AccessSTEM

How can informal STEM learning programs support individuals with mobility impairments?

There are many ways that informal STEM learning programs can support individuals with mobility impairments. Staff should consider adopting universal design (UD) principles. Universal design means that rather than designing for the average user, you design for people with differing native languages, genders, racial and ethnic backgrounds, and abilities. For more information, visit Equal Access: Universal Design of Your Informal STEM Learning Project.

How can informal STEM learning programs support individuals with vision impairments?

There are many ways that informal STEM learning programs can support individuals with vision impairments. Ensuring that websites are accessible, that videos are captioned and, ideally, audio described, and that other electronic media is provided in accessible formats will help patrons with vision impairments feel welcome.

Course Accessibility Checklist: A Promising Practice in Helping Instructors Create Accessible Online Learning Courses

Skagit Valley Colleges (SVC) offers online (eLearning) courses that are academically rigorous and equivalent to traditional face-to-face courses. Courses offered online are the same in terms of credits, learning objectives, competencies, content, and transferability. They are also the same when it comes to policies concerning admission requirements and accessibility assurances.

How can students with disabilities arrange for accommodations at a postsecondary institution?

In order for students with disabilities enrolled in postsecondary institutions to receive disability-related accommodations, typically they must first register with the institution’s office of disability services for students. Procedures and documentation requirements vary from institution to institution so it is important that students contact disability services early to ensure their accommodations will be in place prior to the start of each academic term.

How can students with disabilities arrange for accommodations in an online course?

Common accommodations students with disabilities request in online courses include the remediation of inaccessible PDFs and other documents into accessible formats, captioned videos, and extra time on assignments and tests. Accommodations should be requested in the same way they are requested for onsite courses. To receive accommodations from a postsecondary institution, students should contact the campus disability services office for information about documentation requirements and procedures.

Informing the Design of Cyberlearning: A Promising Practice in Promoting Diversity in Cyberlearning

The AccessCyberlearning 2.0 Synthesis and Design Workshop, a project funded by the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Cyberlearning and Future Learning Technologies program of the Division of Information and Intelligent Systems (#1824450), aims to inform the design of the next generation of digital learning environments for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) content.

Are Advanced Placement Computer Science Principles curricula accessible to students with disabilities?

Many different curricula are used to teach Advanced Placement (AP) Computer Science Principles (CSP). Most of these curricula are not fully accessible to students with disabilities, largely because the programming tools that they utilize are not accessible to students who are blind or visually impaired and typically use screen readers to access content presented on the screen. Screen readers can read text aloud to users but cannot interpret content presented in images.

Are there Hour of Code activities that are accessible to students with visual impairments?

Code.org’s Hour of Code activities are one-hour tutorials designed to expose K-12 students to coding and other aspects of computer science. Although there are numerous Hour of Code projects, many are not accessible to students who are blind and visually impaired. However, there are two that utilize the Quorum programming language and are accessible.

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