Raising the Awareness of Online Accessibility: The Importance of Developing and Investing in Online Course Materials That Enrich the Classroom Experience for Special-Needs Students

摘要

In early 2002,I participated in a training institute for online methodology that provided several practical techniques for teaching online, including how to select and place content, as well as how to facilitate online discussions and assessment strategies. Since then, I have taught online and hybrid courses every semester, joined forums for online instructors, and attended a handful of conferences and workshops dedicated to online teaching. Interestingly, none of the forums ever included discussions on the development of course materials for special-needs students. And although there has been much dialogue recently about teaching to different learning styles, as I recall, none of these discussions even hinted that teaching to different styles included students with learning disabilities or that students may be using assistive technology, such as a screen reader or voice-recognition software, to access online course materials.