Changes to curriculum don’t just happen out of nowhere – they come from faculty members thinking about what to teach and searching for new and innovative ways to engage students in the learning process. Instructors often encounter barriers to curricular change, including:
Kirk’s nervous system disorder causes him to live with chronic pain. In particular, fine motor tasks like writing, using a computer, or holding a pencil can be extremely painful. Assistive technology to circumvent these tasks and ergonomic workspaces that address his needs reduces pain and increases function. Kirk is in his senior year of his bachelor's program and preparing to apply to PhD programs.
Below are the articles of the AccessComputing News - February 2019 newsletter. These articles can also be seen all on one page at the Full Newsletter option.
An AccessComputing-sponsored capacity building institute (CBI) focused on promising practices around accessibility in computing. The event was held November 13, 2018 in Westminster, CO as part of Accessing Higher Ground (AHG) conference.
Completion of a Web Accessibility course is required to earn a Web Design Certificate at Bellevue College in Washington State. In the original curriculum, a large portion of course content focused on legal cases related to web accessibility. Although it is important to understand the role that laws and regulations play, this is not critical to ensure that web designers and developers can actually develop accessible websites.
In a study by Erickson, W. A., Schrader, S. von, Bruyère, S. M., & VanLooy, S. A., best practices reported to increase hiring people with disabilities included:
Employers may encounter a variety of barriers to recruiting interns with disabilities. These include:
Blocks-based programming environments such as Scratch are often the first experiences for young children who are learning computational thinking and programming. Unfortunately, these environments are not accessible to children who are blind or visually impaired who use screen readers, thereby excluding them from experiences that can lead to careers in STEM fields including computer science. The Blocks4All prototype programming environment makes blocks-based programming accessible on a touchscreen tablet computer.