Background

The aim is to develop a number of recommendations for people to consider when designing their face to face teaching sessions to ensure the interactive activities they undertake are as inclusive as possible.

The likely uses can be divided into the following scenarios;

1. the lecture is using web based material to illustrate / demonstrate. Therefore, the student will be viewing this material either on the projected space or on a device that they own. Increasingly over time, staff will be using Moodle as the tool to collect and present these resources.

The questions that need to be answered include; is moodle accessible to the range of assistive technologies used at the University of Bath? How accessible is Moodle to other devices that the student might own? The outcomes will result in changes to the Moodle system, and informing staff of the issues of when they deploy these technologies in the teaching space.

2. the lecturer uses technologies to interact with the class. For instance, the use of audience response systems and SMS.

The question that needs to be answered is, what does the lecturer need to consider when designing these activities to ensure they are inclusive and are effective learning activities?

3. The lecture starts to create video assets in their lectures that are to be distributed to students afterwards.

The question that needs to be answered focuses on ensuring that activity is designed so people can participate effectively in the creation process, and are able to access the products.

The timeline

October

  • Survey of 10 academics who teach large classes. Identify if they use Moodle or Confluence directly in the session, and how they use it. Also identify what web based resources they use.
  • Develop a Moodle course that includes the primary uses of how Moodle might be used in lecturing. For instance, to store web links, to display a forum activity, to access a powerpoint. Led by Andy. Input from Roger & Nitin
  • Develop a set of style sheets which are designed to improve the accessibility and usability of these activities for people using assistive technologies and non-PC devices. Led by Matt.
  • Engage the wider community through our poster at MLEARN 2008. Led by Matt
  • Focus group with Learning Support where they experience the use of the audience response system, and the different uses of SMS in face to face teaching. Key question, what are their first thoughts from the perspective of range of disabilities. Led by Andy

November

  • Complete literature review on Moodle accessibility. Led by Andy
  • Work with Learning Support and those who support people on using the assistive technologies for their assessment of the experience of accessing and using Moodle based resources. Led by Andy
  • Survey 10 academics to identify what type of class interactions they use. Led by Andy
  • User test the mobile / assistive technology styleheets.

December

  • Take stock, write up reports, findings and observations. Plan next steps. Led by Andy

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