As e-Learning expands, the gap will
widen between people who can fully benefit from e-Learning and those who will be
excluded because of inaccessible design. The
Meet some users of accessible e-Learning
To bring some reality to this subject, I’d like to introduce you to two of our colleagues who are regular users of accessible e-Learning.
Michael Upthegrove
Michael Upthegrove must use a device called a communicator (see Figure 1) to talk, communicate, and work, due to cerebral palsy. Michael is unable to speak. The following was transcribed from a recording that Michael made for this article.
Figure 1 Michael and his Pathfinder augmentative communication device (”communicator”).
“My name is Michael Upthegrove. I
live with my parents at home in
“It was decided that I needed a new communicator called a Liberator. It had a lot more technology and would make my entries into the computer much faster and easier. The Oklahoma Department of Rehabilitation Services bought the Liberator. At the time the cost was around $10,000. I started my job with United Bank Services in February 1994. What really helped me change to the Liberator was the macro programming. It allowed me to select two or three keystrokes that sent multiple keystrokes to the computer. If one of the accounts had needed 166 hits, with macros my hits were reduced to 30.
“I knew my job when I started, but it took several months to control the paperwork that I copied. When I first started to work, I worked for three mornings a week for three hours. As I got better, I increased to four mornings a week for four hours. My transportation was the Metrolift van that came to my door and took me to work and brought me home. My job coach would meet me at the van and take me to the building. They would take my ID card and run it through the time clock and open the door to the office. I was repositioned at my workstation, plugged into my computer, posted my password and I was ready to work. I would take a break in the morning to rest my neck and they would help me with a drink.
“When my job coach was no longer needed,
my co-workers wanted to take over these tasks. I worked at UBS for two and a
half years. I had great personal and working relationships with my coworkers. The
company was bought out by another company and moved away from
“In 1999 I joined a program called Partners in Progress. I attended workshops every week for nine months. Guest speakers from all over the country presented many topics of interest. This program was training for us to become advocates for ourselves and others. Over the past two years, I’ve tried to keep up with Medicaid cuts, Olmstead planning and keeping people out of institutions. I have taken some classes in Social Work and have lectured to local college students in Social Work and Education to help them understand communications and to not label people because of their disabilities.
“People with disabilities who can’t talk, I think they need to try and use AT devices with accessible e-Learning.”
Suzanne Tritten
Blind since birth, Suzanne Tritten
and her husband, Philip, are working hard to educate and prepare their two
teen-aged sons for lives filled with music, technology and Christian values.
Suzy juggles the demands of wife, mother and small business owner. Active in
her church choir, she also is a member of the Singing ChurchWomen of Oklahoma —
a choir of Southern Baptist Women — who recently returned from a two-week
performing tour in
When asked about her philosophy for accessibility, she responds: “Rather than the word ‘accessible,’ I prefer the word ‘usable.’ Accessible software should provide the user with the opportunity to use the computer to the utmost of his or her potential. Therefore, if the user is new to computers or simply cannot perform beyond the simplest of keyboard commands, there should be a simple user interface to accommodate that need. On the other hand, if the user has advanced computer skills, they should not be expected to have to lower themselves to the most rudimentary of levels, simply because that is what is available. While the inexperienced computer user needs only the basic commands of Alt, Escape, Tab, arrow keys, and Enter, true accessibility for the advanced user adds multiple key commands and other features to facilitate more efficient use of the computer and his time.”
Who needs accessible e-Learning?
According to the U. S. Census Bureau,
as many as one in every five people in the
Figure 2 shows percentages and numbers of Americans by disability type. Based on the 2001 U.S. Census report, of the 257.2 million Americans, 49.6 million have a diagnosed disability. 9.2 million (or 3.6% of the population) have a vision or hearing loss, 12.3 million (4.8%) have learning disabilities, and 17.4 million (6.8%) have disabilities involving movement and dexterity.
Figure 2 U.S. disability statistics
Surveys conducted by the Centers for Disease Control indicate that there are 27 million working age Americans who have disabilities that could interfere with e-Learning. Countless other people with undisclosed or temporary disabilities, language barriers and reading problems cannot fully access or use the Internet or computer-based instruction because it has not been designed to accommodate their needs.
As an example of these other
barriers, consider that in the 1990s, the number of Mexican immigrant workers
in the
Although accessibility most immediately refers to physical disabilities, more than 300 million people worldwide speak English as a second language and 2.5 billion of the world’s population have low or no literacy. Accessibility advocates say (accessible) technology will benefit these people as well as the global population of 480 million aging people. (See the article by Darby Patterson, May 21, 2003, listed in the References at the end of this article.)
Without corresponding audio, text based information delivery will exclude struggling readers, non-readers and people with vision problems. For example, a muscular disorder like cerebral palsy affects the muscle response and control. Eye focus is dependent upon muscular control. Therefore, it’s much more efficient to deliver a spoken message under these circumstances. There are many people who can understand the spoken language but who are not proficient in the written word, and vice versa.
