Attitudes towards accessibility - understanding attitudes in order to embed accessibility into everyday teaching practice Sarah Horrigan, April 2009

3. Sounds simple!

4. What’s the problem?

5. There’s a huge gap between knowing about accessibility and acting on that knowledge

6. If we know accessibility is an important issue…why do we do so little about it?

7. When asked about assistive technologies in a recent staff survey, the responses included…

8. What in the name of all things is an assistive technology? No idea what this is all about? I don't understand these terms I have no idea what you are talking about unfortunately

9. Is it denial?

10. … but none of my students have a disability … but it’s not my responsibility … but they can use a screen-reader, it’s fine … but there’s nothing wrong with my materials

12. Is it because it’s complex?

13. It can look that way…

14. Source: WCAG 2.0 Guidelines , Wordle.net

15. Is it a question of aesthetics? Is it a question of cost?

16. There is no single answer – if we can understand some of the issues we can start to make change

17. So, what does accessibility really mean?

18. An example…

21. There were four images

22. There was no real right or wrong answer… the real issue is that by not providing questions first we didn’t allow you to skim ahead, look out for key phrases or read with a purpose. Well structured teaching would have made this far more accessible

23. What should we really know about accessibility?

24. It can impact all of us It can improve things for all of us

25. Accessibility Inclusive teaching Effective teaching Maximizing learning Confusing? Threatening? Inflexible? Complex? Irrelevant? Ugly?

26. Accessibility Inclusive teaching Effective teaching Maximizing learning

27. So… what can we do about it?