CCCC presentation
This week, besides finishing a draft of the open source position statement I hope NCTE will adopt, I’ve been working my CCCC presentation, Thirty minutes to better web accessibility, which is part of the CCCC Computer Connection. My talk has two goals:
- On the short term, I want to get more folks to do something about the accessibility of their web sites. Too many people believe addressing web accessibility requires reading five books and learning a bunch of code. I’ll show that’s not true; while coding practices are a critical part of making the web accessible, content matters a lot as well.
- On the long term, I want everyone to make a commitment to dealing with accessibility as part of the web development process, on the same par as thinking about audience, linking a site to others, or selecting a presentation technology (e.g. static pages, managed content, etc).
The web is full of accessibility articles and resources, but I don’t think enough are aimed at people getting started, or more occasional web authors… like teachers who use the web in their courses.
I hope those of you at CCCC will take a break from the “mainstream” sessions and check this out. Fellow CC presenters: if you blog about your CC session, please add a link in the comments here, so I can see what you’re up to.
February 15th, 2006 at 3:48 pm
Hi Bradley! I’ve blogged about my session with Elizabeth Monske and Matt Barton on “Collaborative Writing the WIKI Way.” I also blogged my envy of your Glossolia WIKI.
Lanette
February 16th, 2006 at 8:13 am
I’m probably one of the guiltiest when it comes to not concentrating enough on accessability–nothing deliberate, but just not thinking through issues of access consciously as part of composing. Can’t make the Cs this year, so will keep checking in here.
Also, poked around on the 481 materials. Envy is the right word. These are fantastic. I hope at some point to learn more about the wiki/blog integration.
February 16th, 2006 at 8:14 am
Jonathan and I are there, unless it’s at the same time as our panel.
February 16th, 2006 at 10:03 am
Thanks, Lanette!
Dan, in an earlier version of my presentation, I wrote that guilt wasn’t going to be my tactic; too many accessibility advocates encourage it, which I find counterproductive. Instead, spend a little time improving your accessibility, and happy you are one of the 0.01% of instructors who do so unless forced to.
My 481 students deserve the credit for that class. I am pushing them to make it their own, and they are really responding well. We aren’t integrating wiki/blog technology-wise, though I’ve thought about doing so (putting an RSS feed for wiki changes on the front page of the blog) but are just making it a priority for our collaborative writing efforts.
Goodwin will be at the Cs? Hells bells.
February 17th, 2006 at 1:31 pm
Great topics! Any chance that similar topics will be offered on campus?
Dean
February 17th, 2006 at 2:01 pm
Dean, I gave a web accessibility presentation to the web standards committee about a year ago, and developed “Web accessibility for WIU web managers” in collaboration with a technical communication class. I also volunteered to do a web accessibility workshop for faculty development, but they didn’t promote it very much, and nobody signed up. I’d be happy to help you or other interested folks with web accessibility.
As far as other CC topics, the coordinator plans to post as much of the materials online as he can. So after CCCC (late March) you should be able to see some more stuff. If there’s a specific topic you’re interested in, let me know and I’ll see what I can do here and/or if I can help you get in touch with the folks doing the presentation.
February 19th, 2006 at 4:29 pm
About that position statement, I made an H2O playlist of links that may be relevant.
February 19th, 2006 at 6:34 pm
Thanks. If I forget, I hope you’ll add a link to this on our wiki.
March 17th, 2006 at 10:30 am
Hi Bradley,
Your session sounds really interesting - I will be there! My panel is on thursday afternoon and discusses digital composition in Writing Centers. Maybe we will see you there!
-Kate
http://www.berkeleyprep.org/Default.asp?page=51