[ATcoord] FW: Accessibility Heroes at Centralia College: Faculty, Students and Staff Making a (Technical) Difference in the World

[Carrie Powell]

Hello Accessible IT Coordinators!
After attending the first Capacity Building Institute at the University of Washington in February of 2015, Mike Hoel (Disability Services Director) and I came back to campus and started an Accessible Technology Workgroup. That next spring we decided to start recognizing our staff, faculty and students for their efforts to advance a culture of accessibility on our campus. Here's a look at some of the individuals who have been moving the ball forward on accessibility at Centralia College for the past three years.
Carrie Powell
ctcLink OCM Manager/Accessible IT Coordinator
Centralia College
600 Centralia College Blvd. WSC 209
Centralia, WA 98531
(360) 623-8581
carrie.powell at centralia.edu<mailto:carrie.powell at centralia.edu>
www.centralia.edu/ctclink<http://www.centralia.edu/ctclink>

From: Carrie Powell
Sent: Thursday, February 22, 2018 1:38 PM
To: 'FACULTY at LISTSERV.CENTRALIA.EDU' <FACULTY at LISTSERV.CENTRALIA.EDU>
Subject: Accessibility Heroes at Centralia College: Faculty, Students and Staff Making a (Technical) Difference in the World

Centralia College's Accessible Technology work group<https://centralia.instructure.com/courses/1202231> would like to recognize the following individuals for advancing our collective knowledge in the area of accessible technology and online resources:
2017-2018 ACCESSIBILITY HEROES
John Steidel - Adjunct Faculty, Power Plant Operations (PPO) - Center of Excellence for Energy Technology
John decided to focus on making his course content accessible after hearing Jess Thompson from the state board speak at Centralia's 2017 fall conference. He was intrigued by the idea of using the accessibility diagnostic tools that are already integrated into Canvas, and wanted to take advantage of these existing software solutions to ensure that he wasn't wasting time (or energy...:)) when developing his course materials. He is presently working with colleagues on developing an accessible syllabus template that can be shared and re-used each quarter.
Keoki Kanahoe - Adjunct Faculty, Teacher Education and Family Development
Keoki teaches a "Dynamic Dads" class that meets each Saturday on Centralia's main campus, and during spring quarter 2017 one of his students happened to be deaf. Because face-to-face sign language interpreters were not available to the college on weekends, Paula Rhoads in Disability Services arranged for a "Video Remote Interpreting Service" to act as the liaison between the student, his classmates, and the instructor. Two interpreters (in Arizona and Costa Rica, respectively) connected via web conferencing software to a laptop in the classroom. Through a webcam they could see the student signing, and they would then "voice" for the student through external speakers. Since technical support was also not available on weekends, Keoki learned a lot about hooking up, testing, and troubleshooting the equipment. He also became adept at locating high quality educational videos that were already correctly captioned. Keoki said that, despite the technical challenges, it was really cool to have all his students participating in class discussions, watching parenting videos and engaging in group activities with the help of virtual interpreters.
Michelle Harris - Assistant Professor, Geosciences
During the 2017-18 academic year, Michelle decided to sign up for the SBCTC's 3-week online course Accessibility 101: Basics of Inclusive Design<https://www.sbctc.edu/colleges-staff/programs-services/elearning-open-education/training-registration.aspx> because a student in one of her classes had a vision impairment. Michelle said, "Disability services at the school was great and did all the work of converting over my information so that the student could access it, but it made me realize how much of my content needed to be altered to be accessible. As I was just starting out at Centralia, I decided I wanted to create my content to be accessible rather than attempt to alter it later. It was an awesome training and I learned that making my materials accessible not only helps those with a physical impairments, but can also help those with learning disabilities and students with different learning styles. Overall, I think the training greatly improved the way I present content in my class both in person and online."
Jeff McQuarrie - Assistant Professor, Communications
On a broader scale of accessibility, Jeff pioneered the concept of teaching speech classes online so students with limited time or scheduling flexibility would be able to take core courses required for their degree or certificate completion. Jeff has attended numerous trainings on Universal Design for Learning and strives to continually improve the accessibility of his course content for all learners.
Jim Smith - Adjunct Faculty, Bachelor of Applied Science-Teacher Education (BAS-TE)
Jim joined the Teacher Education and Family Development faculty during the 2017-2018 academic year, and enrolled in the SBCTC's 3-week online course Accessibility 101: Basics of Inclusive Design as part of his professional development plan. He said, "I wanted to be part of this because I teach children with disabilities and have worked with children and adults with disabilities for quite some time. I wanted to have a good idea of different strategies I could use as an instructor to make sure my course was set up to be accessible for all learners. There was a learning curve with some of the elements because I did not have a background in Canvas. That was the biggest roadblock for me. Overall, the experience was good. I have a much better idea of what I can do to make the learning of all my students more meaningful and accessible."
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2016-2017 ACCESSIBILITY HEROES

Sam Small - Interim Director, Information Technology
Working as a Senior Applications Developer in 2015, Sam implemented the UDOIT diagnostic tool in Canvas, which earned statewide recognition for the college's universal design efforts and led to Centralia's inclusion in a select group of schools that were invited to pilot the Ally Accessibility tool during the fall of 2016. As an IT faculty member during the 2016-2017 academic year, Sam devoted extensive time and research to redesigning his web scripting class for accessibility to blind students. Sam has had a profound influence on accessible software design at Centralia College and is active in helping to create a culture of accessibility at all levels across the institution.

Mary McClain - Assistant Professor, Business Technology
Mary participated in usability sessions with Ally developers, consulted on captioning assessments with other faculty and has also served on the Centralia College Accessible Technology work group since 2016. During the 2016-17 academic year she designed group exercises and lectures to more effectively engage deaf and hard-of-hearing students. Mary was one of the first Centralia College faculty to complete the SBCTC's 3-week online course "Accessibility 101: Basics of Inclusive Design."

Connie Smejkal - Associate Professor, Business Administration
Mark Gorecki - Assistant Professor, Spanish
Georganne Copeland - Professor, Business Technology

Connie, Mark and Georganne were members of the 2017 cohort that completed the SBCTC's 3-week online course "Accessibility 101: Basics of Inclusive Design." Georganne was pleased to discover that many of the formatting features she was using in programs such as MS Word (like headers, hyperlinks and tables) actually conformed to WCAG 2.0 standards so her documents were already "accessibility friendly" at birth. :)

Frances Mayfield - Program Assistant, ctcLink Project and BAS-AM student (class of 2019)
As a student employee for the eLearning office during 2016-17, Frances added closed captions to video recordings and developed expertise editing and transcribing videos using the built-in captioning features of the Panopto software program. After graduation, she enrolled in Centralia's BAS-AM program and began working part-time in the ctcLink Project office. Frances continues to investigate accessibility options in the PeopleSoft platform that the college will be implementing as part of the ctcLink Project sometime in 2020.

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2015-2016 ACCESSIBILITY HEROES

Preston Kiekel - Assistant Professor, Mathematics
Prior to the start of fall quarter 2016, Preston took part in an online research session with the Ally User Experience design team, providing them with information about online accessibility concerns from a faculty perspective. Preston's background in UX psychology was invaluable to these accessibility experts and they expressed great appreciation for his contribution to their research.

Pat Pringle - Professor Emeritus, Earth Sciences
Working with a blind student in Oceanography, Pat invested a great deal of time and energy to make his course content accessible on many levels, including a field trip to the Nisqually Nature Center and Wildlife Refuge. Because Oceanography is an earth science with numerous theoretical and visual components, Pat also contacted his textbook publisher and reached out to colleagues for ideas on how to make this content more accessible to students with visual disabilities.

Alisha Williams - Adjunct Faculty, English
Gordon Gul - Adjunct Faculty, Computer Science

These two enterprising faculty members teamed up to resolve an accessibility issue identified by the Ally diagnostic tool.
Alisha had created a visually engaging home page interface in Canvas using an image maker that generated flashing and contrasting light patterns. They learned from an Ally report that in certain combinations the flashing patterns could contribute to seizures, so within 48 hours of discovering the problem Alisha and Gordon researched the issue, modified the images with some software coding changes and replaced the images with equally engaging animations that used accessibility-friendly colors and slower sequencing. The new images passed the accessibility test with flying colors! (No pun intended...)

Kelsea Jewell - Assistant Professor, Biology and Nutrition
Kelsea was the first instructor at Centralia College to work with a remote captioning service where a deaf student in her live classroom connected with a sign language interpreter in California via web conferencing software using a laptop and webcam. That real-time interpretation occurred in one classroom over an entire quarter during the 2015-16 academic year. During fall 2016 Kelsea also participated in a feedback session with the Ally designers that informed the development of their "faculty feedback" tool.



Centralia College's Accessible Technology Policy and Plan
are available on the college website at:
https://www.centralia.edu/admin/accessibility.html










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