Reflecting on HOW college experiences

 After finishing my CPACC preparation course it made me reflect on previous experiences I had many many moons ago.

I was tasked with creating interactive learning materials for several groups of learners with additional needs, this must’ve been as far back as 2006-2007?

These learners had some quite profound disabilities and used tools that were worn on the head to press keys on learning materials and others who couldn’t use a keyboard or mouse but could easily touch an interactive whiteboard. These materials were made and tested with those specific needs in mind.

The teacher they had was incredible, he taught me so much about user needs and accessibility, even before people understood the importance of it. This laid the foundations of where my passion lies today.

I remember testing the materials and them feeding back to me. This experience made me fully appreciate and question my own preconceived ideas about people with disabilities. They used the tools and were learning the same as the other classes of non-disabled students, the only difference was the learning resources they had.

When you hear the term ‘disabled by society’ you understand that the disability isn’t the problem it’s the tools and resources, and once that’s fixed the learning experience can equally happen.

Interestingly those same materials now would only work in that specific context, and wouldn’t be fully accessible, they were built in Flash. They certainly would not work on a screen reader but considering that I know in my mind how I could or would make them nowadays to consider the keyboard and screen reader experience. 

The course really was good. It was great to reflect and I will certainly revisit it as I prepare for the CPACC exam.

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