Read Seale Chapter 9 Developing accessible e-learning practice: the staff developer's perspective.
- Apart from this course that you are studying now, think of a staff training event or resource that you have attended or accessed, related to accessibility and/or disability. If you have never attended such an event, imagine carrying out one of those listed in the resources or discussed in Topic 7.
What was effective or ineffective about the staff training event/resource?
Everything worked well and there was not a specific difficulty in the event or resources as they were all very interesting and informative.
To what extent did the following factors influence the effectiveness of the experience for you: content or focus; structure or presentation; role or expertise of the leaders/developers?
Every single aspect mentioned above played an important role in the effectiveness of my experience. I cannot distinguish whether one of all the above was more important than the other or played a more intrinsic role than the other.
If you have not attended or accessed a staff training event/resource related to accessibility prior to this course, what are the reasons for this?
I did not have the choice to do so. I did not even hear in my life for such trainings or the accessibility matter only concerned me when I had a class while I was studying in the University a course about Designing and technology which was a practical course and we had to know about accessibility matter. After that, I had forgotten it again till now!
- Use your reflections and answers to Question 1 to develop a conceptualisation of what you think makes or defines an effective accessibility-related training event/resource and an effective trainer or staff developer.
An effective accessibility-related training event/resource would be when staff developers will have a role to play in embedding accessibility across an institution and they will need to consider how to deliver development opportunities to more than just the converted and how to match these opportunities with the skill level and responsibility of the various staff. Thus, an effective trainer or staff developer should be able to match development opportunities to the needs of a range of stakeholders, adopt a range of delivery methods and develop strategic partnerships with key stakeholders (Seale, 2006).
- Should accessibility-related staff development be made compulsory for all those who work in post-16 education?
I suppose that is the least that it could be done for accessibility purposes to make it compulsory the accessibility-related staff development.
What are the reasons behind your answers?
This is because staff plays an important role and it has to be responsible for their resources that provide to their students etc, also to be aware of disabilities matter, assistive technologies and legislation matters according to accessibility and also about e-learning and its potentials.
What do you think are the pros and cons of making accessibility-related staff development compulsory?
The pros are that the staff will be more confident on what it provides to their students and they will have the possibility to attend to workshops, to have online information and resources which are developed by external agencies and also to use the hybrid approach (Seale, 2006). Additionally, they have the option to use different strategies for meeting development needs. In contrast, the cons are that they will have to be able to balance individual needs and institutional needs. The institution has its own policies regarding accessibility issues and staff has to follow these policies, however, if they argue about the resources that will be required in order to work with the academics at a departmental and individual level they might need to bring about an external expertise. They also tend not be targeted by accessibility related literature, projects and campaigns (Seale, 2006).
Reference:
Seale, J. (2006) E-Learning and Disability in Higher Education: Accessibility Research and Practice, Abingdon, Routledge;