My Accessibility Saga - continues
Created by Henry E. Schaffer (North Carolina State University) on September 03, 2006
Two more learning objects done! Or should I be more careful and say that I've completed my first efforts on making them accessible. I've used the same techniques that I used in my first adventure. (To read the earlier progress in My Accessibility Saga, go to my blog here and scroll down to the bottom, and then work your way up! There's got to be a better way - but I haven't found it yet. :-)
I worked on my learning object which deals with sampling from a Uniform Distribution. Making this accessible is almost cheating, since the learning object is extremely similar to my first effort in dealing with sampling from the Normal Distribution. However, I'm not at all ashamed in using skills I've just developed and in reusing code.
This reworked learning objects is at http://www.cals.ncsu.edu/gn/ex/samphist.html
Next, I thought it would be terrific to be able to say Section 508 compliant: yes for a learning object of mine which is listed at merlot.org This one is called "The Mitochondrial Eve - Who will she be?" and is another exploration of a random phenomenon - this one in evolutionary genetics.
After thinking a while, I concluded that the important simulation outcome information is already presented in text boxes, and the nice colored graphics mostly give a visual display of the information in the text boxes. This may be helpful to the sighted reader but is primarily repetitive.
I decided that what was needed was a D-linked page which described the overall process and explained the way in which the text box numbers should be interpreted.
This took some writing, and then I went back to the learning object and "tidied" it up - e.g. got rid of the misleading header tags, and reviewed what I had done.
Then I went to Merlot and changed the Section 508 statement to yes! Wow, that felt good!
If you're interested in this learning object - you can find it at Merlot, or you can go directly to http://www.cals.ncsu.edu/gn/ex/mit-eve.html
to see it.
This one has more discipline material in it than do the sampling objects I've mentioned earlier. They were more skeletal, and written to invite the adopting teacher to add course material when using the simulation.
At this rate, I won't have them all done by Educause 2006. But I'd be glad to discuss them and demo them if you catch me there. I hope to have all of them done by Educause 2007!!! :-) Hmm, I think my university would prefer an earlier completion date.
My co-presentation on this topic at the Instructional Design group is at the end of this week, and I'm looking forward to that - both the co-presentation with a wonderful colleague of mine (Hi Lisa! :-) and to hearing reactions from a group of Instructional Designers.
I worked on my learning object which deals with sampling from a Uniform Distribution. Making this accessible is almost cheating, since the learning object is extremely similar to my first effort in dealing with sampling from the Normal Distribution. However, I'm not at all ashamed in using skills I've just developed and in reusing code.
This reworked learning objects is at http://www.cals.ncsu.edu/gn/ex/samphist.html
Next, I thought it would be terrific to be able to say Section 508 compliant: yes for a learning object of mine which is listed at merlot.org This one is called "The Mitochondrial Eve - Who will she be?" and is another exploration of a random phenomenon - this one in evolutionary genetics.
After thinking a while, I concluded that the important simulation outcome information is already presented in text boxes, and the nice colored graphics mostly give a visual display of the information in the text boxes. This may be helpful to the sighted reader but is primarily repetitive.
I decided that what was needed was a D-linked page which described the overall process and explained the way in which the text box numbers should be interpreted.
This took some writing, and then I went back to the learning object and "tidied" it up - e.g. got rid of the misleading header tags, and reviewed what I had done.
Then I went to Merlot and changed the Section 508 statement to yes! Wow, that felt good!
If you're interested in this learning object - you can find it at Merlot, or you can go directly to http://www.cals.ncsu.edu/gn/ex/mit-eve.html
to see it.
This one has more discipline material in it than do the sampling objects I've mentioned earlier. They were more skeletal, and written to invite the adopting teacher to add course material when using the simulation.
At this rate, I won't have them all done by Educause 2006. But I'd be glad to discuss them and demo them if you catch me there. I hope to have all of them done by Educause 2007!!! :-) Hmm, I think my university would prefer an earlier completion date.
My co-presentation on this topic at the Instructional Design group is at the end of this week, and I'm looking forward to that - both the co-presentation with a wonderful colleague of mine (Hi Lisa! :-) and to hearing reactions from a group of Instructional Designers.
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