I’m enjoying trying to keep up with using the reflection space here, at least staying up with the third nourishing bit Daily Nourishing Reflection #3: Accessibility Matters & Community Agreements.
It means much to hear Yasser’s guiding voice on accessibility mattering, and who would argue? I have had the fortune to do a podcast recording with Yasser, and came away with more lessons for me.
But there’s always much more to it than alt-text for images (but even getting people doing that is a big step). I have to admit in using a bot in Mastodon who direct messages me if I forget this helps (there was one in Twitter too). But more, I am finding myself enjoying the challenge of writing these, not as much as trying to full explain everything in an image, but what I might think is enough to provide the key elements. I also like to play some with adding something extra, maybe jokingly, for the person using a screen reader. I think of it as an injection of my flawed humanness.
I go back to a graduate school memory, and that truth that then (late 1980s) and hopefully less likely now, there is little to no pedagogical prep for grad students put into a teaching role. In being a TA for a large lecture class on the Geology of Arizona, the prof asked me to tutor a blind student. Geology is so visual! I remember one on one sessions with… I wish I could remember her name, working through the text and quizzes, and doing my best to describe things like fault block diagrams and stratigraphy. It was humbling, and I remember feeling pretty in-effective.
One of the bullet points in the Community Agreements mentioned the role of helping share what was missed for others who could not be in a session, in fact, I see this as an accessibility issue too. I like the part where contributions of others is noted. This is an act of gratitude, key for the thigns we facilitate.
I did notice in that document, a wee bit of assumption that the environments are specific to the zoom or zoom-like spaces (references to renaming our selves, breakout rooms). I wonder. a bit if the predominance of the “people in video boxes on a screen” in our pandemic and current work modes of meetings could be broadened? Just my wondering.
Hey, I love this splot thing! It’s like blogging.
Alan's thoughts trying to keep up on daily basis.
I really resonated with your comments about starting to view alt-text as an opportunity to think about what as essential. Not a description of an image, but a sort of start of essential ways to ensure access and (potential) engagement for everyone. I find that thinking about access as not just mechanics but also a chance for interrogation of practice/assumptions around teaching can be a really powerful thing. And your point about Zoom was so true! We can’t let the tool dictate our practice!