I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how to create a community in an online class; and it seems to me that one of the keys is communication. After all, those two words derive from the same Latin root so there must be some kind of relationship.
Continue reading “Community and Communicate” »
What is Web 2.0 and how is it changing education? These are important questions that too many education administrators (and teachers) do not want to answer because they are comfortable in their 20th century jobs. In this post, I define Web 2.0; in others I’ll introduce various Web 2.0 tools and describe how they are changing education.
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I’m writing this from a conference where there are numerous sessions about Second Life and other Web 2.0 tools. All-in-all, it’s very exciting. However…
Continue reading “Web 2.0 and Accessibility” »
Cochise College is changing from Blackboard to WebStudy and that project has kept me very busy. I apologize for not posting to my blog for some time, but I’ve been doing instructor training on WebStudy almost non-stop since early March. However, the change is going well.
Continue reading “Change of Course Management System - Continued” »
The old adage is that a picture is worth a thousand words. One of the problems faced by people who want to use the web and are visually impaired is complex images. The ALT attribute may work fine for simple images, but images that contain mathematics formulas or other complex information need to have a [...]
Continue reading “The LONGDESC Attribute” »
Checking web pages for accessibility is not a difficult job, but can be tedious; and it’s easy to overlook some detail when you are checking a large bunch of HTML code. That is why for many years web designers have relied on an automated online tool called Bobby to check their web pages for accessibility. Bobby was a [...]
Continue reading “Bobby is Gone!” »
Yesterday I started the process of converting our college’s course management system from Blackboard to WebStudy. In this blog I’ll post an occasional item to chart my progress on this project.
Continue reading “Change Course Management Systems” »
We all know Murphy’s Law (along with scores of similar laws), and it should not surprise you that these “natural laws” are also true in online course design. Over the many years that I have worked with online courses and instructors, I have come up with several such laws to guide my efforts.
Continue reading “The Natural Laws of Online Course Design” »
Most modern Course Management Systems (and other online education tools) advertise themselves as “Accessible.” However, it is important to keep in mind that, generally, this means they meet the minimum standards of Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act. This is not to imply that there is anything wrong with that. Indeed, it would be nice [...]
Continue reading “Accessibility and Useability” »
Lynx is a text-only browser that permits designers to “see” a web page in much the same way as a screen reader. The browser does not display images, fonts, colors, drop-down menus, javascript popups, or other common design widgets. It also does not use a mouse for navigation. If you are designing a site, you [...]
Continue reading “Try Lynx for that Screen Reader Experience” »
I am George Self, the Director of the Online Campus at Cochise College in southeast Arizona, USA. In my role, I frequently advise college faculty members how to effectively use technology for teaching, both online and face-to-face.
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