Activity 2.2 (week 1)

Off to read Seale so I can attempt to answer the following question..........

Think about the following questions:
1. According to Seale, all the players in accessible elearning have their own perspectives and their own stories to tell.

• What is your perspective or story? Acessibility is similar to inclusion in that not everyone can be treated equally but in the case of courses they may be adapted to meet learners needs. I say 'may' as some courses cannot.
• What events, people or objects have influenced your current perspective regarding accessibility? My Early Years courses (E123/E124) are vocational courses that require that the learners are working with children (0-8 years). This immedialtely rules out anyone with a criminal record. It can also rule out certain disabilities as there is a duty of care to the children. In the past I have had to exclude a learner due to her criminal record at age 16. In an FE college I have also placed a student in a nursery school (under pressure from learning support)... who used an electric wheelchair with limited movement below the neck and had limited speech. Nursery adapted well but the learner became a health and safety risk when the children realised they could make the wheelchair move and she was unable to prevent this. The learner also was only able to complete one or two units and would not have been able to attain a qualification as the examining body required learners to complete all units which included toileting children, working with babies, nappy changing and so on.
• How conscious are you of these factors when you are reading and thinking about accessibility issues? I'm very concious of being politically correct and not discriminating but also not wanting to set the learner up for a fall by not being honest with them. In life there are often limitations that cannot be overcome.

2. If you were to conduct an analysis at this point in time, of the costs and benefits for you personally as a learner in studying this course online, what would the analysis look like?

• Would there be more costs than benefits? More benefits as OU are paying for the course
• Are they evenly matched?
• What factor helped you to decide you could cope with studying this course online? I work online and this is my 3rd online course. I'm driven by wanting to achieve an MA but I'm sacrificing a lot (family time) to achieve this.

3. Seale uses the imagery of a magic fairy to make the point that many of us are waiting desperately in the hope that we don’t have to take responsibility for accessibility because somehow or other it has ‘miraculously’ been done for us.

• What metaphor, analogy or imagery would you use to describe your or your co-workers’ current attitude or expectations regarding finding solutions to accessibility ‘problems’? Bring it on....if this wasn't my attitude why would I be on this course?

4. If you attended a conference where the main theme was making online learning accessible, what kind of information or evidence would you wish to hear from the presenters that would help to inform or change your practice? What can be done, how it can be done, when it can be done

5. Thinking about accessibility:

• Why do you think some students do not declare their disability to the institutions in which they are studying? Wanting to be accepted on their own merits rather than be treated as disabled
• Does it matter if an institution does not know the exact numbers of disabled students registered on its courses and the exact nature of their learning needs? Yes, without such data improvement cannot happen
• How necessary do you think this information is, in helping institutions develop accessible learning? It's necessary
• In what way might such information help an institution improve the accessibility of its online learning material? identify the types of accessibility required but more likely to be lnumber of disabled learners and the cost of accessibility....I know I'm sooo cynical!

6. In our working lives we are all constantly managing our identities – both public and private.

• What aspects of your identity do you openly reveal to your work colleagues or students? Very little if any personal detail to students. More to colleagues once I get to know them.
• What aspects do you reveal in a more selective manner (if at all)? Where I live, husbands job, children's school
• Are there any aspects of your identity or information about yourself that you would feel uncomfortable revealing to work colleagues or students? Yes