Accessibility, Adaptive Learning Key Messages in 2018

It’s conference season here at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette Office of Distance Learning and our team has been traveling across the country to bring back best practices from across the online learning community.

“The goal of attending these conferences is to develop our knowledge and skills to better support faculty in creating and delivering high-quality online learning experiences,” said Arabie. “We’ll be able to redeliver the knowledge we’ve gained to faculty throughout 2019.”

Quality Matters: Gateway to Quality

After attending one of Quality Matters’ earliest conferences, Instructional Designer Angela Lee returned to the conference for its 10th year Oct. 30 - Nov. 2.

“It was great to catch up on QM and see all of the great things they’re doing,” she said.

In July, the organization updated its rubric standards with the QM Higher Education Rubric, Sixth Edition Update.  

Lee said many of the conference sessions were oriented toward those changes, especially new accessibility requirements.

“Standard 8 (Accessibility) has always been important, but now it’s an essential standard with the new rubric update, which means we have to comply with the requirements,” she said.

Lee learned that to help faculty meet those standards, Quality Matters now offers the Accessibility and Usability Resource course site, a resource covering a number of accessibility topics.

Faculty members must register to access the site and can either self-enroll or contact Lee for assistance.

Higher Ground Accessibility Conference

Instructional Designer Carey Hamburg spent Nov. 13-16 at this Denver-area conference. It was the first time a member of the Distance Learning team attended the specialized event.

“I had been to OLC several times and wanted something different, and this was very different,” Hamburg said. “It was very intense, but very eye-opening, as well.”

He said while some of the sessions offered a deep-dive into the more technical aspects of accessibility, the overall impression left by the conference is that UL Lafayette is focused on the right things.

“I found we’re in good company,” he said. “But we do have some gaps. We’re not where we need to be, but I think we’re addressing them and we’re moving forward.”

Hamburg said the University is progressing by:

• Promoting new QM standards, which elevate accessibility.
• Using Moodle, which functions well with screen readers and devices.
• Ensuring images have meaningful descriptions.
• Investing in and deploying auto-captioning within EduTools.
• Encouraging video transcripts.
• Offering a Moodle Suggested Layout with built-in accessibility features.

Online Learning Consortium Accelerate Conference 2018

OLC bills itself as the “premier global gathering” covering online learning. As such, three team members — Interim Director Dr. Claire Arabie, Instructional Designer Dr. Diana Wu, and Program Manager Dawn Benoit — attended this conference in Orlando, Florida, from Nov. 14-16.

The depth and breadth of content they returned with was overwhelming and covered adaptive learning, accessibility, instructional video and materials, developing professional development programs, online student support, online program support, Blockchain, and more.

“This was my first time at OLC,” said Benoit, who joined the team full-time this year. “It was a little overwhelming, but it was so interesting.”

Benoit was especially tuned in to how larger universities are supporting online students and faculty as programs grow.

Wu said she approached sessions with not only faculty support in mind, but also student outcomes.

For instance, Wu said, one session covered a half-dozen web-based tools to develop instructional videos.

The free tools could provide new possibilities for students, who don’t have access to the same suite of EduTools as professors and instructors.

“It’s good to know some of those tools,” Wu said. “This can be used to humanize courses, make the videos interactive, and promote student engagement.” 

Wu said she also had the opportunity to learn more about the Realizeit platform for adaptive learning.

The program was used in the recent ULearn Faculty Fellow project, implemented Summer 2018 by Master Chemistry Instructor Andrea Leonard.

Should more faculty members choose to use the platform in the future, Wu said she’ll be able to provide better support based on the sessions she attended.

WCET

Business Manager Stephen McGoffin attended WCET’s Annual Meeting in Portland, Oregon, Oct. 23-25.

WCET is the leader in the practice, policy, and advocacy of technology-enhanced learning in higher education.

During this meeting, McGoffin learned more about how other universities are experimenting with active and adaptive learning platforms and courses, including Realizeit.

“It needs to all be about, ‘how does this help the student at the end of the day?’” McGoffin said. “The adaptive system you build has to be built with outcomes in mind and connect it to those.”

Learn more about how you can attend these conferences in 2019. Stay up-to-date on upcoming professional development opportunities by joining our Distance Learning Faculty Facebook group and watching for our emails.