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carmin karasic

REQUIRED DISCUSSION: Increasing Awareness about Web Access Barriers - 60 views

web2.0 sp12accessibility

started by carmin karasic on 19 Jan 12
  • carmin karasic
    #1 carmin karasic on 19 Jan 12
     
    Comment on something you learned from a classmate's bookmark about barriers that people with various disabilities face while they are online. Issues arise from various disabilities and/or language limitations.
  • Tina Mercer
    #2 Tina Mercer on 25 Jan 12
     
    I really liked Erin's link to Tech DIS. It has disabilities listed by category. Within each category it has a score for how specific Web 2.0 applications rate with the specific disability. This will take the guess work out of determining whether something will work with an individual child based upon his/her disability.
  • Megan Haddadi
    #3 Megan Haddadi on 25 Jan 12
     
    From Tina Mercer's website (http://www.cfit.ie/news-and-commentary-archive/589-i2webpressrelease), I learned about the I2Web project (http://i2web.eu/index.html). They have some really great objectives, but I was bummed to see that the US is not involved in the organization or project as far as I could tell. It looks like a European organization. If they make progress, I hope it can be implemented worldwide. I wonder if there exists a similar global organization...
    -Megan
  • mike mercer
    #4 mike mercer on 27 Jan 12
     
    I found Maria 's post on apps for students with Astiun, since I currently have 2 students in my classes that do not communicate. This really looks like something that these students could use and make their lifes easier.
  • mariagyoung
    #5 mariagyoung on 27 Jan 12
     
    The article on motor disabilities posted by Tina Mercer gives a detailed description of the assistive technology tools that can be used to provide people with the independence they need to accomplish tasks at school or work, improve social interaction, communicate, and improve their quality of life. Technology is a miracle that gives these people a reason to wake up each morning.
  • catiagilbert
    #6 catiagilbert on 28 Jan 12
     
    I found Sherry article informative when we think about disabilities I often forget about person that develop physical impairment as they age and two of the six scenarios helped me to remember. The more that I use this laptop the more I struggle with my wrist. I also think that my eyesight is getting worse. A study should be done on the increase in carpal tunnel cases.
  • John O'Connell
    #7 John O'Connell on 28 Jan 12
     
    Wanda's site on screen readers brought back memories of when I tried using one for my 2nd graders a few years ago. They were very basic compared to the Jaws program in her article. The voice was flat and mechanical and the students became bpard with them very quickly. Reader Rabbit was a bit better as it attempted to use the charachter's voices but not by a whole lot.
  • Wanda Brewer
    #8 Wanda Brewer on 28 Jan 12
     
    The website that Maria bookmarked, su11web20education - Autism- Breaking Down Barriers, caught my attention. There are more and more children being diagnosed with Austism each year. I have become familiar with some of the characteristics of the disability within the last three years due to three students entering our ec program at school. It is amazing what technology has done for any disabled individual. I had no idea there was a program to help autistic individuals understand emotions. The web designers are now using applications to help these folks focus on webpages by making fonts more plain and developing pages less cluttered. I checked out the site that provides games for autistic individuals to learn how to understand emotions. This is very beneficial for these individuals to function appropriately within the social realms.
  • Cindy Rooks
    #9 Cindy Rooks on 29 Jan 12
     
    The website that Maria bookmarked about Assistive technology for Students with Learning Disabilities gave some great tools that I had not thought of or was not even aware of. I will be checking out some of those tools and the ability to use them with some of my students.

    My article argues with the Article that John posted on the actual helpfulness of the new Accessible Rich Internet Applications (ARIA).

    Sherita and i are on the same page with the idea of those CAPTCHAs which I personally despise. I have a hard time seeing them so how can they expect a disabled person to be able to use them to get access to their site.

    The Article Maria posted on Autism Breaking down the Barriers is one I plan to look into further. I did not realize that there were applications designed specifically for a child with autism. I am going to try some of those sites with some of my students and see if it helps them in any of their accessibility issues.
  • Erin Hunt
    #10 Erin Hunt on 29 Jan 12
     
    I learned quite a bit from Mike's "Tweeters Take Responsibility for an Accessible Web 2.0" bookmark. Considering that I am recently new to Twitter, having joined for the first time in this course. I really had not contemplated the lack of accessibility the application provided for impaired individuals. Issues like not providing keyboard shortcuts for common commands, a lack of headings, static layouts, and features requiring JavaScript are all components that could hinder universal access for impaired individuals. I thought a statement made in the text, by Katie Ellis and Mike Kent (2010), was enlightening to this point-"While there are a number of people who use Twitter to tweet about accessibility issues, Twitter itself is inaccessible." I was happy and interested to read about the efforts made by Dennis Lembree and his development of the "Accessible Twitter" tool application that breaks down some of the accessibility barriers for blind and visually impaired individuals wanting to be apart of and follow the Twitter crowd. Thank you Mike for this bookmark, I am looking forward to researching and knowing more about Accessible Twitter!
  • sherry reed
    #11 sherry reed on 29 Jan 12
     
    I really enjoyed Mike's article "Apps for Autism, Communicating on the iPad". It is amazing how much iPads increase the ability to communicate and improve the children's willingness to socialize in the autistic children interviewed. There is so much inside these children is easily dismissed because they can't get it out. As one mother put it, she felt as if "her son was a computer and she was computer illiterate." It just reiterates the fact that every child has so much potential and it is our job as teachers to find how they can reach that potential. I couldn't stop at the article and clicked the link "apps for autism". There were so many great apps included there. I really liked Game Factory's new release which is a hybrid between a match and flash card game that allows you to upload your own images and choose the concepts you want your students to learn. It's unique because it allows you to become an active part of your student's education (www.bacciz.com). 45 miutes later, I stumbled across conversation builder in itunes. I love this app because it focuses on conversation skills such as turn taking, vocal loudness, speech intelligibility, oral reading comprehension, sustained attention, etc. Skills that not only apply to autistic children but my own children as well. Now if I could just find an app to keep them from talking back to me. Hmmmm. . . . .lol
  • bzist3
    #12 bzist3 on 29 Jan 12
     
    The article WebAIM: Motor Disabilities that was posted by Tina was very interesting to me. I am very knowledgeable about various illnesses and disorders but it really did open my eyes to just HOW many there are and how much a person can miss out in life without some sort of technological assistance. I am very reliant on my mouse and it scares me to think about not being able to use it. Yes, I know some shortcuts and am trying to keep learning more. I also remember how difficult it was for me to first learn how to use one. My hand could not control it at first because it was so sensitive. I get frustrated when my first graders can't use a mouse too well at the beginning of the year and every once in a while I have to be reminded how hard it was for me to learn it!
  • mariagyoung
    #13 mariagyoung on 29 Jan 12
     
    Adam Seldow, the student from the Harvard Graduate school of education, wrote about social tagging in K-12. On pages 6, 7 and 8 he states that contextual understanding is very important for students who move to the United States from different countries. He seems concerned with the fact that one word, in his example "apples" and how it relates to dentists, can create a situation where both the students and the teacher could end up being correct based on their own perspective of the assignment. It explain what could hapen if the student searches for the tag "apple" on a social bookmarking site. The student might find a tag relating to apples but it might not be the one the teacher was expecting for this assignment. He states that tags reflect an individual's conception of an object (Adam Seldow, page 7). His perspective on tagging was written in April of 2006. Since then many changes have taken place. Although I do not know much about the subject, I can see how using one word to tag an item could have its limitations.
  • Sherita Locklear
    #14 Sherita Locklear on 30 Jan 12
     
    I am always excited when others talk about Kurzweil. Kathleen posted Kurzweil's website which is a text to speech program. This program was purchased by our school system and is one we use often in our Career Technical Education Dept. We use Kurzweil for our students who receive modifications such as read alouds. We also use this program for our VoCATS testing, which allows students to receive necessary modification and they can take the test at their own pace.
  • bzist3
    #15 bzist3 on 30 Jan 12
     
    @Maria, I'm glad you brought up the Adam Seldow example about the apples! It was a great way to explain contextual understanding and how there can be MISunderstanding, even without anyone realizing the problem! Thank you for bringing that up again.
  • Marcus Humphrey
    #17 Marcus Humphrey on 30 Jan 12
     
    I like the post submitted by Carmin on "The Madtoe Strikes Again...". This article really captured my attention because of my personal experience with my sister who suffered with cerebral palsy. She had to learn how to resist failure and really lean on advancing technology that was available for empowering her to be successful throughout school. She was able to graduate HS and live independently for nearly 18 years. The statement from the article speaks very directly to much of the discipline my sister had to adopt.
    Being disabled doesn't mean an inability to function; it only means we function in a unique way. We find better ways to work more easily and successfully. We must not give up. This is expressed by a quote that was in big bold letters all over my elementary classrooms and physical therapy rooms: "We Can Because We ThinkWe Can."
  • Holly Rocha
    #18 Holly Rocha on 01 Mar 12
     
    I was particularly interested in the link posted by CaTia titled "Enabling an Accessible Web 2.0". I found this article to be extremely informative clearly depicting challenges those with disabilities face in using web 2.0 tools. From the textual evidence it appears that there are many folks who are already addressing the concerns and working hard to rectify these challenges while implementing access for all. It is important that we recognize the challenges and create new tools otherwise we are perpetuating the lack of accessibility for those with disabilities who are already often times at a disadvantage from other learners.

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