Well, the new month starts tomorrow and it may be just me that thinks of 1st September as the beginning of Autumn but I am just about to embark on a new course - H810:Accessible online learning - and we've been asked to say a bit about our context.
I've taught Level 1 interdisciplinary Arts and Humanities and Level 2 philosophy online for the OU, though I haven't been an AL for a couple of years now. My involvement with education is more likely to be related to developing HE teachers or other types of professional development but it's hard to say anything less vague at the moment as I'm in a transitional phase, moving from one career to another and I'm not sure what the new one holds.
In any case, I've had contact with students with a range of accessibility issues, both as an AL and as a Regional Faculty Manager, which involves organising and overseeing the teaching of 50 or so Arts courses. I'm interested in the individuality of both the problems students face and the solutions they adopt, and fascinated by the potential for innovative ways of improving accessibility offered by new technology. I like what I see as the implications of the term 'accessibility', namely that any difficulties lie not in the content of educational material, still less in the student, but in the gateways via which students access material - provide wide enough, high enough, approachable gateways and everyone can access what's inside.
New month, new season, new course
Well, the new month starts tomorrow and it may be just me that thinks of 1st September as the beginning of Autumn but I am just about to embark on a new course - H810:Accessible online learning - and we've been asked to say a bit about our context.
I've taught Level 1 interdisciplinary Arts and Humanities and Level 2 philosophy online for the OU, though I haven't been an AL for a couple of years now. My involvement with education is more likely to be related to developing HE teachers or other types of professional development but it's hard to say anything less vague at the moment as I'm in a transitional phase, moving from one career to another and I'm not sure what the new one holds.
In any case, I've had contact with students with a range of accessibility issues, both as an AL and as a Regional Faculty Manager, which involves organising and overseeing the teaching of 50 or so Arts courses. I'm interested in the individuality of both the problems students face and the solutions they adopt, and fascinated by the potential for innovative ways of improving accessibility offered by new technology. I like what I see as the implications of the term 'accessibility', namely that any difficulties lie not in the content of educational material, still less in the student, but in the gateways via which students access material - provide wide enough, high enough, approachable gateways and everyone can access what's inside.