Group items tagged

Abstract Course management systems, like any other technology, have an inherent purpose implied in their design, and therefore a built-in pedagogy. Although these pedagogies are based on instructivist principles, today's large CMSs have many features suitable for applying more constructivist pedagogies. Yet few faculty use these features, or even adapt their CMS very much, despite the several customization options. This is because most college instructors do not work or play much on the Web, and thus utilize Web-based systems primarily at their basic level. The defaults of the CMS therefore tend to determine the way Web-novice faculty teach online, encouraging methods based on posting of material and engendering usage that focuses on administrative tasks. A solution to this underutilization of the CMS is to focus on pedagogy for Web-novice faculty and allow a choice of CMS.

Pachyderm is an easy-to-use multimedia authoring tool. Designed for people with little multimedia experience, Pachyderm is accessed through a web browser and is as easy to use as filling out a web form. Authors upload their own media (images, audio clips, and short video segments) and place them into pre-designed templates, which can play video and audio, link to other templates, zoom in on images, and more. Once the templates have been completed and linked together, the presentation is published and can then be downloaded and placed on the author's website or on a CD or DVD ROM. Authors may also leave their presentations on the Pachyderm server and link directly to them there. The result is an attractive, interactive Flash-based multimedia presentation.

""Evaluating Web Sites for Accessibility" is a multi-page resource suite that outlines different approaches for evaluating Web sites for accessibility. While it does not provide checkpoint-by-checkpoint testing techniques, it does provide general procedures and tips for evaluation in different situations, from evaluation during Web site development to ongoing monitoring of existing sites. The approaches in these pages are intended to supplement other content management and quality assurance procedures."

The purpose of this wiki is to explore, explain and support non-traditional modes of publishing one's creations. In most cases, existing work and creations by others, using these same technologies, can also be used to support teaching and learning. These technologies fall under the broad definition of the "Read-Write-Web" or Web 2.0. There are hundreds of sites and services where you can create, modify and upload your own content, whatever it may be. (Designed for Connecticut College faculty and students.)

"This article is designed to help users who are new to NonVisual Desktop Access (NVDA) learn the basic controls for testing web content, and to serve as a reference for the occasional NVDA user. NonVisual Desktop Access (NVDA) is a free and open source screen reader for the Microsoft Windows operating system. It supports over 20 languages and can run on any computer entirely from a USB drive with no installation."

Tool to help with creating color palettes for design work. You enter first color, and it gives various options for palettes.

An improved version of the original WebCorp, designed to search the web for concordances in real time. Can limit by country code or to specific domains.

Article arguing the importance of testing for web accessibility, and the relative ease of doing so. It describes each of the standards and how it can be tested (when special technology, such as a screenreader, is needed to test, when it can easily be done with no additional technology).

Tool to help with creating color palettes for design work. You upload a photo and it extracts colors from it and gives you a palette.

Tool to help with creating color palettes for design work.

The Standards-based Measurement of Proficiency (STAMP), a criterion-referenced, Web-based assessment tool, measures students' language proficiency at levels ranging from Novice-low to Intermediate-mid. STAMP currently measures reading, writing, and speaking proficiencies in Chinese, French, German, Italian, Japanese, and Spanish. CASLS strives to continually improve STAMP's test design while adding new languages and new levels. STAMP is available through CASLS' partner company, Avant Assessment.

TAGARELA is an intelligent computer-assisted language learning (ICALL) system designed to be fully integrated into the Portuguese Individualized Instruction Program at The Ohio State University. It can be viewed as an intelligent automatic workbook that provides students with opportunities to practice their reading, listening, and writing skills. Because it is a web-based system, it can be used anywhere there is a computer with internet access. TAGARELA uses state-of-the-art Natural Language Processing (NLP) technology to analyze students' input, and detect spelling, morphological, syntactic and semantic errors. Its NLP components allow the system to handle activities that go beyond the usual multiple choice or fill-in-the-blanks used by regular CALL systems. Its exercise types are similar to the ones typically found in current workbooks, such as: * listening and reading comprehension * picture description * vocabulary practice * phrasing and re-writing TAGARELA has a student model that keeps track of each student's individual performance, and an instructor model that carries information about activity and error types. Together the student and instructor models allow the system to choose the best feedback strategy to use with each individual learner based on the level of the activity, type of task, characteristics of error, and learner profile.

"Quality Matters created a set of forty specific elements, distributed across eight broad standards, by which to evaluate the design of online and hybrid courses. The web-based, fully interactive rubric is complete with annotations that explain the application of the standards and relationship between them."

"A tool for gathering usability feedback from web users in a low-impact manner"

Explains the standards for web pages from Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act, in clear chart format that shows what a webpage needs to include in order to pass, and examples of what a webpage that fails would include.

"audio.js is a drop-in javascript library that allows HTML5's tag to be used anywhere. It uses native where available and an invisible flash player to emulate for other browsers. It provides a consistent html player UI to all browsers which can be styled used standard css. "

A tool that lets you enter foreground/background color combinations to check if they meet accessibility standards for legibility.

"Despite the ability of Flash to create highly accessible content, there are some major issues you must be aware of regarding Flash and accessibility. These include using plenty of contrast, consistent navigation, understandable language, etc. Here are some specific strategies to make Flash accessible to different disability types."

Full list of Electronic and Information Technology Accessibility Standards: "The purpose of this part is to implement section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, as amended (29 U.S.C. 794d). Section 508 requires that when Federal agencies develop, procure, maintain, or use electronic and information technology, Federal employees with disabilities have access to and use of information and data that is comparable to the access and use by Federal employees who are not individuals with disabilities, unless an undue burden would be imposed on the agency. Section 508 also requires that individuals with disabilities, who are members of the public seeking information or services from a Federal agency, have access to and use of information and data that is comparable to that provided to the public who are not individuals with disabilities, unless an undue burden would be imposed on the agency."