Guest Blog Entry: ADA Title II Regs… IMPORTANT!

Ray Rose is an online learning and accessibility evangelist. He works with educational institutions to improve educational opportunities for all. His experience with online learning goes back more than two decades when he directed one of the country’s first online teacher professional development projects and was part of the team that created the first virtual high school in the US. His blog can be found at http://rmrose.blogspot.com and presentation slides at http://slideshare.net/raymondrose.

I have been waiting for OCR to release it’s NPRM on Section 504 – which was supposed to be out in August. So I wasn’t paying particular attention when the DoJ released it’s NPRM (notice of proposed rulemaking) for the ADA. Most folks think of ADA as being about  physical barriers, but ADA also applies to websites. And for DoJ a website is broadly defined to include most anything delivered online.

https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-issues-web-accessibility-guidance-under-americans-disabilities-act

and within is the link to the actual NPRM guidance

 https://www.ada.gov/assets/_pdfs/web-accessibility-NPRM.pdf

There are concerns with the NPRM. Definitely worth a read. Is this article raising some issues.

New DOJ Web Accessibility Regulation is a Disaster – Converge Accessibility

Someone at your institution should be aware of this NPRM. Ideally there’s been some discussion and your institution is adding its feeling to the public comments DoJ is looking for. But you’ve only got until OCTOBER 3.

“Written comments must be postmarked, and electronic comments must be submitted, on or before October 3, 2023.”

In this NPRM DoJ proposed that all websites (remember that’s under the broad definition of website) must meet the WCAG 2.1 AA standard. While that may have been the current standard when DoJ was writing their NPRM, since then the standard has advanced to WCAG 2.2 AA.  And folks are working on WCAG 3 now. Since it’s been 33 years since ADA was passed, it might take another 30 years for another update. Many folks are recommending the language say WCAG 2.2 AA or the current version of WCAG.

There’s a lot in the 200+ pages including issues DoJ wants specific feedback on. But the entire NPRM is open for comment. There’s some expectation the final rule will be published sometime in 2024. The NPRM says institutions will have 2 or 3 years (depending on institution size) to become fully compliant with the rules

One of my favorite areas is 5 days for an academic institution to get a course fully accessible when a student with a known disability enrolls in a course after the normal enrollment time – if the student enrolled in the normal process (before the course begins) – the course is expected to be fully accessible at the course start (WCAG 2.1 AA).

All online course designers who work to retrofit accessibility into existing courses will tell you that unless the course was designed with accessibility in mind 5 days is not enough time. (What I don’t know is how this piece relates to the requirement that all institutions covered by Title II of the ADA have 2 or 3 years from the issue of the final regulations for all online websites to be fully accessible.)

What that means, in my understanding, is online courses need to be made fully accessible. Most academic institutions don’t have the staff to make all courses fully accessible – the course instructors must take that on now. But at least in higher ed there are often staff that know how to do that, to provide assistance to faculty. I don’t know of many K-12 online programs that have the resources.

There’s an interesting K-12 issue in the NPRM; a parent with disabilities needs full access to online information. I suspect most K-12 programs have no idea if they have parents with a disability.

For higher ed there may be someone with accessibility responsibilities that knows about the NPRM. In K-12 institutions, I have doubts there’s been someone paying attention. Please point out the NPRM to the relevant folks and get comments to DoJ by the end of the month (or Oct 3)

Ray Rose is an online learning and accessibility evangelist. He works with educational institutions to improve educational opportunities for all. As is the pattern here at Virtual School Meanderings, there will be no additional entries posted today.

EDTECH537 – Guest Blog Entry: Working To Measure and Improve Blended Teacher Readiness

As I mentioned in the Week 7 entry for my EDTECH537 – Blogging In The Classroom course yesterday, today I wanted to post a sample of a guest blog entry.

Jered Borup is the professor-in-charge of George Mason University’s Blended and Online Learning in Schools Master’s and Certificate programs that are devoted to improving teacher practices in online and blended learning environments.  In this guest blog entry, Jered has taken the lead – along with his co-authors Charles R. Graham (Brigham Young University), Cecil Short (Brigham Young University), and Leanna Archambault (Arizona State University) – in discussing their book “K-12 Blended Teaching: A Guide to Personalized Learning and Online Integration.”

Like many familiar to you, school districts near us are adopting one-laptop-per-child initiatives. What’s less clear is how those laptops are to be used. Placing laptops in front of students will not magically improve student learning—or even change much of anything in a meaningful way. However, if leveraged correctly, the technology does provide excellent opportunities when paired with blended teaching professional development. Even when a school district is eager to provide professional development, administrators are left wondering where to focus their limited resources. Similarly, the few teacher-preparation programs that provide meaningful coursework designed to prepare students for blended teaching lack clear standards to guide their course work.

To address this need, our team worked to develop open resources that school districts and professors can freely use to guide and focus efforts to prepare teachers for the blended classroom. It was important that the resources be grounded in research. The research began with Pulham and Graham’s (2018) extensive review of existing online and blended teaching competencies. Using insights from this research, Graham, Borup, Pulham, and Larsen (2019) developed and statistically validated a survey instrument that measured teachers’ confidence completing specific blended teaching skills that were grouped into several categories. We began calling it the process model because the categories largely followed the steps teachers would take to plan, facilitate, and evaluate blended learning activities for their students. While the process model instrument made an important contribution, we found it to be too long to be used repeatedly. We came to believe that an instrument focused on pedagogy—rather than process—would be more useful. As a result, we developed a new instrument that focused on the following four sets of competencies in addition to foundational technology skills and dispositions (see Figure 1):

• Online Integration – the ability to effectively combine online instruction with in-person instruction.
• Data Practices – the ability to use digital tools to monitor student activity and performance in order to guide student growth.
• Personalization – the ability to implement a learning environment that allows student customization of goals, pace, and/or learning path.
• Online Interaction – the ability to facilitate online interactions with and between students.

You can access the survey online at: http://bit.ly/K12-BTR 

Figure 1. Four core competencies for effective blended teaching built on a foundation of technology skills and dispositions.

We used the pedagogical model to create an online, open textbook rich with examples, resources, and media. The book, K-12 Blended Teaching: A Guide to Personalized Learning and Online Integration, is now free to anyone to use at https://edtechbooks.org/k12blended. We believe the survey and the book combine to create an especially valuable resource. We encourage you to explore both the survey and the book and share them with anyone who would benefit from them. We also welcome your feedback and suggestions. Please send your comments to jborup@gmu.edu.

References

Graham, C. R., Borup, J., Pulham, E. B., & Larsen, R. (2019). K-12 blended teaching readiness: Model and instrument development. Journal of Research on Technology in Education, 51(3), 239-258. DOI: 10.1080/15391523.2019.1586601

Pulham, E. B., & Graham, C. R. (2018). Comparing k-12 online and blended teaching competencies: A literature review. Distance Education, 39(3), 411-432.http://doi.org/10.1080/01587919.2018.1476840

Jered Borup is the professor-in-charge of George Mason University’s Blended and Online Learning in Schools Master’s and Certificate programs. A full list of his publications can be found at https://sites.google.com/site/jeredborup/  As is the pattern here at Virtual School Meanderings, this will be the only entry posted today.

 

EDTECH537 – Guest Blog Entry: How Does An Online Course Become (And Stay) Available For K-12 Students?

As I mentioned in the Week 7 entry for my EDTECH537 – Blogging In The Classroom course earlier this morning, today I wanted to post a sample of a guest blog entry.

Jason Siko has held appointments at Madonna University and Grand Valley State University.  Prior to entering the academy he was a high school biology and chemistry teacher in the metro Detroit area.  Jason’s research is primary focus on K-12 online and blended learning.

There’s an old saying that goes something like this, “There’s no such thing as a bad medical school. If you graduate bad doctors or ones that can’t pass the licensing exams, they’ll shut you down.” The same could likely be said about law schools. The point I’m trying to make is that there are mechanisms in place for the quality control in some areas of education. Heck, the same could be said about restaurants: even with variations in oversight and regulations from health inspectors, Yelp! ratings matter. If people get sick, or see rats coming out of the kitchen, you know that restaurant will not be around much longer.

However, when we look at K-12 online learning, we see a different story. Course pass rates for online courses pale in comparison to their face-to-face counterparts, yet the growth of online learning at the K-12 level continues. States and third-party providers continue to grow their programs and add new courses. How does the process of getting a course approved and keeping it in the catalog work? In this post I’ll provide an overview of how some states handle this process.

Generally speaking, states can require approval at the course level or the provider level, or both. These processes are fairly self-explanatory; at the course level, the course must meet whatever guidelines are dictated by the state before being accessible by students, while at the provider level, it is the provider who must meet requirements before being allowed to provide/administer online courses in the state. In some states (e.g., California), approval of courses is optional. Finally, some states have different approval options based on whether the course is created for use within a district or if students from multiple districts are allowed to enroll.

As you can see, there is little followup based on student performance once the course is “live.” Two states, Washington and Colorado, have made efforts to include elements of continued approval of courses based on performance and student attendance, but they are still in their infancy. What challenges do you see (i.e., political, logistical, economic, etc.) with creating a system of oversight that monitors (with consequences) online course success rates based on student performance?

Note: Some of the information in this article comes from the following source.

Barbour, M. K., Clark, T., Siko, J. P., DeBruler, K., & Bruno, J. (2019). Cases of quality: Case studies of the approval and evaluation of K-12 online and blended providers. Online Journal of Distance Learning Administration, 22(1). Retrieved from https://www.westga.edu/~distance/ojdla/spring221/barbour_clark_siko_debruler_bruno221.html

Jason Siko, Ph.D., is a researcher whose primary focus is K-12 online and blended learning.

EDTECH537 – Guest Blog Entry: Technology Powered With Purpose -The Tech Tools Of Personalized Learning

As I mentioned in the Week 4 entry for my EDTECH537 – Blogging In The Classroom course yesterday, today I wanted to post a sample of a guest blog entry.

Anissa Vega is an Associate Professor of Instructional Technology in the Bagwell College of Education at Kennesaw State University.  She also holds the responsible of Online Teaching Endorsement/Certificate Coordinator at KSU.  In 2017, Anissa was the recipient of the University System of Georgia Board of Regents Teaching Excellence Award for Online Teaching for her work with both credit and noncredit courses (such as the K-12 Blended & Online Learning MOOC).

I teach a graduate class about personalized learning, where I engage in a one-on-one video-chat conversation with each student 4-5 times throughout the semester, also referred to as co-planning conversations. Through over-150 hours of these conversations over the past 14 months, I have noticed a pattern in how my students, mostly K-12 teachers, perceive technology uses for personalized learning. Initially, many confuse either technology integration or blended learning as synonymous with technology for personalized learning. We often talk out the overlap and try to open our minds to the vast variety of possible classroom systems that could support learner agency and individual pacing. Then, we discuss what systems are needed, and how our purposes for the technology dictate the technology selected. Across these conversations, we have collectively come up with five common reasons to use technology for personalized learning. It has been a while since I we have added any items to this list, so I would like to expand the conversation with the online community. So far, our Kennesaw State University community of learners, comprising of over 120 educators, has identified the following five uses of technology for personalized learning:

1. To present and organize content for individual pacing: This is often the first purpose my students identify. Tool types that fit in here typically support blended or online learning as a means for introducing and explaining new concepts or processes to learners. They include adaptive learning software (iReady, Newslea, ALEKS, etc.), LMS and video recording software combinations used to “flip” direct instruction (Canvas, itsLearning, YouTube, OneNote, Khan Academy, etc.) and comprehensive e-learning packages (Fuel Education, Edison Learning, or Edgenuity).
2. To track individual growth: Assessment and data tools help to generate formative student data that can inform the teacher and parents of a student’s progress in learning and if they have additional needs moving forward. Tools that fit this purpose include adaptive testing tools (MAP Assessment, iReady, USATestprep, etc.), quizzing tools (Quizziz, Kahoot, Socrative, etc.), and survey tools (Google Forms, PollEverywhere, etc.).
3. To organize and communicate complex knowledge: Websites (Weebly, GoogleSites, etc.), blogs (Edublogs, Blogger, etc.), or digital portfolios (Seesaw, WeLearnedIt, etc.) can all serve to organize and share the products and evidence of student learning that was acquired through student-centered activity such as service learning, project-based learning, or problem-based learning. The evidence housed in these tools may be organized by a timeline, curriculum standard, or competencies.
4. To establish student self-management behaviors: Without students managing their own behaviors and co-designing their learning experiences, personalized learning that incorporates student-centered pedagogies can be overwhelming and unsustainable. Learners need to have the skills to self-manage throughout the day in a personalized setting. Tools that might be used for this purpose include ClassDojo or RedCritter. Additionally, students might reflect on how their time was spent each day and set new short term goals using a blogging (Edublogs, Blogger, etc.) or journaling (OneNote, Google Word, etc.) tool to support time management and self-starting behaviors.
5. To offer student choice in demonstration of mastery: Personalized learning requires learners to employ agency in their learning experience, and choice in mastery demonstration is one way agency may be practiced. The tools that fit here are too many to count, because the teacher will not make this selection for the learner. For younger learners, s/he may provide a limited selection of choices on a “choiceboard” with tool or activity options such as Flipgrid, Popplet, Kidblog, etc. In other scenarios, a teacher may leave the choices open and primarily up to the learner. Student choices might include anything from websites, screencasts, or infographics, to traditional papers.

Some models of personalized learning focus heavily on the first use that focuses in on individual pacing as seen in schools supported by Fuel Education or the Summit Curriculum. However, other models of personalized learning also employ student-centered pedagogies with project-based learning as seen in Fulton County Schools. Given these five purposes of technology, do you see any gaps? How are you using technology to support a model of personalized learning? Comment and share below.

Author note: The references to specific software tools in this blogpost are not an endorsement or evaluative statement of these tools by the author. They are only included for illustrative purposes and other tools of varying quality are also available beyond those mentioned here. For evaluative information on any tools mentioned here or alternatives, visit www.CommonSense.org/education.

Anissa Vega is an Associate Professor of Instructional Technology at Kennesaw State University. She regularly teaches KSU’s K-12 Blended & Online Learning MOOC.  As is the pattern here at Virtual School Meanderings, there will be no additional entries posted today.

EDTECH537 – Commentary Entry: Making Your Blog More Accessible [Guest Blog Entry]

As I mentioned in the Week 4 entry for my EDTECH537 – Blogging In The Classroom course earlier this morning, I wanted to post a sample of a commentary entry.  As it would happen, this past week I reached out to several of my colleagues about guest blog entries and I received several that I will be able to post over the coming week, one of which was also a good example of a commentary entry.  So this post is also an example of a guest blog entry (although I will post another one of those tomorrow too).

Ray Rose is an online learning and accessibility evangelist. He works with educational institutions to improve educational opportunities for all. His experience with online learning goes back more than two decades when he directed one of the country’s first online teacher professional development projects and was part of the team that created the first virtual high school in the US. His blog can be found at http://rmrose.blogspot.com and presentation slides at http://slideshare.net/raymondrose.

Do you want to have a blog read by millions, well thousands, or even hundreds.   Make it accessible to everyone. That means thinking about how people with disabilities access the internet and use that knowledge to make your blog friendly.

People with disabilities access online materials using a variety of applications. People with visual disabilities may access websites using a screen reader. A screen reader uses speech synthesizer technology to read whatever text is on the computer screen and in the case of a blog, on the browser screen.   There are things you can do to help make your blog more accessible.

When a screen reader encounters a graphic, it says “graphic”. Graphics on web pages have a feature called an ALT tags (alternative text). ALT tags are used to describe the graphic or what the graphic is representing. ALT tags are not created automatically in blog platform, the author needs to enter the text the screen reader will use. Want more info check out the CommonPlaces blog.

Note that I didn’t put the full link for the CommonPlaces blog. If it had been there, then a screen reader would have read the entire link.

A number of people have some form of color blindness. Your use of colors should not make for problems for people with color blindness. If your directions depend solely on color you are making it more difficult for about fifteen percent of the population

Videos should be captioned. YouTube videos have an auto-captioning feature, but, according to YouTube, that is only, at best 75% accurate, and depending on the quality of the audio, speaker’s accent, and content, accuracy can be less than 50%. But the auto-captioning can be edited by the owner of the video, and starting with the auto-captioning is easier than starting from scratch. Creating a transcript is better than nothing. Don’t think only people would can’t hear need/want videos captioned. We have captioning turned on our tv all the time, as do many other folks without a hearing disability.

You create a blog to communicate ideas/content/information. Designing the blog to be more accessible ensures that more people can understand your content. There are tools to help with accessibility. All Microsoft products now include an accessibility check. Adobe and many other products have similar features.

One of the tools I frequently use is the WAVE Accessibility Tool. I have it as an add-on to Chrome. It is not a complete accessibility checker (e.g. it doesn’t check videos for captioning) but it does provide a good overview of the basics. I do know that the Office for Civil Rights of the US Dept of Education (OCR) has used it to monitor compliance with federal civil rights legislation.

If your blog were part of an educational institution, then at a minimum the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) would apply. Make a blog for your class, and its part of education and ADA as well as Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act applies.

P.S. This document was composed on Word, and the accessibility checker (File, Info, Inspect Document, Check Accessibility) reported it was accessible.

Ray Rose is an online learning and accessibility evangelist. He works with educational institutions to improve educational opportunities for all. As is the pattern here at Virtual School Meanderings, there will be no additional entries posted today.