Model of SCULPT and the challenges of ‘re-learning or unlearning’ to learn new skills.
I have used this to inform early ideas around the variables at play for ‘learning right first time’ when first developing an understanding of concepts at school age.
I have conducted an initial literature review from these three variables looking into the perspectives of skills and knowledge of both learners and teachers.
Image: a conceptual map of the wider literature review and the additional findings identified in the bigger picture of digital accessibility potential in the school curriculum.
Polizzi (2020) explains that the national curriculum for England was designed by gathering evidence from teachers, young people, parents, employers, researchers and teacher training providers (DfE, 2013c; QCDA, 2010). Yet, educationalists and policymakers hardly considered the expertise of digital specialists such as information, IT and media professionals to understand exactly what digital literacy education entails. In practice this has neglected how digital specialists could deploy their expertise in ways to inform and promote digital literacy throughout the national curriculum (Polizzi, 2020).
Considering we have been living in a ‘digital by default’ world for at least a decade (Cabinet Office, 2012 ref) and now have new laws that public bodies adhere to for website accessibility (Legislation GOV UK, 2018) Digital literacies have not been prioritised in education and the curriculum certainly does not currently extend to or cover information and awareness about digital accessibility, yet digital accessibility potentially affects a large part of our society when interacting with digital information. Without considering or teaching these skills and principles we are excluding people who use digital content through lack of education on how to create it. Digital content creation plays a big part in the development of materials by learners for assignments, projects and assessments.
I argue that digital accessibility, the role it now plays in society, and the need for content to be inclusive by making ‘reasonable adjustments’ (Equality Act, 2010; Web accessibility regulations, 2018) we should be shining a much stronger light on the need for a stronger and more substantial digital literacy curriculum framework that could support the learning of basic digital accessibility knowledge and skills.
20% of society have disability or impairment (QUOTE)
An insufficient curriculum and learning through since small-scale media literacy projects in school are just not sufficient anymore (Bazalgette, 2010). Our children need to be digitally literate and aware of the implications of poor design and creation of digital materials can have. The digital world means that children and young people are not just consumers of information but due to the wide variety of tools and software available they are vast creators and producers too, both inside and outside of school (Jenkins, 2006).
Approaches to teaching digital and media literacy vary significantly and countries like the UK and others in Europe lack a unified framework on how it should be taught (Frau-Meigs, Velez, & Michel, 2017).
To inform a framework it would be useful to understand the current learning experiences and knowledge students have, not just with more general digital literacy skills but how these skills relate to those who may need simple accessibility features and adjustments.
There is a possibility that these skills are not taught because there is an assumption that digital accessibility is complex (ADD MY NIT COMPLEX BUT SIMPLE REFERENCE).
Simplicity is the key to engaging people***SCULPT simplicity success??? Minutes to learn the basics. Adding the basics make content more functional and operable to more people. POUR??? Perceivable, Operable, Usable and Robust. All of these refer to how content works, how it can be operated, navigated and understood.
Polizzi (2020) refers to a more familiar or understandable term of ‘Functional digital literacy’ and the practical skills necessary to use digital technologies, including operational, information navigation, social and creative skills (van Deursen, Helsper, & Eynon, 2015). He refers to this more in the context of information or media literacy but this is possibly the closest term that many might recognise to describe or align to digital accessibility. The functional aspect closely relates
to how content functions and can or cannot be used because of their technical features, digital design and the character of networks (Hutchby, 2001). Accessibility is just that, it’s about WHAT IS DIG ACCESS - Mandy Cameron page (AbilityNet, 2021?)
When the functionality and operational features are not designed appropriately it creates barriers to use and excludes people, therefore learning about functional digital literacy skills are a crucial aspect towards digital accessibility and vital for the momentum and progress of an inclusive digital future.
When digital accessibility is omitted from the equation like it currently is in the digital skills framework most people understand, the basic curriculum only impacts on the individual learners progress, yet the lack of basic knowledge and skills for our future generations to be able to actually create digitally inclusive content has wider implications for our future society and the wider social model of disability.
The social model of disability is described as BLAH (REF the world makes the barriers). With this in mind it is only right we educate our future society to prevent barriers and enable people, rather than create barriers and disable due to lack of awareness or education to support it.
When matching this lack of awareness of digital literacy skills with lack of awareness and a ?deficit model? of those with disabilities it makes for a large gap in the education and curriculum of our young people.
*Ages kids develop understanding of disabilities (it could be argued the optimum age to teach) before establishing routines (Gu) construction of knowledge when it’s initially learnt *
Digital accessibility plays only a small part in learning about others needs, but digital content could be a familiar subject for our young people often referred to as the digital generation (REF REF) to introduce and cross pollenate disability awareness and how we can all with some simple skills adjustments easily contribute to being digitally inclusive by design.
To me this is why the citizenship and digital literacy curriculum in education needs to become more than just an add-on but becomes a priority and
I have to agree with Polizzi (2020) that the citizenship and computing curricula should be revised.
I argue that with the existing model in education we are currently not preparing our young people with a range of basic digital and computing literacies in our heavily digital world (ref,ref,ref) but we are also not raising appropriate awareness of equality, diversity and inclusion in a digital society if we don’t do something to future proof it (Ref, ref, ref).
This also then poses an even wider question for this research of teachers knowledge in the area of digital accessibility and their skills to be able to teach or disseminate such information. Lewthwaite (YEAR) highlights that there is a lack of knowledge or teacher CPD around this area to facilitate pedagogical teaching on digital accessibility (WORD this BETTER). Her studies are primarily focused within the higher education or workplace context but based on the strength of evidence it could very easily translate across all educational contexts, and this in itself may pose a very challenging hurdle to teaching the basics of awareness and skills in the curriculum at primary or secondary school level.
This initial literature review was conducted across XX journals and an internet search engine to explore the subjects of digital accessibility skills, school digital literacies and disability perceptions in children.
This literature search has highlighted constraints for my future work. I have not been able to locate relevant and related research to position my specific intentions. I have been unable to identify any studies or specific research on digital accessibility skills learning within primary or secondary education for this initial literature review, and for the purpose of this work I can so far assume that due to the immaturity of digital accessibility as a taught subject, it has not yet penetrated the learning and teaching in schools. I believe this warrants the importance of the research I’m intending to conduct and emphasises its significance as an original contribution to knowledge.
If a curriculum development or intervention of this type was to be developed then we need to understand as a baseline what learners and teachers in schools do and don’t actually know about digital accessibility and what framework or level of understanding they may have at key stages in the educational learning context. This research aims to explore this understanding from the perspective and experiences of learners and teachers in schools. It will also hopefully act as a guide to inform further research to explore as (Polizzi, 2020) suggests, what input from professional expertise maybe needed to help develop such a curriculum for learners as well as a potential teacher training framework to support it.
Based on (blah) evidence of being able to empathise with those who have additional needs and KS2 AGED 10, it maybe a good place to understand what basic foundations of initial understanding they may have around digital accessibility if any.
I also want to compare this with investigating the experiences and knowledge of those in their final school year KS3/4 to explore the extent that the school curriculum or personal experience has raised their digital accessibility awareness or any taught skills they’ve been delivered.
I would also be keen in both groups to know of other influencing factors may have contributed to their knowledge of digital accessibility, e.g., family, friends, media and personal experiences to draw a more rounded exploration of their knowledge variables both in and beyond the classroom that impacts how they may learn or know about the topic.
Methodological:
This type of research has its foundations in the epistemological model of constructivism.
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