Accessibility Technology for Dummies

Resources for the Accessiblity Technology Initiative are now available from a variety of sources, reports Brett Christie, Director, Center for Teaching and Professional Development.  In addition, there will be a continued increase in dialog, awareness and training efforts on campus, Christie says.

AWARENESS VIDEO Colleagues at Cal Poly SLO, in conjunction with CSU ATI,  have recently released an "Accessibility Awareness Video" that is fairly well done and represents viewpoints of students and faculty.  If interested, here are the links to hi-bandwidth and lo-bandwidth versions.

SSU RESOURCES The SSU accessibility site has further information as to efforts on campus. The entire site contains more information than most people would want but the resources page may be useful, particularly the training handouts link, which has resources related to accessible PowerPoint, Word and web design.

ACCESSIBLE  POWERPOINT The EnACT project (Federal disabilities grant based at SSU) has purchased a perpetual site license of LecShare for the campus. This software is extremely easy to use, allowing users to open an existing PowerPoint presentation and walk through steps to make sure the presentation is as accessible as possible.  All those who have tried it find the process to be intuitive and efficient.  If desired, the software will also create an accessible html version of presentations, which can be posted online or viewed locally in a browser. It is hoped this will be installed across campus in late spring and additional training launched in the near future.

A workshop on "Accessible Word and PowerPoint" was given April 23.  Handouts for this session can be found at the SSU ATI training handouts page. In addition, all Dreamweaver workshops include accessibility as a core component of good design. For further information, contact Brett Christie, 4-CTPD.