Activity 2.2 What is Accessibility?

According to Seale, all the players in accessible online learning have their own perspectives and their own stories to tell.

My perspective is that of a content developer, who works in the fire service. Because of this the main disability present is Dyslexia, this is something that is close to my heart as my wife is Dyslexic. Because of my wife's struggle through education I try and do everything I can to make my training packages accessible.

If you were to conduct an analysis at this point in time, of the costs and benefits for you personally as a learner in studying this module online, what would the analysis look like?

Studying online definitely has more benefit than cost. There is no chance I could leave work for 1/2 days per week to take part in a residential course. Being able to study at a time and in a place of my choice is brilliant. It's also nice to see how the experts at the OU have gone about creating a completely online course.

Seale uses the imagery of a magic fairy to make the point that many of us are waiting desperately in the hope that we don’t have to take responsibility for accessibility because somehow or other it has been ‘miraculously’ taken care of for us.

In my situation I believe every tutor is aware of accessibility issues, sadly the answer to all of them is "make it a cream background"

If you attended a conference where the main theme was making online learning accessible, what kind of information or evidence would you wish to hear from the presenters that would help to inform or change your practice?

I would like to hear from end users on how they think online learning can be made accessible. With these views it would inspire me to do all I could to make my online training accessible.

Thinking about accessibility:

Why do you think some students do not declare their disability to the institutions in which they are studying?

They dont feel their disability will hinder their study. Also they don't want to stand out from the crowd.

Does it matter if an institution does not know the exact numbers of disabled students registered on its modules and the exact nature of their learning needs?

Students need to know that help and support is available but I dont think a number helps, shouldn't all courses be accessible?

How necessary do you think this information is, in helping institutions develop accessible learning?

They should be making it accessible as a matter of course.

In our working lives we are all constantly managing our identities – both public and private.

The fire service is very open, there isn't much that I wouldn't reveal.