EASI Activities for December NOTE: The EASI office will be closed from November 18-27. If you need to be in touch with someone between those dates, send email to Dick Banks [log in to unmask] 3 items in the newsletter below: December 4-part Onlline Learning Fee-based Series Free 2-part Webcast Series on DAISY E-texts and Readers December Online EASI Month-long, Instructor-led Courses --------------- December 4-part Onlline Learning Fee-based Series ** You can watch the overview Webcast on Online Learning at: http://easi.cc/archive/elearnov/ November 28 at 2 PM Eastern, Presentation 1: Introduction: History and Current State of Online Learning Presenter: Norman Coombs, Dick Banks, Michael Elledge and staff from U. Toronto ATRC (NOTE! registering will give you access to the 4 live presentations as well as their recordings. Participants will also be enrolled in a listserv discussion to promote further interaction). Coombs brings the unusal perspective of someone who began teaching online a decade before the Web came into existence and reflects on the impact of these technical changes both on the nature of online learning itself and on their impact on users with disabilities. Dick Banks has experience, as does Coombs in using Blackboard, eCollege and WebCT. Mike Elledge is the Accessibility Specialist/University of Michigan and part of the Accessibility Team Lead/Sakai Project which is a courseware system developed by several major universities. The staff at the U. Toronto's Adaptive Technology Resource Center played the key role in developing and maintaining the ATutor courseware center. December 5 at 2 PM Eastern, Presentation 2: Online Learning: Best Practice and Best Policies Presenters: Robert Todd and Cyndi Rowland In this presentation, Coombs will be joined by Robert Todd of Georgia Tech and Cyndi Rowland of Utah State University. They will focus on defining best practice in online learning and the importance of clear policies defining commitment to accessible online learning. Todd heads the GRADE Project at Georgia Tech and moderated a recent leadership conference with national leaders wrestling with what is best practice and how best to disseminate information about its importance. Robert will rely heavily on the GRADE Project and this summer's symposium. Cyndi Rowland has lead the WebAIM Project dealing with training Web masters and administrators on making institutional Web sites accessible. She has a special interest in the important role played by an institution expressing its commitment in a clear policy statement. December 12 at 2 PM Eastern, Presentation 3: Enhanced Accessibility Using Microsoft Accessibility Wizard Presenters: John Gunderson and Dan Linder Course content designers rarely work directly with HTML Web code or even with software designed to create HTML. They use standard authoring software, unrelated to the Web, and trust it to output acceptable content for the Web, but word processors, and similar software almost never output content for the Web that meets accessibility needs. This wizard, however, will enable someone to do that without learning HTML accessibility. Coombs will host a presentation by John Gunderson and Dan linder of the University of Illinois dealing with making content authoring tools able to assist the content designer in creating content for the Web that is fully accessible without their having to become HTML experts. John and Dan have created a small program which adds a menu item to all of the Office applications to output accessible Web pages. The wizard is fast, simple and user friendly. The user does not have to know any HTML nor to know anything about accessibility. It finds the problems in the content and prompts for the items it needs freeing the user from being burdened by learning technical jargon or code. December 19 at 2 Eastern, Presentation 4: Accessibility Checking and Captioning Multimedia Presenter: Dick Banks and Norman Coombs While there are a number of tools to let content providers check the accessibility of their content for users with disabilities, most of them will not work behind the password of a courseware system. The presentation will demonstrate some really simple checkers that will work inside courseware systems. The presentation will help faculty understand which accessibility items are the ones which most directly concern their work and which items they will be able to ignore as they do not apply to their work. Multimedia is becoming an increasingly popular tool used by faculty in online courses. A simple, easy-to-use tool to add captions to multimedia will be displayed. You can read more and register online at: http://easi.cc/forms/distance.htm ---------------- Free 2-part Webcast Series on DAISY E-texts and Readers "WHY PICK A DAISY" 2-part Dec. 13 and 15 at 2 PM Eastern DAISY BOOKS & PLAYERS Presenter: Robert Lee Beach, Assistive Technology Specialist Kansas City Kansas Community College Traditional electronic texts have been linear and navigating through them was appropriately called "scrolling" because they functioned like an ancient scroll without the navigation convenience of modern books with separate pages and a table of contents. However, the the computer now makes it possible to have more powerful and flexible ways to navigate an electronic book than is possible with the print book. DAISY is becoming the standard format providing this convenience. Much of the push behind its development was to provide better access for readers with disabilities, but its superior navigation means it will probably become a universal format choice. DAISY books are becoming more popular due to their great navigational potential. However, with the different versions and types of DAISY books and players available, what is best for you, your students, and/or your organization? During this presentation, we will look at the versions and types of DAISY books and explain their differences. Then we will look at a few of the various players and discuss their differences. Even if you and/or your institution does not have plans to use DAISY formatted books, you will probably be dealing with them from other resources in the near future. It is to our advantage to have knowledge about these books and players in order to keep up with new technologies. Possible audience: Individuals with print related disabilities E-text users E-text producers Technology support personnel Student support personnel Disability service providers Counselors Part 1 on Dec. 13 will focus on DAISY software and part 2 on Dec. 15 will focus on Hardware. Read more and register online at: http://easi.cc/forms/beach.htm --------------- December Online EASI Month-long, Instructor-led Courses EASI has 9 such courses, and anyone taking 5 of them will earn the Certificate in Accessible Information Technology from EASI and the University of Southern Maine http://easi.cc/workshop.htm Barrier-free Information Technology This course gives a thorough overview of how an institution can design its entire computer and information technology systems to be accessible to their students and staff with all kinds of disabilities http://easi.cc/workshops/adaptit.htm Accessible Internet Multimedia This course provides an introduction to making multimedia with several popular authoring applications. Then, it walks the participant through the process of providing streaming captions for that multimedia. http://easi.cc/workshops/mmedia.htm --------------------------- EASI Online December Courses: Barrier-free Information Technology http://easi.cc/workshops/adaptit.htm Accessible Internet Multimedia http://easi.cc/workshops/mmedia.htm (Taking 5 courses earn the Certificate in Accessible Information) Norman Coombs, Ph.D. CEO EASI Equal Access to Software and Information http://www.rit.edu/~nrcgsh