Intro text for a paper

Digital education is falling short when it comes to topics about digital inclusion and accessibility. Although there is teaching around digital accessibility by some educators, this is mainly in the university or tertiary education context (refs) or in the workplace (ref). Often digital accessibility is only incorporated into a course if an enthusiastic or specialist teacher brings it to the table (ref), deeming it an unsustainable topic, especially if that teacher leaves (Bohman, 2012). Where it is available, students mainly enrol on it as an elective topic (ref) or drop it as it's seen as too niche (ref). 

Beyond web design disciplines, everyday baseline digital accessibility awareness at scale  is not yet formally on the educational or lifelong learning curriculum. Where it is taught, mainly later in the educational or workplace learning journey, this is often the first time learners have been exposed to the topic, meaning it is treated as an add-on, rather than a routine set of principles as the 'norm (ref).
To make digital accessibility awareness ‘the norm' education and awareness would need to be established at the same point of learning about other digital responsibilities such as online safetly or data protection, so our next generation know how to be inclusive in digital content as they develop and establish these early skills. Many others have called for digital accessibility to be taught as early as possible (refs) including in schools.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Lit review sequence

  Sections : Background and context (set the scene/ rationale) Social model of disability The legal context for digital accessibility Conceptual perspectives for defining digital accessibility  The problem- the lack of accessible content causing barriers - the wider lack of knowledge AND  need for teaching about DA awareness (social responsibility and for social model to work) The teaching of digital accessibility   Not formally on the curriculum  Where is digital accessibility currently taught/how (uni and workplace) - then the gaps of knowledge prior to uni and the workplace - yet all are using and creating digital content already. Best approach found was to integrate it across the curriculum and reinforce - needs to be taught earlier in schools and then built upon - no papers in school apart from 2 The need for the primary education context and why upper KS2 - establishing the earliest opportunity to introduce and explore the topic to then build upon Cross re...
Read more

Teach Access Repository and Facebook research link

Image
 #Educators, do your students know what assistive technology means? From tactile maps to screen readers, #AssistiveTechnology includes a number of devices that enable and foster the inclusion of people with disabilities. The Teach Access Curriculum Repository (TACR) has various resources designed to build out your courses and introduce your students to these types of technologies.  Go to the TACR (https://lnkd.in/gWMxzk2e) and check out the presentation slide deck on assistive technology and the assignment for using a screen reader, under the Psychology section.    #BackToSchool #Accessibility #Inclusion #ScreenReader #AssistiveDevices #Psychology #Disability #Disabilities #A11y https://teachaccess.org/curriculum-repository/ Facebook research post: PhD Thesis Writing Process: A Systematic Approach—How to Write Your Introduction To download complete article, use the link: https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED590321.pdf https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED590321.pdf?f...
Read more

Notes from original proposal

Text taken from original proposal to unpack/expand: The barriers and ‘unlearning’ highlighted during SCULPT were potentially framed by prior complex  beliefs and understandings and ‘unlearning’ or ‘retrofitting’ skills (Youngblood, 2010). As Gu (2010, p.340) explains “a large part of human and professional knowledge can hardly retain its original meaning when it is divorced from the contexts in which it was constructed and produced.” This made me consider that these skills should potentially be taught at the point these original meanings are constructed and that happens at a much younger age. To understand when it would be appropriate to introduce the basics of awareness and skills in school, I considered the age when young people develop digital skills (Department for Education, 2013) as well as an understanding of what it means to be disabled and children’s perceptions for those with disabilities (Boer et al, 2012).  In a literature review Babik & Gardner (2021) found th...
Read more