digital divide – Page 8

still pondering on Web 2.0

Sue Watling / January 22, 2009 / digital divide

Using Viso I’ve created a visual map of the work on my desk, a review of 2008 and plan for 2009. In the corner, marked up as needing more attention, is an area called Web 2.0 which covers the Web 2.0 Community on Blackboard (last contributed to a year ago), my Web 2.0 website (hidden somewhere in a corner of my H drive), Second Life (last visited for the literature conference six months ago) and this blog (originally set up to support my expeditions into Web 2.0 worlds and much neglected of late).

For a while I had felt I was up to date; I’d read the JISC reports into the student experience regarding Web 2.0 and had rss’d all my useful social networking and blog sites into Netvibes.

Today, apart from an occasional sorty into Facebook, my Web 2.0 interest is relegated to a corner of my annual review sheet and I’m still pondering on this change from Web 2.0 savvy to Web 2.0 bored. Was it the plethora of passwords and the need for some system to memorise them all? Was it the additional time it took to keep up at the expense of more important work like supporting Blackboard? Or was it concern about the number of places across the internet where I’d posted my name and email address? Was I putting my legitimate Internet use at risk; online banking, shopping at Amazon, collecting with Ebay, communicating with family and friends – was I jeopardising the virtual opportunities I valued the most simply by increasing the number of times I was entering my personal details online?

Or did I just have more interesting things to do instead?

on ‘not’ blogging

Sue Watling / January 15, 2009 / digital divide

My web 2.0 activity (as in self publishing) seems to have diminished; one week I’m blogging, twittering and yammering with anyone who is likewise bitten by the bug and the next week, apart from some occasional facebook activity, it’s all stopped. I’ve waited to get re-bitten but it hasnt happened.

Being a reflective sort of person I’ve been wondering what’s changed and my conclusion is…… nothing.

And therein lies the answer. I haven’t blogged, twittered or yammered and it hasn’t made any difference.

I’m still over-working, under-studying, spending my weekends walking, seeing family and friends; my life is just as busy, just as much fun – nothing has changed. I haven’t lost or gained. Whether I divulge innanities online or keep the daily minutae to myself, I’m still living exactly the same life. It doesn’t seem to have made any difference at all.

Accessibility

Sue Watling / October 24, 2008 / digital divide, inclusive design

Within 24 hours I’ve had not one but two encounters with accessibility issues. Both demonstrated negativity towards the concepts of reasonable adjustment and alternative versions in relation to teaching and learning resources. This is my resulting rant and reflection – please check out the links at the end. You just never know, one day the thread of your reality may be cut without warning!

Some background: ten years ago I worked in community education and set up a number of computer training rooms for people with disabilities; the work was funded with short term project grants – which is indicative of the reality for the socially disabled – where support and training is dependent on charities and the kindness of strangers. I am continually reminded that the situation with regard to respect and consideration cannot be said to have significantly improved over the past decade.

Over a year ago the Disability Rights Commission (DRC) was subsumed into the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC). There is growing debate over whether this has been in the best interests of people who struggle with seeing, hearing, mobility or cognitive impairments (see http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7643844.stm)

Why is this relevant here? Well, as a public institution, the University of Lincoln has a duty to ensure it can demonstrate proactivity in anticipating barriers to access. However, a recognised need to be inclusive is not enough to ensure institutional change. Across the HE sector, disability support units are rarely integrated into teaching and learning units and the locus of disability awareness continues to exist on the periphery. For me accessibility is about removing barriers to participation and engagement. That means a holistic attitude towards the creation of accessible content. It’s not something that can be bolted on either as an afterthought or because someone has had to request an alternative version.

All staff should be aware of this single page document produced by the JISC legal team Accessibility Law for eLEarning Authors

Staff should also visit Accessibility in Learning produced by JISC and TechDis in conjuction with the Quality Improvement Agency (QIA). This new online resource looks at eight categories of users; those who have difficulty seeing, hearing, understanding, concentrating, manipulating things, communicating with others, accessing text and who are dyslexic – and provides practical guidelines practical guidelines for making learning materials more accessible.

The information is out there; the responsiblity for acting on it is down to the individual.

If you still need convincing read some of these accounts from students accessing higher education. Go to ALERT (University of Bournemouth) and DART (Loughborough University) and the most recent JISC funded research at LExDis (University of Southampton) to sample the student experience first hand.