Andy, Adrian
I think our email isn't letting everything through. Apologies for delay in
response.
I have yet to talk to Dan at eAccess. I have been misquoted. The work that I
spoke of is RNC ILT Task Force work, and you can find the original report at
http://www.techdis.ac.uk/resources/VLE002.html. The report is also very
clear that there is a difference between time taken by screen reader users
and users who are using vision. I think the e-access bulletin blurs this,
making it less than clear. The work was not carried out by RNIB. This is the
only piece of research that I know of in the UK that tries to understand the
use of a vle by a group of visually impaired students.
There are obviously other valuable pieces, for example www.cerlim/nova and
http://www.saradunn.net/VLEproject/index.html and Sandra Thurston's work at
Norwich http://ferl.ngfl.gov.uk/display.cfm?resid=5168&variation=50 .
Another important practical piece of work is that done at Hull City College.
This has resulted in an OCN accreditation for visually impaired learners to
demonstrate that they have acquired firm skills which will help them in a
mainstreamed setting. OCN number 4176 and contact is [log in to unmask]
Interestingly, just had a conversation with a colleague about the work of
Yeliz Yesilada, University of Manchester described at the 5th CETIS
Accessibility SIG. An IT trainer, my colleague described how someone using
non-visual methods may habitually try to use a fixed method for navigating.
If the navigation isn't successful, then the developer is "blamed". It
becomes necessary to try to work out a different strategy. But that person
may not have been able to figure out a different strategy for the digital
environment. This is exactly where Yeliz's use of the physical world
mobility and orientation could come in usefully. I'd love to see some more
work happening on that.
Most of us sighted geezers simply haven't had the experience required to
guesstimate the cognitive processes different visually impaired people will
be using to navigate. We need more assitance from visually impaired people -
hence the need for what has been described as the "social firm" in the same
e-access bulletin. At the CETIS meeting we spoke of Universities being able
to "subscribe" to such an agency, but didn't have time to unpick this, and
it isn't something of which I have any experience. If people are interested
in letting us know how they might use or fund this, or even advise us on
setting up the business, [log in to unmask] would be pleased to hear
from you. We're at the early stage of gathering information.
Andy - I think the accessibility meta-data is a separate issue to
navigation. But I'm happy to listen to explanation if I've got that wrong!
I am emailing Selwyn separately with a contact name in our pre 16 team and
another for update on open source information.
Regards to all.
---Zoë Neumann
ICT Development Officer: Post-16 Education
RNIB Technology in Learning and Employment (TiLE)
Tel: 0121 665 4228
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Selwyn Lloyd [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
> Sent: 26 May 2004 15:08
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: [CETIS-ACCESSIBILITY] E-LEARNING STUDENTS SEARCH IN VAIN.
>
>
> My email is
>
>
>
> Sorry to spam everyone twice
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: CETIS-TechDis Accessibility Mailing List
> [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Selwyn Lloyd
> Sent: 26 May 2004 09:55
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: E-LEARNING STUDENTS SEARCH IN VAIN.
>
> My daughter has just become blind. [Daisy]
>
> It seems to me we all spend too much time looking for menu's
> and options
> etc on web sites.
>
> Most search engine results pages while text friendly are
> pretty hopeless
> even to those of us who use vision for 80% of learning activity.
>
> I would say I spend more than half my time trying to guess if the link
> offered actually will get me what I need.
>
> I have been using the unix based software program 'links' for
> benchmarking sites in terms of there accessibility to text readers but
> this doesn't really tell us how this works for a Braille
> interpreter or
> an audio / voice portal.
>
> Unfortunately my daughter is too young to comprehend such things [5],
> though she used to love the Thomas the Tank engines web site before
> losing her remaining eye to cancer.
>
> Is there anybody on this mailing list who is blind please? I
> would like
> to make contact and explore this some more as Daisy is too
> young to help
> me and doesn't have the specialist equipment she needs anyhow. Or if
> anyone know of someone who could help test things out...
>
> Cheers
>
> Selwyn
>
> Founder Engineer - ioNode [open source interoperability middleware]
> http://www.ioagent.org
>
> Ps. I was very shocked about the price of 'JAWS' and am looking at the
> open source alternatives for Daisy.
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: CETIS-TechDis Accessibility Mailing List
> [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Andy Heath
> Sent: 26 May 2004 09:01
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: E-LEARNING STUDENTS SEARCH IN VAIN.
>
> Would resources decently labelled with Accessibility Meta-data
> help with this ? Is the problem before or after searching
> or is that a chicken and egg question ?
>
> andy
>
> >>From latest E-access bulletin - perhapse Zoé if you are
> still on list
> you
> > could tell us some more about the research quoted and where we can
> find
> > further reading.
> >
> > E-LEARNING STUDENTS SEARCH IN VAIN.
> >
> > Students with impaired vision using web-based educational materials
> > spend only around 30 per cent of their time actually using the
> > materials; the rest of their time is spent searching and navigating
> for
> > pages and options, according to RNIB research.
> >
> > Zoe Neumann, technology development officer at the institute's
> > Technology in Learning and Employment programme (TiLE -
> > http://www.rnib.org.uk/technology), revealed the statistic at last
> > weeks' seminar 'E-Learning: the future of training in the public
> sector'
> > (http://www.electronic-government.com/elearning.htm) organised by
> > our sister publication E-Government Bulletin.
> >
> > The TiLE team recently arranged focus groups to investigate
> students'
> > experience of using technology in an educational setting, with
> > outcomes that "brought you down to earth with a bump," Neumann
> > said.
> >
> > Neumann advised delegates to contact the TiLE team for help in
> > measuring for web accessibility in an educational context, and also
> > recommended the use of the DAISY digital book format
> > (http://www.daisy.org) as an e-learning tool.
> >
> > Adrian Higginbotham,
> > Help2Access
> > University of Salford
> > Email [log in to unmask]
> > Tel: 01612952555.
> > Web: www.help2access.org.uk
> > Technology House, Lissadel Street, Salford M6 6AP.
> >
>
>
> --
> andy
> _______________________________________________
> Andy Heath
> [log in to unmask]
>
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