Last month, I was fortunate to attend and present at the Advance HE Teaching & Learning conference 2022 with my colleague Maria Kaffa, the rising star in our digital accessibility team. The overarching theme across all three days of the conference was on Enhancing student success through student engagement. I attended some sensational sessions, but…Continue Reading Wicked, wicked educationalist massive
Caption Ed was first created aiming to help students with disabilities more easily interpret audio content, however, with subsequent updates, the tool’s functionalities have been extended into the realm of notetaking and the Learning Enhancement and Development (LEaD) team is currently considering adding it to its range of assistive technologies. Setting up You will find…Continue Reading Caption Ed as a tool for City students to leverage live captions and note taking, a student review
Note: this blog will use the term “image” as a shorthand for visual (non-text) content to aid brevity. If you have attended the Introduction to Digital Accessibility or Creating Accessible Documents training sessions that Sarny Guzman-Rodriguez and I host a few times per term, you have probably heard us talk about how important it is…Continue Reading 5 tips to improve your use of text alternatives
Moodle updated Moodle was successfully updated over the weekend. Although City is remaining on version 3.9 of Moodle, you will notice one significant addition to the system. Blackboard Ally is available in all Moodle modules to help make learning content more accessible. Blackboard Ally merges into the existing workflow when you upload, rollover or import…Continue Reading Moodle update introduces Blackboard Ally
Following a successful pilot, Blackboard Ally will be available in all Moodle modules following the Moodle update on 18th July 2022 to help make learning content more accessible. Blackboard Ally merges into the existing workflow when lecturers and course officers upload, rollover or import content. Ally produces an accessibility indicator score for common file types. The…Continue Reading Blackboard Ally in Moodle
Note: This blog post was updated on Thursday 27 October 2022. What are alternative formats on Anthology Ally? Anthology Ally is an online tool on your Moodle modules. It offers an alternative formats tool that you can use to change the format of Moodle resources, such as those shared by lecturers, to your desired format….Continue Reading Alternative formats for students using Anthology Ally on City’s Moodle
Key dates Moodle will be unavailable between 8am on Saturday 16th July and 8am on Monday 18th July 2022. This is to update Moodle, optimise the database and allow enough time to resolve any issues that might arise following the update. You will not be able to access modules or run any activities on Moodle…Continue Reading Moodle update – Key dates 2022
It has been an amazing month of activities to raise awareness about Digital Accessibility and how we can make City’s digital content more accessible for staff and students. In this closing blog, I will start with some statistics about what we have been up to this month and then focus on a couple of my…Continue Reading Reflections on Global Accessibility Awareness Month
City is currently celebrating Global Accessibility Awareness Day (GAAD) with a month’s worth of amazing events. On May 25, Dr. Miranda Melcher hosted a panel event showcasing some of the work on digital accessibility that’s being done at City! The panelists were James Saward who leads the Disability and Neurodiversity Support team, Jessica Wykes in…Continue Reading GAAD 2022: Accessibility at City – Find out what we’re working on!
This year I have been fortunate to pilot Blackboard Ally. Blackboard Ally is software that sits within Moodle and automatically checks the resources in my modules for accessibility, helping me to make sure that they can be used by all the students enrolled. I became involved in this project through my work with City’s Digital…Continue Reading The Blackboard Ally Pilot