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This article from PCMag.com discusses the adoption of Google Apps for Education at New York University and Northwestern University. The adoption is being challenged by the National Federation for the Blind, because of its inaccessibility to visually impaired and blind individuals on these campuses. 

Information for blind and low-vision users and deaf and hard of hearing users for Google products

How People with Disabilities Use the Web The following scenarios show people with different kinds of disabilities using assistive technologies and adaptive strategies to access the Web. In some cases the scenarios show how the Web can make some tasks easier for people with disabilities.

Thank your for posting this article Sherry. It gives us a view into the lives of people who had to find a way to function in the world of business as well as in the classroom. The reporter who after years of working normally, had to finally resort to the use of voice recognition in order to continue doing his job. The student wiht dyslexia who had to find a way to keep up with the rest of the students. The student found text to speech software helplful. This student found sites with graphics helpful, however, there were still some limitations. If the graphics were animated it was difficult to focus. These details are impereative to the function of independency to the person who is experiencing the disability. We need to remind our selves that the world is not black and white...there is a lot hidden in between what we are able to see.

It is amazing how we take web accessiblitity for granted. Being color blind is a disability that is not talked about often but is a hindrance for people searching the web. We find that things that are highlighted or pointed out show up in red for an attention getter, but for those who can not see reds, some websites could not be utilized by color blind people. Style sheets is something I am not familiar with at all, but this article made me aware of something that is available for color blind individuals.

In several recent online and offline discussions on comment spam and other automated, improper use of forms, I have seen or heard people suggest using image-based CAPTCHAs (you know, those images of distorted letters and numbers) to prevent spambots and other programs from successfully submitting forms. Requiring the user to interpret an image of distorted characters and then enter those characters into a text input field may seem like a nice idea at first. Deciphering those characters for verification can be confusing for most of us, but for the blind who depend on screen readers, it is impossible for those programs to intrepret such mumbo jumbo.

This video is has a link in the article below, but decided to bookmark it separate for easier access. This video shows how screen reader interprets CAPTCHA for the blind.

Windows  8 will be easier to use for those who are visually impaired or face other disabilities

I came across this article because it was listed as a resource under Maria Young's last bookmarked site.  I found the story of Leigh-Anne under "resources-success stories" to be eye-opening. http://www.ataccess.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=48&Itemid=56 This site has resources for and articles about people who are blind or have low vision, who are deaf or hard of hearing, have dyslexia, have Down's Syndrome, have Cerebral Palsy, have learning disabilities, you name it.

You can use deep links to take us directly to the part of the article that specifically meets the assignment requirement (...issues faced while using Web 2.0 techniques) If you turn on your diigolet, you will see a highlight and sticky notes that I posted in this article. Only members of our class Diigo group can see my comment. -- You can also see the page w/ the highlights w/o diigo! Because Diigolet has a feature that lets you get the annotated link. It is in the dropdown list you see after you click the edit button at the bottom left of the sticky note. BTW- If you have your Diigolet turned on, and you know you should see deeplinks, yet you do not, then try a different Browser. Firefox 4 on a Mac doesn't display Diigo deeplinks, but Safari does.