E-learning has evolved over the years, which is great! As we discover more about the industry and how people learn, we can improve the way we deliver online content to better the lives of tho...
Published 2 years ago
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Accessibility has always interested me. I worry who should make the decisions on what is to be presented to whom at what time. When I was working on a PhD, I had a Professor who warned, "Learners choose the path of least resistance."
Oftentimes, as I teach at Baylor University (Waco, TX USA), I watch students jump on every shortcut they can, i.e., peruse the PowerPoint slides over reading the textbook. We confronted that dilemma by giving tests more based on the reading materials as 60% of the final grade. I have seen the difference this twist has made, and I like it. Learning is work.
Oftentimes, as I teach at Baylor University (Waco, TX USA), I watch students jump on every shortcut they can, i.e., peruse the PowerPoint slides over reading the textbook. We confronted that dilemma by giving tests more based on the reading materials as 60% of the final grade. I have seen the difference this twist has made, and I like it. Learning is work.
- I'm with you on the interest in accessibility. For the audiences and leaders I serve, visual/auditory disabilities are not a high priority, but for me it's worth the lift to provide any assistance I can for cognitive differences like ADHD, autism, and other neurodivergences, as well as emotional reactions - the variety of different ways brains manage cognitive load even among non-disabled learners.
Additionally, I have one audience for whom English is almost always a second language, which adds a significant cognitive load for those learners.
So I'm focused right now on providing these things more often (and building them into my templates/production routines so they're a no-brainer):
* text captions for audio
* ALT text for images
* uncluttered visuals and visual conceptual models (e.g., simple process diagrams instead of listed steps)
* options for changing speed or zoom/display for videos and audio
* for job aids, providing both documents and micro-videos that teach the same thing
* like you, focusing testing on applying knowledge/skills and creating an incentive to fully engage.
The good news is that a lot of these techniques assist with both cognitive load and sensory disabilities, and they support better localization, too.
I'm preaching to the choir, clearly. :) I just find the topic fascinating, and I'm finding that it's easier to get my leadership to prioritize cognitive load assistance instead of simply framing it as disability assistance - which they consider a luxury sometimes.
All of that being said, the challenge for me is to build all of this into my team's processes, so that it's faster to do and harder to skip during a time crunch.
Best of luck with what you're doing at Baylor!
Jane - In my experience with ABET (Adult Based) in the workplace, terminology (verbage) plays a large part as well including the frequency with which we change the terms we use. Using terminology aligned to accessibility, has definitely made a positive impact of maintaining a balance of interest in engaging with the 'lean' content vs the 'traditional' content available on the part of the learner. This relieves some of the pressures on the learning practitioner.
