VSTE

Virginia Society for Technology in Education

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Diversity and Equity Taskforce: Mentoring Program

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In 2019, the VSTE Board of Directors agreed to create an Ad Hoc Inclusion Task Force focused on issues related to diversity in education and educational technology in Virginia. This group had two initial goals: learn more about the challenges related to workforce diversity and identify ways VSTE could increase diversity. In an effort to meet these goals, the Task Force established a pilot mentorship program.

The program ran from October 2019 to March 2020. With monthly virtual meetings, participants were invited to engage in courageous conversations related to diversity, education and technology. The program consisted of 4 African American female teachers (mentees) who were paired with instructional technology leaders (mentors) from Arlington County and Petersburg.

This pilot program was designed to allow mentees to receive ongoing support so that they were aware of professional opportunities in the field. As a result of networking with others in the program, one of the mentees was able to secure a position as an Instructional Technology Coach.

Participants were asked to provide a brief statement about what attracted them to Instructional Technology. Charles Randolph, one of the program mentors and Senior Instructional Technology Coordinator for Arlington County Public Schools created the video below which captured some of the participants statements on what attracted them to Instructional Technology.

Written by Nicci Dowd. Nicci is a special education teaching in Prince William County and the co-chair of the VSTE Diversity and Equity Taskforce.

Video by Charles Randolph. Charles is a Senior Instructional Technology Coordinator in Arlington County, co-chair of the ISTE STEM Special Interest Group, and a Certified Apple Learning Specialist. You can follow him on Twitter @CharlesRandolp3.

Serving All Students in an Online Environment

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Addressing the needs of students with disabilities in an online environment can seem like a daunting task for educators, especially in the midst of an emergency, overnight transition to online learning. With the right tools and some small adjustments in practice however, keeping each of your students engaged and progressing is within reach.

Disabilities come in many different forms (mobility, hearing, vision, and cognition) and aren’t always visible or diagnosed. Even if you don’t have a student in your class with an identified disability, following these practices can provide benefits for your students and any parents or guardians who may have a disability.

1. Ensure your web-based tools and resources are accessible for students with disabilities
Any platforms or websites you share with your students must comply with state and federal rules for accessibility. Tools that conform with international accessibility standards, such as the WCAG 2.1, provide a base level of access for all users. Companies that may be providing you with a platform or other tool should have readily available check lists for conformance with standards.

Some of the most common barriers to access for students that you should check for with any tools and content used for instruction, are screen reader incompatibility, keyboard navigation problems, and lack of video captioning. Free web accessibility checkers, like WAVE, are a great way to quickly check a web-based resource for accessibility with just its URL.

2. Avoid PDFs and Images to convey information
PDFs and images often do not carry the proper attributes to ensure the accessibility of the information contained within them for students or parents utilizing screen readers. Information relevant to learning or classroom activities should always be conveyed in word documents or within the HTML of a web page.

When you are creating a document in a word processing program or adding text to a webpage with an HTML editor, be sure to add headings to give your documents a logical structure to allow keyboard and audio navigating students to move freely around the document.

computer screens

3. Watch your colors and color contrast
Creating fun and flashy content and webpages using different colors can be a great way to make learning fun and engaging for students. For students with visual disabilities however, it can make learning challenging when colors are used to convey meaning. About 1 in 12 boys have a form of color blindness that can make it difficult to determine colors, the difference between shades of colors, or even the brightness of a color. Web accessibility checkers can help to identify color contrast issues that may be a barrier to students, but generally it is best to avoid multi-colored documents or assignments that rely on students to be able to identify colors to complete.

4. All videos should have closed captioning
Any videos, including live-streamed videos, provided to students should have captioning or a transcript available. While captioning and transcription can be difficult for live-video instruction, it is critical to ensure equitable access to learning. Students with both hearing and cognitive disabilities will benefit from the ability to follow along.

Any streaming or video recording tool you use should be able to auto-caption your recordings either during the live-stream or afterwards to post with the recording.

5. Differentiate Instruction
In addition to ensuring your technology and content are accessible, serving students with disabilities requires addressing the learning differences between students as well. A video lecture can hit a lot of the curriculum standards, but it may be incongruent with the IEP needs of a student and generally a more difficult method of online learning for all students. Leverage your online tools to create multiple pathways for students to receive instruction or to show evidence for learning they can do on their own.

In the Brightspace LMS, teachers are using Release Conditions to set criteria around the availability of content. For example, setting up checklists in a course to automatically deliver course material in a different format (e.g.a link to a video content page for visual learners or a link to an excerpt from literature for linguistic learners), access to an extra help discussion forum, additional reading material, and alternative formats for multimedia material. This helps ensure that students who need more support have it without hassle and while maintaining student privacy.

Written by Brendan Desetti. Brendan is the Director of Government & Stakeholder Relations for D2L – makers of the Brightspace LMS.

AIM Virginia

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AIM-VA was created through a grant from the Virginia Department of Education.  AIM-VA is a free service that provides accessible instructional materials to eligible Virginia K-12 students who have an Individualized Education Program (IEP) and are unable to access traditional print.  AIM-VA converts textbooks, workbooks, reading books and teacher-made materials into accessible formats that meet the needs of the individual student.  AIM-VA also provides technical assistance and training. With over 500,000 materials housed in its library, AIM-VA works to ensure that students with print disabilities have access to accessible instructional materials.

Created by Nicci T. Dowd. Nicci is an Assistive Technology Training and Technical Specialist for AIM-VA and a member of the VSTE Board of Directors.

Tech Spotlight – Robotics

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Christine Richmond is a Robotics teacher at Peter Muhlenberg Middle School. Through a program facilitated by Carnegie Mellon University, Ms. Richmond’s eighth-grade students are constructing and programming Lego Mindstorm robots to navigate various courses and perform specific functions. Students work in teams to complete “challenge tasks” and demonstrate an understanding of various robotics engineering concepts. The students will ultimately apply what they have learned from the various tasks to complete a final challenge - programming their robots to act as emergency responders for search and rescue missions.