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How Can Digital Learning Services Help You Overcome Digital Educational Accessibility Challenges?
Posted: Apr 01, 2019
Modern educational models have evolved significantly due to the digital trend. But they also present new challenges and limitations that weren’t present earlier. This is where you will need the assistance of digital learning services.
K-12 and higher education continues to face a challenge – accessibility is becoming increasingly difficult, as schools are increasing online educational content and the way instructions are delivered. Today, part of the administrators and instructors’ job is to ensure that the educational experiences of their learners improve in all aspects including accessibility. Explore the common accessibility barriers for students and how they can be overcome.
Digital Accessibility Barriers
The increased use of web systems in the K-12/higher education segments has created a challenge. Governments and administrators are realizing the presence of digital accessibility barriers that prevent students from getting access to the resources. Some of these barriers which have been identified and are being addressed by k12 learning services are as follows:
- Absence of Visual Indication of Focus: Students requiring the use of assistive technologies may not be able to navigate your website or digital content without the use of visual indication of focus.
- Use of Only Colors for Communicating Errors: The use of colors solely for communicating errors can be limiting for students who are colorblind or have low vision.
- Preventing Access with Captchas: Many educational programs involve the use of captchas on their digital content to limit access to students. It has the potential to lock out students with limited abilities. Even new alternative options have been found to have limiting abilities.
- Improper Images: Images and diagrams are integral part of study materials. The use of images without alternative text can have an influence on the studying abilities of many students.
There are many other web content accessibility limitations that affect the way students are able to interact and benefit from educational content.
How Can Digital Learning Services Help?
Professional digital learning services can help in addressing all these emerging and potential challenges to digital accessibility. Some of the solutions to these challenges include the following:
- Evaluate Current Accessibility & Design Practices: Evaluate your existing practices and you may be able to identify those practices where digital accessibility design principles are already implemented. This can also help you understand how embracing the standards can improve your content delivery.
- Update Study Materials Gradually: One solution is to set goals to embed universal design for learning and accessibility in new versions of your educational materials. The old course materials can then be gradually updated.
- Collaborate with Students: It is recommended to work with all students to identify their accessibility limitations and create solutions to address them. Professional k12 learning services can help you in this regard.
Another strategy is to create and provide your content in different formats. Professional ebook conversion services can help you in addressing this challenge. This can allow you to retain most of the existing visual forms while adding new formats and/or alternative texts.
There are many other things that can be done to address these challenges, which have been realized in recent times. It is recommended to get the help of professional services to conduct thorough online assessments for students before identifying the challenges and creating their perfect solutions.
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