7 Unit: 7: Synchronous lectures

After working on this unit, you are expected to be able to:

• Design accessible slides
• Use accessible practices when presenting
• Describe strategies for improving the accessibility of presentations

Instructional Uses of Features

• Encourage students to use a communication method of their choice (e.g., chat, video) to help students feel comfortable to participate through a medium that is best for them.
• Introduce a concept through a short video followed by a chat between students using guided prompts related to the video.
• Ask students to read an article in advance and use the web conference to video chat about the takeaways from the reading.
• Use an interactive whiteboard to have students demonstrate how to solve a problem set and give them immediate feedback.
• Have students share their screens to present on a topic or teach their peers as part as an assessment.
• Invite students to present a video they created as part of a project.
• Ask students to respond to a poll to better understand their learning of a particular topic and readjust your teaching strategies in real-time.
• Record the session and post it to the course website so that students can access it on their own when they would like to review it.

Provide Options for Communication

• Give students choice in how to participate (chat, emailing afterwards, raising their hands).
• Provide students with a structure for the web conference and information about other methods of communication for your course (For example, we will also have an asynchronous discussion board and I expect you to respond 2x during the week).
• See if there are ways you can break up a large group into smaller ones. You can use breakout rooms or organize asynchronous discussions.

Enhance Synchronous Lectures

• Where possible provide materials such as PowerPoints or handouts ahead of the session and check accessibility first.
• Record the web conference so students can go back and review.
• Elect a few students each class to take notes and post those to the course site.
• Create a backchannel or use Slack, so students can help one another.

Slides are often used to provide visual aids that accompany a lecture or presentation. These visual aids can be images or texts that highlight the main points. When designing slides, a number of accessibility principles that we have already discussed are applicable. This includes things like image descriptions, font choice and style, use of colour and colour contrast. However, there are additional considerations that apply specifically to slide design. How do you make sure everyone who can see, can see the content? And how do you ensure that people who can’t see the content still get the same information?

Who Are You Doing This For

 This work supports students who:

• Are blind or have low vision, like Jacob
• Have colour-vision deficiency
• Have a learning disability, like Natalie

Image description: A white man sits at a desk in front of a computer. He wears sunglass and headphones, and his fingers are on a refreshable Braille display.

Image attribution: Jacob: “WFE003: Jacob” by Rosenfeld Media is under a CC BY 2.0 Licence.

Screen Reader Accessibility

If you share your slides with your students, there are a few considerations to keep in mind to ensure students who use screen readers will be able to access and navigate all of the content on the slides. The following tips are based on Microsoft PowerPoint, but they may apply to other software too.

• Use slide layouts: Slide layouts act as templates. They use provide place holders for different content types, like headers, images and text. These placeholders make those elements readable through screen readers. You can customize your slide layouts in the “Slide master” view. This makes it easy to ensure your slides use a consistent style.
• Do not use textboxes: Content in textboxes is not accessible to people using screen readers. If you use textboxes, provide an alternative text description.
• Use a unique heading on each slide: This will make the slides easier to navigate so students can go back and easily find information.
• Review the order of objects: This refers to the order in which your slide content will be presented to someone using a screen reader. PowerPoint will allow you to review and edit the order in which objects will be presented in.
• Provide alternative text for images: Without alternative text, all images and graphics than convey information on your slides will be inaccessible.

Watch this video for a walkthrough of how to apply these guidelines in Microsoft PowerPoint:

Watch Video: https://youtu.be/menjeixXP-M

Video attribution: “Accessibility in PowerPoint” by the Commonwealth of Learning is under a CC BY 4.0 Licence.

Visual Accessibility

For those with vision, there are different accessibility considerations. These accessibility considerations largely relate to those that have already been covered in previous units. However, let’s recap.

• Use a large text size: Body text should be no smaller than 24pt.
• Use lots of white space: Lists are easier to digest than a paragraph of text. They also make note-taking easier.
• Pay attention to colour contrast: Is there a high enough colour contrast between the text and slide background? In addition, avoid using patterned or strongly textured backgrounds that can make it harder to read.
• Colour alone should not be used to convey information: Remember the bar graph example we discussed in Unit 4.5? Students with different types of colour vision deficiencies may not be able to tell different colours apart. Instead, use labels or patterns (in addition to colour).
• Links: If you are not sharing your slides, you will have to make it easy for students to access linked content. You can do this by sharing the links somewhere else or using short links so that they are easy to type in quickly.

Now, let’s talk about presentation practices that improve accessibility. Note that this section does not address public speaking practices, but those practices are relevant. They include speaking slowly and clearly, using language that is familiar to your audience, and presenting topics in a logical order and explaining connections can make content more accessible.

Here are practices that can take the accessibility of your presentations or lectures even further. These practices are applicable whether you are presenting in person or online. They include the following:

• Share slides in advance
• Use an automated captioning tool
• Use a microphone
• Describe all slide content

Image description: A Black woman writes on a white board at the front of a classroom while speaking.

Image attribution: “WOCinTech (Microsoft) – 159” by WOCinTech Chat is under a CC BY 4.0 Licence.

Who Are You Doing This For

This work supports students who:

• Are blind or low vision, like Jacob
• Are deaf or hard of hearing, like Stephen
• Cannot look at screens for long periods, like Kelly
• Have a hard time following spoken English, like Yuki

Image description: A young Black woman sits at a computer wearing a headset, listening.

Image attribution: “Kelly” by the University of Prince Edward Island is under a CC BY 4.0 Licence.

Image description: A young East Asian woman with a shoulder bag and books under one arm.

Image attribution: Yuki by Andrew Fryer is under a CC BY 4.0 Licence.

Share Slides in Advance

If you are the kind of person who uses speaking notes, you may also want to consider  providing a text alternative of your presentation before you even begin.

Image description: A screenshot of a slide with the following text: “A note about accessibility before I begin. If you would like to follow along with the written version of this talk, you can visit bit.ly/palakeynote. That link will also have the images on the slide deck with embedded descriptions for your screen reader, if you want to check those out later, and the embedded video has closed captions.”

Image attribution: A note about accessibility slide by Robin DeRosa is under a CC BY 4.0 Licence.

This is an opening slide for a keynote by Robin DeRosa. On this slide, Robin provided a link to where audience members could download a written version of her talk along with the slide deck which had been designed to work with a screen reader. After this talk, Robin shared on Twitter that she was approached by someone with a cochlear implant approached her, who thanked her for providing a text alternative to her talk.

By sharing her slides and her speaking notes, Robin’s presentation included someone who may not have been included otherwise. While this may not be a common practice or something that should be expected, it does demonstrate how being proactive about accessibility has the potential to reduce barriers for your students and allow them to engage with content in multiple ways.

Even if you don’t use word-for-word speaking notes, sharing your materials in advance is still a good practice. It allows students to customize the display of the slides to fit there needs. For example, maybe they need to view the slides in high contrast or zoom in a lot, or maybe they want to print out the slides to take notes on.

Sharing slides also ensures students can easily go back to refer to content they might have missed or misunderstood.

Use an Automatic Captioning Tool

Another easy way to improve the accessibility of your classes— whether they are in person or online—is to use an automatic captioning tool. These tools will take what you say and automatically project your words at the bottom of your slides. This practice benefits students who are deaf or hard of hearing and students whose first language is not English.

Both Google Slides and Microsoft PowerPoint (in Office 365) have automatic captioning capabilities.

• In Google Slides, you must be presenting using the Google Chrome browser. When in presentation mode, you will see the option to turn on captions in the lower toolbar.
• In PowerPoint, you must be in the web version (not the desktop version) for captioning to work. Under the “View” tab, click the checkbox that says “Use subtitles.” They will appear when you are in presentation mode.

Use a Microphone (in-person)

Using a microphone while presenting in person is very important. While it may not be necessary with a small group, it is vital in a large and crowded room, no matter how loud your voice is. Microphones ensure people who are hard of hearing (or just those at the back of the room) can hear the content.

Image description: A middle-age Indigenous woman stands beside a lectern facing a large audience. She is wearing a microphone headset and gesturing with her hands.

Image attribution: “Monique Gray Smith” by is under a CC BY-SA 4.0 Licence.

Describe All Slide Content

Image description: A white woman stands in front of her slides that are projected behind her. She glances back at the visuals on her slides while she speaks.

Image attribution: Presenting by BCcampus is used under a CC BY-SA Licence.

One of the most important presentation strategies you can employ to make your presentation more inclusive is to get into the practice of describing your slides.

This includes describing graphs and images as well as text. While it may not be necessary to read text word-for-word, people who can’t see your slides should still know what you are talking about.

When you present with the assumption that no one can see your slides, you make your presentation more powerful and useful. Describing the content of your slides can have many benefits:

• It accommodates students who are blind or have low vision and can’t see the slide content.
• It allows students to focus on taking notes while you talk.
• It ensures that someone who is sitting in the corner, way in the back or just behind a really tall person doesn’t have to worry about not being able to see.
• It increases the value of an audio recording or transcript.

In Unit 7, we explored ways you can improve the accessibility of your slide design and presentation practices. These things directly benefit students with disabilities, but they support the learning of all students by giving everyone increased flexibility in how they access and engage with course content. Points covered in this unit included:

• How to design slides so they are accessible to people using screen readers
• How to design slides so they can be easily perceived and understood
• An encouragement to share presentation materials in advance (including speaking notes if available)
• Why and how to an automatic captioning tool
• Why to use a microphone in certain situations
• The importance of developing a practice of describing all slide content

4. Who benefits when captioning is provided during a live lecture?

a) Students with hearing impairments

b) Students whose first language is not English

c) Students with a learning disability

d) All of the above

5. True or false? If you have a loud voice, a microphone is not required in a large room.

a) True

b) False

Now that we have provided an introduction to Universal Design for Learning and discussed the accessible design of educational resources, let’s talk about what UDL looks like in practice. Keep in mind that UDL can be implemented in a range of ways and will vary based on things like the subject of the course, the specific learning outcomes, and the students being taught. In particular, this section will discuss the following topics:

• How to get started with UDL?
• How to apply UDL to the design of a syllabus, learning goals, and assessments?
• How UDL has been included in educational policies?
• Connections between UDL and Open Educational Resources (OER)
• Examples of UDL