Digital Accessibility for 21st Century Programs
No matter what format your program takes, from PowerPoint and handouts for a face-to-face program, to a Zoom webinar, to a fully online course, we want to ensure all learners are provided with the means to have a successful learning experience. This course will foster adopting a phased, proactive approach to programs to ensure all users can access, use, and benefit from equal or nearly equal methods --regardless of socioeconomic status, temporary or permanent disability, or ethnicity.
Everybody Wins with Universal Design for Learning
Course Introduction
Universal Design for Learning (UDL) established a framework for designers that should be considered while creating your online courses. UDL is a proactive approach to ensure all users can access, use, and benefit from via equal or nearly equal methods--regardless of socioeconomic status, temporary or permanent disability, or ethnicity. UDL ensures learners are provided with the means to have a successful learning experience. In an online course, especially a self-paced course, that means we must take extra care to provide not only successful and engaging learning opportunities, but also a course that is easy to navigate, easy to view and hear, and easy to use.
Course Overview
We created this course to provide you with some accessibility guidelines to get you started. Then, we'll delve into the principles of Universal Design. This course isn't designed to make you an expert. We've focused on accessibility guidelines to develop a framework to start thinking about accessibility in your daily work. Then, we'll delve into the principles of Universal Design for Learning. When you're ready to get started:
- You choose what content to access now
- You can return anytime and dig deeper
- We've included resources and even an infographic to help you get started.
- As a bonus — complete the assignments and get valuable feedback while earning your Universal Design for Learning badge!
Learning Outcomes
After completing this course, you will be able to:
- Identify 9 accessibility principles with broad application
- Locate digital accessibility resources
- Apply the seven UDL steps to design an accessible course
Module Topics
The modules in this course include:
- What is Universal Design for Learning?
- Accessibility Guidelines
- Clean up course navigation
- Be Inclusive
- Include Accessible Documents and Presentations
- Include Fallback Options for Media
- Tag Images with Alt Text
- Take your course on a mobile test drive
- Final Thoughts and Resources
Course Facilitator
Please reach out if you have questions via the Canvas Inbox.
Length
You should be able to complete this course in 2-3 hours.
Audience
All MU Extension faculty and staff. The guidelines for accessibility apply to many formats from Word documents and PDFs to Canvas course pages. Principles of Universal Design for Learning are essential for online courses to create a welcoming, supportive and user-friendly learning environment.
