Sign up for the January 10-Day Accessibility Challenge!
Registration closes January 11, 2021
Have you heard about the SUNY Oswego 10-day Accessibility Challenge?
As much of our lives continue to move online and into virtual environments, understanding digital accessibility is more critical than ever. This winter, the Laker community is coming together to make the digital content our campus shares more accessible for everyone. Whether you are a faculty member preparing Spring courses, a student promoting the work of your organization, or anyone who communicates across campus digitally, this challenge is for you!
Presented by the Workgroup on Accessibility Practices, this challenge runs weekdays from Jan. 11 to 25, 2021 (except Jan. 18). You can participate on your own schedule (less than 30 minutes per day) or in real-time with our campus accessibility champions during the Winter Breakout sessions. You’ll receive step-by-step guidance on how making minor changes to your digital documents can have a big impact on accessibility. Whether you’re new to learning about digital accessibility, or have more expertise, this effort will have pathways for you to participate. Recordings of all the breakout sessions are available on the Winter Breakout page of the CELT website or see the list of accessibility sessions below.
Missed the challenge, but still interested in learning more?
Fill out this Challenge Interest Form to be placed on the list for upcoming challenges. You'll be among the first to know when a new challenge is starting!
In the meantime, check out our Digital Accessibility website for great tips, training, and resources, including:
- Written and Video Tutorials
- Basic Accessibility Principles
- Deque University, an online digital accessibility training platform that provides comprehensive training on a wide variety of topics including web accessibility, document accessibility, accessibility testing, and more.
- Frequently Asked Questions
Be sure to watch your campus email for announcements of future challenges!
Questions?
If you have questions about the challenge, please email [email protected] or reach out to any members of the Workgroup on Accessibility Practices.
Recorded Sessions
Accessibility at Oswego
Presenters: Accessibility initiative team members. Facilitated by Rebecca Mushtare.
This session will introduce you to the digital accessibility initiative at SUNY Oswego, including resources available to you and the colleagues you can reach out to for consultation and support as you make your own digital corner of SUNY Oswego more accessible.
10-Day Accessibility Challenge Kick-Off
Presenters: Kate Percival and Michele Thornton
As much of our lives continue to move online and into virtual environments, understanding digital accessibility is more critical than ever. During this challenge, you’ll receive step-by-step guidance on how making minor changes to your digital documents can have a big impact on accessibility.
Accessibility Discussion Group
Presenter: Michele Thornton
Not certain where to start with accessibility or what it’s all about? Have some questions about the basic terminology, principles and foundations behind why SUNY Oswego has made such a strong commitment to building a campus culture of Accessibility? For this session, please first read “From Accommodation to Accessibility: Creating a Culture of Inclusivity.” and then join us for our afternoon’s discussion group to share your reactions and key takeaways.
UDL: Universal Design for learning
Presenter: Carol Willard
This session will introduce you to curriculum design principles that can help you make your courses work for all learners. Topics include motivation, autonomy , self regulation, multiple means of representation and expression, monitoring progress, etc.
What is Accessibility?
Presenters: Steve Abraham & Michele Thornton
Teaching online or sharing campus-related materials electronically? This session will walk you through 5 accessibility practices you’ll want to keep in mind as you create and share materials.
What is Blackboard Ally?
Presenter: Michele Thornton
This session will provide an overview of the accessibility tool, Ally, that is built into Blackboard. Ally can tell you how accessible your course materials are and how to make them more accessible.
Google Docs/ Word/Structured Content
Presenter: Michele Thornton
Headings and styles, two features built into Google Docs and Microsoft Word that are easy to use, help you to organize documents, make them more readable, and much more accessible.
Student Panel - screen reader demo/assistive tech
Presenter: Facilitated by Michele Thornton
This session will introduce you to some of the barriers students with disabilities face and some of the technologies they rely on to succeed.
Deeper Dive - Tables/Lists
Presenter: Kate Percival
Join us for some quick tips on how to make tables and lists in your digital documents more accessible.
Descriptive Hyperlinks
Presenters: Michele Thornton and Serenity Sutherland
This session will focus on creating useful and highly readable and accessible hyperlinks in any document you create or share from email, to Google Docs, to PowerPoints and beyond.
Color and Contrast
Presenters: Rebecca Mushtare and Michele Thornton
Color can be a really effective and useful tool for communication but also can’t be the only differentiating characteristic. This session will walk through how to use color in combination with other visual indicators to make effective charts, graphs and other visual materials.
Text Equivalents
Presenter: Kate Percival
Learn how to make images, pictures, figures, and other non-text elements usable by assistive technology.
Formulas/Math Equations
Presenter: Casey Raymond
Mathematical equations need to be usable by assistive technologies and MathML is one method to achieve content accessible to all. The MathML can be the text equivalent or serve as the code to create the equation in a Web browser. This session will show a few techniques to create MathML
Captions & Previously Recorded Content/Panopto
Presenter: Dan Laird
Would you like a quick and easy way to apply captions to videos for your courses? Panopto features a very easy to use interface that allows you to upload any video content to their system, which then processes and applies captions to the video. Come join us and we will show you the simple process and how to edit your captions after they have been applied.
Inclusive Virtual Meetings and Events
Presenter: Rebecca Mushtare
The focus of this session will be a series of best practices for hosting virtual (synchronous) meetings, classes and events. We’ll walk through tips related to planning, running and following up after a synchronous session.
Key Takeaways from Accessibility Fellows - Being open to Accessibility
Presenter: Donna Greene
SUNY Oswego Accessibility Fellows have spent the past year learning key principles, honing skills, testing out new software and working to create a more accessible learning environment for all students. In this session, one 2020 fellow shares what she felt was the most important takeaway for her - being open to the ideas and importance of accessibility.
Key Takeaways from Accessibility Fellows - Incorporating Accessibility into your Research Agenda
Presenters: Michele Thornton and Rebecca Mushtare
SUNY Oswego Accessibility Fellows have spent the past year learning key principles, honing skills, testing out new software and working to create a more accessible learning environment for all students. In this session, one 2019 fellow shares what she felt was the most important takeaway for her - how incorporating accessibility into her research agenda can amplify the impact and reach of the fellowship.
Incorporating Accessibility into your Research Agenda recording
Faculty Work Flows - Zoom
Presenter: Carol Willard
2020 has had us all spending quite a bit of time on Zoom. Zoom is a great way to connect with students and enhance the accessibility of your virtual classroom. During this session, we will discuss best practices and workflows for efficiently and effectively incorporating it into online and hybrid courses.
Faculty Work Flows - Panopto
Presenter: Steve Abraham
Are you familiar with Panopto and how to use it? This video and captioning software is a valuable aid in creating engaging content for online and hybrid courses. In this session, you will learn about the different associated workflows can help make your courses more accessible.
Accessibility Checkers
Presenters: Rebecca Mushtare and Kate Percival
Not sure how accessible your digital materials are? This session will walk you through the basics of using accessibility checkers you have available to you in order to improve the accessibility of materials you share with others. Tools covered will include: Grackle (Google Suite), Microsoft Office , Acrobat Professional, and Blackboard Ally.
Improving PDF Accessibility
Presenter: Kate Percival
Using PDFs to share articles or other course materials with students? This workshop will introduce basic techniques you can use to minimize barriers for students that you may not be aware they are facing.
Building a Campus Culture of Accessibility
Presenter: Michele Thornton
Participating in a 10-day challenge is a great way to begin your journey of learning about accessibility. In this session we will discuss additional pathways you can take in the future to build on the skills you’ve learned during the Winter Break-Outs. We will circle back to review campus resources and highlight upcoming opportunities for you to contribute to building a campus culture of accessibility at Oswego.