Articles: Developing an Online Accessible Science Course for All Learners
Article Name: Developing an Online Accessible Science Course for All Learners
Journal: Contemporary Issues In Technology and Teacher Education
Authors: Veal, W., Bray, M., & Flowers, C.
Date: 2005
Abstract:
The American with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990 was a landmark legislative initiative that outlined the protection of individuals with disabilities. Title III of the ADA directs that public facilities make reasonable efforts to control discrimination and support accessibility policies, practices, and procedures (Council for Exceptional Children, 1994). The 1997 amendment of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (U.S. Congress, 1999) stipulates that students with disabilities are to be educated in the general education curriculum. Institutions of Higher Education are not immune from these policies. In addition, common actions like course development and teaching must include considerations and compliance with the ADA and IDEA guidelines. These guidelines have also extended to the realm of computer technology in recent years (e.g., Chalfen & Farb, 1996; Mendle, 1995) especially as they pertain to online delivery of instruction. The U. S. Access Board (2001), a governing body charged with helping U.S. federal agencies reach Web accessibility, announced a set of guidelines that comply with Section 508 of the 1998 Rehabilitation Act. The result was that all federal agencies had to alter and or develop Web sites that were accessible to those with disabilities. Web page authors can also integrate the same guidelines into generic Web sites, as well as online courses offered at universities (e.g., Robertson, 2002; Robertson & Harris, 2003).
Traditional modes of science instruction have included lecture and presentation by instructors, and different methods and accommodations have been made to include people with disabilities as learners (e.g., Munk, Bruckett, Call, Stoehrmann, & Radandt, 1998; Stefanich, 2001). In recent years online instruction has quickly risen in popularity among universities and colleges as one mode of instruction (Kiefer-O’Donnell & Spooner, 2002). Even though the use of online instruction has progressed quickly, online learning accommodations for people with disabilities has lagged behind other curricular issues (Gardner & Wissick, 2002). The purposes of this paper are to exam online Internet content of an Earth and environmental science (EES) course and determine if the format and design of the Internet content is appropriate for students with visual disabilities. The course used external Web sites on the Internet as the main source of content; thus, the study focused on the impact of an online course design on a specific community of learners and suggests how instructors at all levels might need to revise curriculum that uses the Internet for content to meet the learning needs of some marginalized learners.
