe Reader can be accessed with Keyboard Commands: • Activate Read Out Loud:  Shift + Ctrl + Y • Read This Page Only:  Shift + Ctrl + V • Read To End of Document:  Shift + Ctrl + B • Pause/Resume:  Shift + Ctrl + C • Stop:  Shift + Ctrl + E

34. Adobe Acrobat Professional Features for making PDF files accessible for reading • Ability to add text to scanned pages to improve accessibility • Tools for creating accessible PDF forms • Conversion of untagged to tagged PDF files • Tools for editing reading order and document structure • Security setting that allows screen readers to access text while preventing users from copying, printing, editing, and extracting text • Action Wizard to make PDF Accessible

35. Where to find accessibility in Adobe X

36. Adobe Captivate • PROVIDE DESCRIPTIONS FOR MOVIES AND SLIDES • You to easily provide text descriptions for your simulations. These descriptions provide details about the movie or slide to users of screen readers and other assistive technology. • CREATE KEYBOARD-ACCESSIBLE CONTENT • You can make sure that all buttons and clickable areas are accessible by keyboard. This allows individuals who have difficulty using the mouse to view your movies, even if they use clickable areas in simulations. • CREATE ACCESSIBLE QUIZZES • Includes a set of accessible question types including multiple choice, true and false, and Likert scale. These questions allow you to create simple, accessible quizzes quickly and easily. • PROVIDE CLOSED CAPTIONS FOR AUDIO CONTENT • Closed captions are the standard means of accommodation for users who are deaf or hard of hearing. Adobe Captivate features straightforward captioning tools to help you make presentations accessible to these users.

37. Questions? Contact Information: • Stephanie Robbins • E-mail: srobbin3@gmu.edu • Phone: 703-993-5644 • Kara Zirkle • E-mail: kzirkle1@gmu.edu • Phone: 703-993-9815 • http://webaccessibility.gmu.edu • http://ati.gmu.edu