In the age of the internet, specifically, the world wide web of websites that offers a ton of information, what should we use and for what?
We often browse the web for various reasons.
First, there is the “I have had a headache for two days, what could it be?” and what to do about that.
In the past, we may have called our doctor, or another healthcare professional, even asked a friend or two – you know, that expert medical friend or family member if you have access to those.
Now, we take what we think is the fastest route to health and well-being. The fastest route to garner all the needed information to supposedly know what ails us and how to fix it now.
We have become impatient.
But is the information you garner from health sites, WebMD or less reputable ones, accurate?
Or do they take you down a path, maybe even through a short quiz, for you to begin to believe that a 2-day headache might signify a brain tumor?
What about when researching for an academic paper.
When you know not much about a topic, where do you go to learn more?
The Encyclopedia?
Photo by James on Unsplash
In the very very very distant past, one might have consulted an encyclopedia, or even cozied up to the school or community librarian.
Nowadays, we go straight to Wikipedia. Straight to other web resources.
But should we take just anything? Should we accept anything?
No matter how convenient and interesting they may seem, are those sources accurate? Legitimate? Reliable? Aboveboard?
The short and simple answer. NO!
So, what now, you might ask?
You might very well need to learn some of the skills and knowledge of your local librarian. They most definitely have the answer! They can lead to the resources you need, and they will be legitimate. No questions asked. No uncertainty. I have to say that a classmate, an expert librarian, came to mind throughout this course module, and I cannot wait to read what her take on this topic is on her blog.
But you can do it too. There are still ways to get there. There are ways to trust online resources again and again and you can figure it out.
This is where my tried-and-true way of evaluating information stood right in front of me.
5Ws And a Lonesome H
Photo by Graham Ruttan on Unsplash
The 5 Ws and an H model – The Who, Why, What, When, Where, and How things get done.
Using this model, I developed a handy, hopefully quick, and simple way of evaluating web resources using Adobe Express (my feedback on the tool is for another day but maybe an upgraded version would be better than what was free). Simply remember to assess where the content was published and how recent it was shared, know who wrote what you are reading, if you can determine why they created that content, what linkages did they make to the work of others, and how they put it all together.
So, you see.
Making sure you have reliable web resources to use?
It might seem daunting, downright discouraging, but difficult it is not.
It is here. It came and went in a flash. Well, this supposed flash was many more years than expected, but this blog post is my last of this class and my last “paper” before graduation.
I am grateful for this class. I came to it in a circuitous way, but I did.
Maybe, just maybe, it was divine intervention, divine timing I’d say.
And the Begining Starts Now!
I am using it already.
Yes, I said it. I am.
All the learnings from this course, that is.
For one, diving into the deep end of digital accessibility allowed me to bring a fresh perspective as an advisor to an EdTech startup, and my deeper learnings were infused into a recent project discussion with the UNICEF-Ghana and Ghana’s Ministry of Education – it even allowed us to make some decisions when it came to students with special needs.
An advocate of digital accessibility I will continue to be!
And the website I developed? The feedback was very helpful. The second set of feedback came after I had a chance to incorporate the first set of feedback into the website; then I shared it with a school founder/leader of a new school.
It was great to learn that the founder already had digital accessibility in the organization’s strategic plan. This might have been why the website on digital accessibility shared with this leader did not necessarily provide this leader with new information or what to do next.
Students Must; Staff? Not so Much
Now what was quite interesting is that this leader felt it very important for students to create digitally accessible content but for staff, this was not as important.
I even shared it with a team on another project as we are in the midst of building a website. I was glad to take note that even when I was not in a recent meeting, the topic was discussed!
Small Website for the Client
And the process of building the website – well, my consulting client will get a standard report in “academ-ese,” but they will also get a mini-website so that the data gathered can be easily found. I mean why give them a bunch of folders on a google drive when we can tell a story and weave in the data? To find the recordings from the focus groups, go to the website. To find the summaries of the discussions, go to the website.
No Multiple Texts; Build a Webpage
I even created a one-page website for a recent Elementary School virtual reunion. I mean, why send text message upon text message every time there is an update? The thought alone of constantly providing updates with multiple links that will be missed was just what I decided to do no longer. From the event’s agenda to the event rules, to a video of the school song – on the website they all went. All I had to do was send all a simple link, ONE LINK; multiple links need not apply, please!
Podcast #2. To be tweaked!
And as for podcasting, I have even recorded a second for fun; it was short, but it was satisfying to create. It might need some tweaking but once I have a process and a teeny tiny bit of time, I will continue. It is possible.
Podcasting is here to stay!
Growth of The Voice
Photo by qinghill on Unsplash
I often kept my “voice” online in the realm mostly of images or sharing the thoughts, sayings, philosophies of others, or responding to others. But here, I got a chance to share my voice, the non-academic version that is, and it surely was liberating.
I am ready; as ready as can be, to add words and sounds to my images as my voice online.
And I have to say, this is not just for my personal thoughts and ideas, but I know I will use these new tools for work-related endeavors.
And for the finale…since I could not find a way to complete a Flipgrid Short using my account, a regular Flipgrid prevailed (I even found the HTML code to embed here use the WordPress “Text” tab! so adding this in after publishing this blogpost). I did it!!
This new radio is even better than the days when I used to DJ on the air. Those were the good old college days in the city that never sleeps. I even had my very own segment during Thanksgiving weekends. Yes, I and the African songstresses graced
the airwaves over NYC for a few hours.
But this new radio? Wow! It’s special.
You don’t even have to listen in when the show is on the air. Once it hits the airwaves, you can listen to it at any time, even a year from now. And you, yes, you can also grace the airwaves anytime you want, worldwide even. I occasionally listen
A Walk In Magic. Photo by Matthew Henry on Unsplash
to this new radio; at times, a walk listening to CarTalk was just perfect. It made the walk quite magical.
I even joined a few others to create a new radio show. Ok, well in all fairness, I passed my recordings on to the communications team, and bam! They strung the recordings together, put them on a website, and even had music to go along with it.
Let’s PODCAST.
So, I hear you can do it.
It’s simple; so, they say.
I am even going to try my hand at it now. No passing the buck to a communications team this time.
Let’s Go! Do not look back. Photo by Gabriel Barletta on Unsplash
I took a plunge into my brain, and nothing came up!
But then it happened.
Three.Thirty.Three
Woken up at 3:33 AM, not by my own doing but slowly woken up by sounds in a city that wakes up very early. I found myself recording the sounds. They were so familiar, yet so new. Sadly the recorder on my phone did not pick up some of the faraway sounds clearly.
My idea? Sounds of the day tell stories. What are they? What do they mean to us? What stories do they conjure up for us?
But now how to even get started?
Kindergarten Inspiration
Kindergarten! Photo by La-Rel Easter on Unsplash
This is where the course materials shared this week came strolling in and I felt empowered.
Empowered by hearing kindergarten students speak about the best part of themselves in Sasha Jones’ (2019) article.
What a treat!
So, I went for it.
Getting it Done? No small feat!
With a loose structure in my mind, a few tries…well, I stopped. I couldn’t string words together that lasted more than a minute so I let it be for a few hours and then came back. This time, a script and that is when I began to record in Voice Memo on my phone.
Sadly to say the evening sounds of happy hour with a live band were permeating the airwaves…so I hid in an enclosed room far away from the cacophony and my recording was born. Well, part of it that is. I had recorded the sounds of the morning and decided I needed to infuse them into the podcast; maybe at the start?
The two recordings were then uploaded into Garageband where they were neatly stacked on top of each other. I came to quickly realize that this meant that the morning sounds and that of my spoken word came out together. One needed to come after the other; it took a quick YouTube video to set me straight!
Then up went the file into Headliner. I selected a template, added some words, and simply followed the directions, and voila! With sounds to start this podcast about sounds, I chose not to add sounds when I began speaking.
When you start talking about how things work, I am in, for the most part.
A young me used to revel in reading bits and pieces of my father’s “How things work” book series. I even recently found them in a box in the depths of storage and scanning through them brought back memory after memory after….
Me, the one who in preparation for a job interview (this was during one of my former lives!) in the telecom field spent a weekend reading a book cover to cover about what happens when a phone call gets made, why at times we put a 1 in front of the telephone number when calling from a landline, why we sometimes need 00 and why, when using mobile phones we need none.
I got the job. Didn’t take it. But I was certainly wiser about how phone calls work.
I say all this to preempt any question that I do not have biases when it comes to teaching coding in schools, and anything related to how the internet or the world wide web works. We simply must, shouldn’t we?
Ah, The Youth of Today!
I mean the tweens and teens of today do not know the struggles of using typewriters to punch out papers with no spellcheck or Grammarly. They get on TikTok without understanding the toils the programmer had to endure to bring their labor of love into the world.
Most do not even know how content seen on the world wide web efficiently travels as packets of zeros and ones through the fiberoptic internet highway of connected computers and servers. First, they must all watch the “How does the INTERNET work?” video. It will do them all some good. Look, I even included the video directly in this blog post; it cannot be missed.
I mean programming robotic arms in good old Fortran is how I got my start and my end. I remember the sheer joy I had when the arm would pick up an object and move it to the coordinates I programmed in. It was magical, even downright mystical. Mysterious I tell you!
But a programmer, I never became.
I simply want my niece to feel that level of exhilaration! Why not?!
I Tried it Again
After ____ number of years, I am back to trying my hand at coding again.
This time using HTML to develop a flyer. I decided to make a Welcome to Pre-K flyer to welcome new students into the joy of early childhood education – well their parents that is; 3- and 4-year-olds would not be reading my flyer, that I know.
And then I remembered my days living in Fortran-land. Yes, I know it’s a coding language but trust me, the memory of feeling like it was my home for hours, even days, flooded my brain.
Sometimes, it wasn’t like magic at all. Sometimes, after hours and hours of poring over the non-working code looking for errors, you found the missing COMMA! But time was gone, lost forever, never to come back.
Is this Teen on to Something?
Maybe my niece was right after all. Shhhhhh…..
Maybe, if it’s not your cup of tea should you stay on the other side of the Grand Canyon far away from learning how to code using HTML?
My current perspective: Expose students to coding and let those who truly thrive in coding teleport right into Coding-Land.
It is primarily through web pages and apps that we live our daily lives. Making sure that all students have a glimpse of how this all gets into their hands is beneficial I think.
Now, as for my teen niece, she should go with her strengths – maybe, with some basic coding understanding, her managing and leading programs or projects that require coding where she does not have to code herself is fine by me.
Please do not remix my images – photographs or intaglio prints.
Whatever you do, do not steal them, please.
And do not even think about “borrowing” them.
Do not add them to your blogs or websites or presentations or…or…Just please do not.
That has been my sing-song for decades. And for decades I took pictures mostly for myself, occasionally to share with others, occasionally to reminisce.
I even submit them occasionally to competitions for fun.
There have got to be rules for this!
And then it happened. An old colleague sent me a direct message on Instagram sharing how they appreciated my winter pictures some much that my images often become the wallpaper for their phone.
A feeling of flattery washed over me. But then I gasped! That should not be happening, should it? I mean, who else is doing the same? Aren’t there rules for this? I mean adding a name or logo to my images is quite time-consuming and reduces my spontaneity; wouldn’t you agree?
Then a memory floated by. This topic was raised by teachers in my research study as they discussed having students create in virtual and/or augmented reality.
I remember one particular story of a teacher recounting a student creating a “book report” in virtual reality using CoSpaces Edu. This student was creating a gallery space with sounds, images, and words. As the teacher checked the progress of the project, the student proudly shared that they had pulled music from a well-known artist on YouTube. The student proudly shared that the song selected had a theme that aligned with the content of their report.
There, during the interview, the teacher shared with me the gasp they had made in that moment. They continued to share how confused the student was – “but we do this all the time,” the student said.
So, what gives?
What are the rules that protect creative work in cyberspace?
We know there are many protections for music (well depends on what country you are in but protections for musicians are getting better globally). Does the “thou shall not plagiarize” rule apply to images, even those created by amateurs? How many times have we pulled images from the web to include in a presentation?
There is the infamous Shutterstock website and many others like it but the thought of paying for an image just seems over the top, no? And who determines the pricing anyway? And with many worldwide wielding smartphones which get clogged with photos galore, why pay for this? I mean, as the economists say, when supply is high, pricing drops, so what gives?
Yes, I know. I am being very contradictory. I want free images when I want them but I want nothing to do with those who want to use mine.
Well There are Rules; Quite Simple Actually
Now, I have to say that after reviewing the plethora of resources provided in this week’s course materials, I was pleasantly surprised that there are numerous options for free very high-quality audio-visuals to be used but there is a caveat to all this – you must follow the rules.
Creative Commons is an organization that has enabled a peaceful structured path amid the copyright and licensing legalities that allows creatives to share their work with the world with certain guidelines. Many organizations have already jumped on board.
Want to inspire others by sharing your digital creations? Simply find one of the six Creative Commons licenses that work for you and automatically attached it to your work wherever you share. If you do not want someone to alter your work, just select the license that allows for that.
If you want someone to remix your work but not make money off that creation, you can say so too. You set the conditions. Whatever you want, it’s ok; you will be fine. Wherever your work goes, the user must make sure they attribute the work to you!
I was tasked this week to set up time for a gathering of old classmates and friends scattered around the globe. We left each other over 35 years ago and have been reconnected thanks to social media and WhatsApp. It’s been fun to reminisce especially about our teachers; but now it is time to take this party live – virtually that is on Zoom.
With everyone being in different time zones, I opened up my trusted Doodle Poll which allows each person to select the meeting times that best suits them. But this time, I paused.
I wanted to try something new, something bold, something refreshing!
I wanted to use something that allowed people to vote within the comfort of their WhatsApp screen. And oh, it had to be easy-to-use and very free!
So, began my rummaging through not so many google finds. A quick scan of some of the free tools and I set my sights on using Handypolls. It fit the bill. An easy-to-use VERY free app that offered voting directly in Whatsapp. I was sold!
Frankly, I could not find a YouTube video showing me how to use this app. It seems quite new, so I decided to use it as my video project for the week and see how it goes. Maybe it could even go viral on YouTube! Yes, I set my sights as high as the top of the Burj Khalifa.
After a few tests, thanks to the friends and family who played along with me, I was ready. I was ready to make a tutorial video, and then a script was born. I read over it carefully and even had another scan it. “All good,” they said, so off I went to my special recording studio; my desk.
Given that I had used Loom previously, I chose Screencast-o-matic this time for my screen capture. I did turn the camera off so that viewers could simply focus on the actions being taken on the screen and not me. My goal was to add a transcript and/or captions for the video for those who may be visually challenged.
Things Fall Apart, Fast
I was pleasantly surprised with how easy it was to use Screencast-o-matic. I began recording and that’s when – in the words of Chinua Achebe, “things fall apart,” and oh how quickly they fell.
First recording. I stopped midway. The beginning was not that welcoming. I was going too fast. And when replaying what was recorded there was no sound to be heard, anywhere.
I created a PowerPoint slide to the start of the video to at least share what the topic of the video was all about; this was where I will welcome viewers. And the no-sound issue, I found the cause and fixed it quickly.
Second recording. I tripped on my words. Pause.
Third recording. I chose a path that would have not been helpful to those who did not have any polls set up yet. Stop.
Fourth recording. All was going great. Well, all but the script.
The carefully crafted script was, well, inadvertently tossed out.
I was so off-script that I gently set it aside never to be picked up again. And then it happened. I got to the part of the lesson where I was to show what happens in WhatsApp.
“Do Not Disturb” – I Now Understand Thee!
I sent the poll to a few contacts in WhatsApp but then a barrage of messages somersaulted their way in. There is something to be said for turn
Do Not Disturb; Not Now Please. Photo by visuals on Unsplash
ing on a “Do Not Disturb” feature before I hit record next time around.
I decided to ignore the complication and kept going. I simply redid that segment of instructions assuming that I could edit it out later in Screencast-o-matic.
Once the recording ended and was saved, I went back to cut out that section and found out that my assumption was VERY WRONG. I saw the edit button but the free version of Screencast-o-matic did not allow for editing.
Now, what to do?
Then I remember that I have used iMovie on the Mac in the past to try to edit videos. With high levels of frustration, I never could quite get the hang of it but that was my only familiar option.
After uploading the Screencast-o-matic video into iMovie, I found the section that I needed to cut out but first, I had to stop by YouTube to relearn how edit videos on iMovie.
Slowly but surely, I zap the section out of the video and proudly uploaded it to YouTube, unlisted.
The Transfer
I then uploaded the video file into Otter.ai, a transcription app.
Next was the YouTube process which was quite tedious, probably because I did not know a better option. Line-by-line, I transfered the text from Otter.ai into YouTube for subtitles. I had thought there was a way to upload the transcript easily or to have it generate automatically, but somehow, just somehow, it vanished from plain sight.
Then I realized.
All this work was done on THE OLD FILE! The timings from Otter.ai and YouTube did not match. I was ready to give up. I was ready to throw in the towel. I was done. I mean, never to cross this finish line D.O.N.E. Another Om-moment was coming on, but I persevered.
Into the YouTube editor I went to find a way to remove the section still left undone.
I found a way; then, like magic that section was gone!
With what ended up being a short dive into the last 2 minutes of the video, the subtitles I were done. Fixed.
I am a lover of visually creative endeavors, and I would even add making graphs to that list mind you. I was utterly excited to create my blog banner this week; yes, sadly that is the only creative time I get these days. So, after watching the course videos for the week and hunting through the readings to get some know-how, I felt this fictitious wind push me forward. I was ready; the universe has my back and so I went!
I was quite happy with the theme I had selected for this blog thus far and yet I knew that it needed some spicing up. Some sprucing up. Some eye-catching pictures and even sound to hook readers in just at first glance.
And then it happened. I began to search for how to add an image to the header and low and behold, my esteemed theme only allowed for a teeny tiny 60 x 60 pixels image. For what was ahead of me, this WordPress theme was – how shall I say it? NOT GOOD. It did not allow for a customized banner and so it was quickly ixnayed and thus began my somersault onto the battlefield of banners.
… There’s a New Theme in Town!
The process of capturing the next banner off the battlefield was an all-consuming and time-consuming circuitous escapade with a side of frustration and fun!
Two selections in and they were gone! My widgets: they were disrespectfully lost in cyberspace. I selected the original theme, and they came back so I decided that they weren’t lost but I needed to find a theme that allowed them to miraculously emerge from their hiding place.
One by one, after filtering for “custom header,” I looked everywhere with my bestie, the theme preview button. Some themes I adored, while some I abhorred. Frankly, there was something appreciated about quite a few of them but none was the whole package. Merging them together would have been perfect, even better would be creating my own theme, but the new blogger in me allowed that idea to gently escape my thoughts.
So, I settled. In this newly found relationship with WordPress themes, I settled. As they say, the devil you know may be simpler to work with than the angel you do not yet know; the angel being creating my own. So, what’s a lady to do? Settle.
And just like that, there was a new theme in town called Accelerate! Even though it did not truncate the posts, which is something I prefer, it promised to randomly swap out the blog banners if I uploaded more than one. I thought this could give the blog a fresh look ever so often but alas, it is not an automatic feature.
And then came Om!
Om Saves the Day!
My head was spinning a bit.
The battlefield of banners was no joke.
I took a break. A breathwork Om-break to calm my nerves.
After all, settling was, well, hard!
Onward to Victory, sort of
Refreshed after Om, I begun to play around with Accelerate as it had more options than that OTHER theme I had selected in the distant past. Once I figured out what things meant, I boldly swapped out the main color to a happy green.
Then, I stepped into the resources provided for the week to find images. Images that I could freely do whatever I wanted with.
I wanted images that invoked the name and tagline of the blog.
This time around, I chose NOT to use any of my own just to see.
Musings and reveries land on the blog through my somersaults; I looked for images that spoke reflections, daydreams, and a literal somersault in action. Images of the vast starry sky or swimming in the ocean gave me a sense of being lost in deep thought and dreaminess with a dandelion bringing in some wishful thinking.
A bit of expansiveness, a bit of whimsy, a bit of fright.
I used Unsplash to find the pictures and was pleasantly surprised that finding free high-quality images was very easy.
Then it was on to win the battle of creating the banner.
I used Canva for that; a force of habit. I included attributes to the source of the images, with links and all, but when transferred into the blog banner all was lost. Once the banner was created in Canva, I passed it through Pixlr to resize the graphic to 1100 x 300 pixels; in hindsight, I should have done this process in reverse as the letters now look blurry on the banner. Weren’t we warned of this in all the resources provided? Hmmm…
With the promise of changing the header image, I created the 3 banners below.
I have chosen Banner#3 to show for now. I centered it on the page and placed it between the site title and the rest of the blog. Now since the blog title and tagline were on the header image, the “header logo only” is placed up top; sadly the embedded hyperlinks on the images do not work. Maybe one day I will find a way through HTML code?
To add more pizazz – for me, that is – I added a menu to the top of the page with categories and a Home link. The Home link is so that if a reader ever got lost in blog-land, they could always find their way home.
Feeling bold, I even added a picture of a pond I took from a train as the site identity. This certainly helped me easily find my blog amongst all the open tabs in my browser.
Then, the Redeemer Came!
Then I found it!
I digressed from the main assignment a tad. My curiosity got the better of me.
It was hidden in the theme’s features, and it was called the Responsive Menu.
I hadn’t the faintest idea what it meant so I decided to start researching and realized, this is how to make the blog accessible to those with disabilities. I went into the list of WordPress plug-ins and hit ACTIVATE for this plug-in. I felt redeemed. Maybe there was a silver lining to settling in the middle of the battle. Pride had arrived!
I went back to “View Site”, and nothing had changed. I was quite perplexed. Like the widgets I lost on the battlefield earlier, the Responsive Menu was a no-show.
I scanned every corner of the page and then I found it. An outline of a person inside a blue circle; it was there, hidden in plain sight!
I proceeded to change the settings within this menu and got a glimpse into what others may see. I turned off colors, increased font size, and turned on the underline feature for hyperlinks so that they would stand out. And the Google Site Reader extension? It worked. It read the blog aloud like a charm even with the title hidden. Yes, I know. The robotic voice could use some finesse, but it was impressive.
I feel redeemed, somewhat victorious with this new theme in town.
It costs too much to design for and execute on accessibility, they say.
Yes, they say that designing web spaces to ensure that the 1 billion people on planet earth with disabilities can engage in and contribute to cyberspace costs too much.
Think about it.
Where’s the ROI?
Adding ramps to buildings that would otherwise not have them is an extra cost. Never mind that those with no mobility limitations may sneak up a ramp or two at times.
And when it comes to digital media and technologies, is all this necessary?
Who needs larger fonts, clear audio-visuals, contrast between the words on the screen and the background? Squint! It’s like looking through a pinhole; you get less light in and it increases your focus. It’s not like those who have 20/20 vision ever increase font size or zoom in to get a better view.
And as for voice controls “implemented for users with physical impairments,” per The Business Case for Accessibility article, they may not be so necessary. I mean who really wants to talk to the Siris and Alexas of the world all day.
So that’s what they say and why they say it.
It’s way too costly to design for inclusivity.
You don’t benefit? Really?
But wait, how many people need a wheelchair or cane to move from place to place permanently or even temporarily? Try getting on the NYC subway, up and down the stairs, with just a cane; see how that makes you feel. You start to avoid certain stations altogether which can make commuting complex. Trust me. I’ve been there. It wasn’t pretty.
The “I didn’t get that. Could you try again,” answer from Siri can be pretty tiresome but voice control surely can be convenient.
And how many people have 20:20 vision? Certainly not I and certainly not as one gets older.
So, embedding inclusivity in design processes is not critical? That’s hogwash. Yes, I said it. Nonsensical hogwash. Please excuse me while I commit pleonasm.
When it comes to designing physical products, services, and spaces for inclusivity, the question is why not? We all benefit from these supposed extras, don’t we?
One Step Forward, No Steps Back, All the Way to the End!
All the Way to the End!
As the world shifts to cyberspaces, we cannot leave those who may have a physical, speech, visual, neurological, cognitive, and/or auditory disabilities behind. Can we?
Ensuring accessibility should be something done from the get-go.
The readings for this week reminded me of my days of ensuring computer hardware was designed for repairability. It took being part of the product development teams day-in-day-out to shift the narrative. From that experience, I can say that organizations with separate teams (i.e., the Barclays Accessibility team discussed in “The Business Case for Digital Accessibility”) focused on accessibility is a start but they must go all the way.
El Gibbs in the article about taking the rules we have offline into online worlds might even agree that these separate teams must be allowed to greatly influence the approach taken by “designers” and eventually become extinct; if not, this expectation might always remain a “fringe idea.” Frankly, the design-for-accessibility perspective should be socialized in all education systems, from PK-12 to higher education when it comes to learning how to problem-solve for humanity.
I mean, how much more would it cost to add a line of code that supports accessibility so that even more people are reached?
How do organizations tout having diverse teams when some persons with disabilities may not be able to access all the tools needed for their full participation? Where are all the employment lawyers? If public spaces must adhere to ADA guidelines, shouldn’t cyberspace?
Design Thinking, Take Charge!
I am with Elise Roy on an idea she speaks of during her TEDTalk on how designing for accessibility benefits all: design thinking enables solutions to be realized through keen observation and prototyping so why not seek its counsel often and include multiple perspectives when problem-solving? Couldn’t one say that it is wasteful to offer goats and chickens to those who cannot hear without providing a solution to keep those animals safe? Why weren’t they part of the solution?
Could it be that maximizing accessibility decreases waste somewhere? Just saying.
Long winding sentences in academic language be gone.
Yes, that has been me. That can be me.
After reading those long research articles for my literature review, my sentences became long winding roads through mountain passages. I became guilty of what Lynda Felder, in her book “Writing for the Web” called “tangled” sentences.
Let’s Revolt!
Start the Revolution
Now, with this Webpage Technologies course, my promise to self is to change lanes. Maybe I can become free again; free to move away from tongue twisters, free to have shorter sentences that have much less “academic-ese”.
As I dove into the readings for this first week, I began to think anew. What if all courses and certainly dissertations used blogging as a way of expression? Imagine if instead of quoting what was said during an interview, you inserted the interviewee’s voice so that your reader could hear the inflections in their voice. Ah, that would be the day! That would be a revolution Shelley Wright may appreciate.
The Insides of Blogs
So, I now understand from the readings that it is best to have blogs be infused with pictures, videos, audio, drawings, or illustrations to make them more visually pleasing and engaging.
It is fair to say that some blogs may seem difficult to read when you see all words with just one picture, so I peek in occasionally. Take Ms. Merryday’s flappinessis blog about her son and the world of autism with some very long posts at times. I peruse her prose appreciating her humor on a serious matter which I all too well understand. She surely would pass Sue Waters’ first piece of advice: “Use attention grabbing titles” with her latest post. But would Sue Waters’ suggestion of “embedded media” distract her readers from her message?
Maybe not so fast?
All the recent blog readings for this course reminded me that it has been a decade since I decided to create my own blog. Sadly, I became a once-in-a-blue-moon blogger, if you could even call it that.
Time to renew my interest? Maybe, maybe not.
Sharing my photographs, I am good with; but do I truly want people to “hear” my musings and reveries? What I had shared in the past, if any, were very very very short posts. Frankly, they were more like sayings of the moment. They came to me in a flash of insight. But, to share a full stream of consciousness with the world seems daunting. Responding to others, not so much, even though I never do.
On foot forward, dreamer
But now, what to focus on? From Linda Felder’s perspective, it depends on your interests and your audience. I agree with that but what if your interests span too many topics? What then?
It might be more important to simply start with something and be consistent. I’ll adopt Linda Felder’s advice and make the commitment. Maybe I could start by selecting from the Edublogger’s “10 Types of Blog Posts” list. The Reflection-type seems right up my alley. Now, it’s time to start using all these tips to bring in an audience that never leaves. That might be wishful thinking, but I can dream, no?
Maybe I can add in the occasional question for readers to respond to. That may allow for some dialogue and maybe some collaborative blogging, as discussed by Catherine Poling. Having people “read” without commenting would certainly not give much insight into who the audience is. Having some interaction may even build a community that can gather elsewhere in cyberspace. Maybe even in the metaverse.
Ok, it’s time to try. I feel freer already.
Let’s take the plunge to make the long paragraph extinct.
Cheers to blogging!
(all this and I am already guilty of a long post even with shorter paragraphs! 😊 )
