Starting July 6, EASI is presenting its month-long course for July: 
Barrier-free E-learning.  It is intended primarily for faculty teaching 
online wanting to know the easiest way to make their content accessible for 
students with disabilities.  Second, it will provide useful tools and 
insights for online course system managers, instructional design staff, 
information technology staff, academic administrators and college ADA 
compliance officers.  Making online course content can be done mainly using 
the authoring tools faculty already use in their daily work.

Anyone registering for this July course will receive a free handbook on 
accessible e-learning which is 30 plus pages in length.  You can view its 
table of contents online at:
http://easi.cc/zip/elearning-toc.htm

Read the full syllabus and register online at:
http://easi.cc/workshops/bfel.htm
Course registration is $350 with a $70 discount for students. Overseas 
participants and EASI Annual Webinar members.

Course Description
Barrier-free E-learning has been significantly updated and also enriched 
with new multimedia. The course now is based on the realization that course 
content authors, faculty and instructional designers, are placing that 
content inside a courseware or learning management system. Most of the Web 
accessibility issues relate to that interface, and only a few accessibility 
features are relevant to the actual course content. The revisions focus on 
a limited set of accessibility issues and also stress how to achieve 
accessibility using familiar software that designers are already using.
University, business and public schools all are adopting one or more forms 
of online learning technologies for delivering education and training. 
Online learning is simultaneously praised and roundly condemned. In any 
case, it is sweeping across America and into other countries. One of the 
results of the rapidity of this explosive growth is that, until recently, 
little attention has been paid to making these technologies accessible to 
people with various disabilities. Modern adaptive computer technology has 
the potential to provide the most level learning space in history for these 
students. However, the wrong technology choices may erect new and needless 
barriers to the full inclusion of these students.
The information in Barrier-free E-learning will be useful for 
administrators, instructional technology staff, instructional design staff 
and for any faculty who post content for their courses whether those are 
distance learning courses or merely online components of traditional campus 
classes.
Barrier-free E-learning course participants will leave the course with a 
practical tool that will empower them to influence the accessibility of 
e-learning at their institution.

This month-long course will be taught by Professor Norman Coombs, a leader 
in e-learning for more than a decade, winner of Zenith's Master of 
Innovation award and New York State's CASE Teacher of the Year award in 
1990 both for his work in the use of this technology in innovative ways to 
provide an inclusive educational setting. Coombs estimates that he has 
taught some 5,000 students in more than 40 countries.
The course is month-long and is entirely taught over the Internet.  Content 
is available 24 hours a day.  The 10 lessons each have a short set of 
questions to submit.  However, the course is run on a pass/fail basis and 
students will need to submit all assignments to earn the class completion 
documentation.

Week 1:
Lesson 1: Introduction to E-learning Systems
Lesson 2: What is Accessibility and is That Enough?

Week 2:
Lesson 3: Tips for Faculty and Content Providers
Lesson 4: Creating Content Using Microsoft Word
Lesson 5: PowerPoint and Accessibility

Week 3:
Lesson 6: Creating Accessible PDF Documents
Lesson 7: Authoring With Dreamweaver and Creating Multimedia
Lesson 8: Checking for Accessibility

Week 4:
Lesson 9: Beyond Online Delivery
Lesson 10: Planning and Policy

Read more and register online at:
http://easi.cc/workshops/bfel.htm




  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Norman Coombs [log in to unmask]
CEO EASI Equal Access to Software and Information
phone (949) 855-4852 (NOTE pacific time zone)
****READ ABOUT THE DICK BANKS MEMORIAL SCHOLARSHIP:
http://easi.cc/scholarship.htm