Time for digital inclusion at scale

 Adding references as I go: AblityNet (2022), What are reasonable adjustments [Online] Available from https://abilitynet.org.uk/workplace/what-are-reasonable-adjustments (accessed July 31, 2022) Bartlett, J. and Miller, C. (2011) Truth, lies and the Internet: a report into young people’s digital Fluency. [Online] Available from: Truth_-_web.pdf (demos.co.uk) (accessed July 31, 2022) Bayne, S. and Ross, J. (2007) The ‘digital native’ and ‘digital immigrant’: a dangerous opposition, University of Edinburgh, Presented at the Annual Conference of the Society for Research into Higher Education (SRHE) December 2007. Cabinet Office (2012) Government Digital Strategy [Online] Available from Government Digital Strategy (publishing.service.gov.uk) (accessed July 27, 2022) Christopherson, R (2022) Out with accessibility - in with inclusive design, W4A '22: Proceedings of the 19th International Web for All Conference April 2022 Article No.: 15Pages 1–2 [Online] Available from https://doi.org/1...

 What a week. I’ve written my proposal for the next chapter…crikey it really did bring back memories from my time in Nottingham on the EdD. The word’s epistemology, ontology and methodologies. Then positivism, subjectivity, objectivity, constructivism and ethnographical.  I’ve spend most of my waking hours reading, watching video lectures on YouTube and reading my old work. My head is absolutely buzzing but happy buzzing. I’ve really enjoyed myself, most especially revisiting arguments, knowledge contexts and the construction of knowledge. Almost 5000 words later and I’m ready to discuss formally with professors tomorrow, fingers crossed I’m back on track, it took some doing undoing of the rust that my brain had gathered, but I’ve applied the brain lube (so to speak). Let the next chapter commence, I have my fingers firmly crossed I’m good enough to apply for my PHD.

 Yesterday I traveled back from London on a train after attending an awards ceremony. Opposite was a lady working on a big document on her laptop. I watched her typing and noticed a considerable amount of scrolling up and down her document.  With the corner of my eye I kept watching, not because I’m nosy but just wanted to watch someone craft a document. Her scrolling was her working out her working out her changing page numbers as she added content so she could update her table of contents, a TABLE of contents. The accessibility police within me wanted to lean over and show her how headings could be applied so she could generate a table of contents, but also use a navigation pane to avoid the continuous scrolling up and down to find the bit she was working on. I didn’t though, I just continued to observe. It made me wonder how many people just don’t know how about applying in-built headings, using the navigation pane and the auto-generated table of contents. It’s something I ...

 I’ve collated my ideas, thoughts and copious emails to myself to start writing a research proposal, very exciting times.  It seems apt to use this quote from Nelson Mandela. I fundamentally believe this to be true, and it is right at the heart of what I’m trying to do. Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world. speech, Madison Park High School, Boston, 23 June 1990 Keeping the vibe simple and back to classroom stimulus basics.  The power of posters https://littlescholarsplayground.com/the-benefits-of-educational-posters/ http://www.dandy-design.com/archive/essays/posters_influence.html

 Use this document to draft research proposal ideas ready for application. https://www.exeter.ac.uk/media/universityofexeter/webteam/shared/postgraduate/pdfs/A_Guide_to_Writing_your_PhD_Proposal.pdf

 A useful thought and relevant document to read on learning by posters on walls https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ983927.pdf As well as Lave and Wenger situated learning theory?  Thought process: Throughout childhood we all learn, either in the classroom, a situation or by what is in our physical environment. This is that very first step of initial basic awareness, possibly even before the Blooms ‘knowledge’ and recall stage. Being aware of something doesn’t mean you ‘know’ it or have any ‘knowledge’ especially the first time you see it, but could relate to something you already know a bit a about and become one of those things you know of. I’d be interested to know or understand any levels of awareness in school children, college students or university students about digital accessibility. I’d be interested to see the impact of posters to help feed basic knowledge and awareness. That walking past a recognisable poster every day, does it have impact, what can people recall ...

It’s time to educate our future inclusive digital generation  03 July 2022 Article Draft (put out under my pseudonym Georgie Haynes) Digital inclusion or digital accessibility in recent years been in the spotlight mainly due to the public body web accessibility regulations. Web teams in public body organisations are primarily the ones with responsibility for this work, along with some organisations starting to take a wider organisational approach. Teachers in further and higher education have had to learn new skills to teach online as well as learn to create accessible online content for their virtual learning environments (VLE). This skills training has been at scale and they are also monitored for this compliance on the VLE. In councils it’s slightly different, with the focus of skills development for the minority, which is mainly those in web teams or those who upload to websites or intranets who need to adapt content for online use. Often this to just address compliance needs r...