Notes for Special Education Online Courses Paper Presentation
Introduce ourselves and give a broad overview of our study
List research questions:
Which online course design elements provide barriers or supports for students with special
needs?
To what extent are online course designers addressing issues that are potentially beneficial or
problematic for students with disabilities?
Presentation overview
Rapid Growth
E-learning is one of the fastest growing sectors of the education market expecting sales of $40bin 2005
(Thompson, Glass, & Simon, 2000)
National Center for Education Statistics, 2005
222,090 students enrolled in U.S., 47% are asynchronous models
20% of all students have a disability (French and Valdes)
“People with disabilities are among the least considered in the … context of online learning.” (Kinash,
Crichton, and Kim-Rupnow, 2004)
Need for Accommodations
Cyndi Rowland (WebAIM) - three simple principles
“Right thing to do”
Fiscally responsible: revenue from additional learners (Rowland), expensive litigation (Edmonds), costly
retrofitting (Banks et
al.)
Federal law
Little Research
Kinash and colleagues recently completed a review of the literature on this topic and found that of the
few research-based studies on the topic, “the source publications are largely conferences and journals
within the field of disability studies rather than mainstream educational technology.”
Laws
U.S. legislation mandates that “courses offered online or that include web-based components must allow
an equal, effective, and inclusive opportunity for participation to students with disabilities” (Banks,
Lazzaro, & Noble, 2003).
ADA: The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), passed in 1990, prohibits discrimination based on
disability and ensures individuals with disabilities receive equal access to services .
The Workforce Investment Act of 1998 includes the Rehabilitation Act Amendments of 1998 and
Sections 504 and 508. It requires that “agencies that develop, procure, maintain, or use electronic and
information technology” ensure the resources are comparable in use for both individuals with and
without disabilities.
504: Prohibits discrimination on the basis of disability
508: Provides guidelines related to information technology accessibility
IDEA: Ensures FAPE in an LRE. 2002 updates ensure students with disabilities have access to the same
general curricula as their non-disabled peers
NCLB: Students with disabilities have equal access to all courses as non-disabled peers.
Organizations
W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) has a Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) that designed Web Content
Accessibility Guidelines, now in their second version (first in 1999, updated in 2004)
WebAIM (Web Accessibility in Mind)
CATE (University of Oregon): much research on students with learning disabilities and is currently testing a
computer-Based Study Strategies course with this population. Also working with supported text
CAST
Checklists/Guidelines
IMS Guidelines
W3C Checklist of Checkpoints
Smith’s (2004) Steps for Ensuring Accessibility
Rowland’s (2004) table for ensuring access to individuals with specific cognitive disabilities
Edmond’s (2004) list of Section 508 standards, tools, and techniques
Bohman’s (2004) accessibility recommendations for individuals with cognitive disabilities
Bohman (2002) Summary of deign issues including challenges and solutions by disability type
Study Context
Virtual classroom model (teacher and student geographically removed, duplicates traditional model,
communications via technologies)
Secondary level
Special populations
Physical impairments (visual, hearing, motor, health issues e.g., epilepsy)
Cognitive Impairments (learning disabilities, low-level intelligence, ADD/ADHD)
There are 4 times as many people with cognitive disabilities as blindness (Rowland, 2004)
“Cognitive disabilities are the least understood and least discussed type of
disability among Web developers.” (Bohman,
2004)
Identifying Design Variables
We merged literature, theory, laws, and the IODE
“Instrument of Instructional Design Elements of High School Online Courses” (IODE)
Undergone credibility, reliability, and validity studies
Contains 156 elements and 600 variables
Levels of Practice
Gleaned data from a 2003 Keeler study
Sample size: 22 courses, 66 lessons, and 183 assessments from 5 online high schools (using a biased
random selection method)
Sample schools varied in enrollments from 500 to tens of thousands and the schools spanned the U.S.
Courses included about 4 each from social studies, math, science, language arts, and other
Included AP and non-AP courses
Data collection occurred between August and October of 2003 by a single rater
Identified Elements
Found 38 elements in common including 304 variables
Element possibilities vary from inclusion of all audio to use of lesson summaries.
Within each element, there are numerous variables. For instance, the element “Audio Style” notates whether
audios are for the purposes of pronunciation, text-to-speech, authenticity, or non-text speech.
Excluded elements from IODE were:
Too ambiguous for objective responses
Not accessible due to lack of access to source code
Assistive technologies were not available for data collection purposes
Oversight
The schema includes five categories: website design, focus on disabilities, technologies used, instructional
methodologies, and support systems.
Some categories have subcategories (e.g., readability, which falls under “Instructional Methodologies,”
includes reading ease, reading level, spelling, and grammar)
Focus on Disabilities:
Literature base is very wide concerning recommendations for accommodating individuals with visual and
hearing impairments and for excluding bias in all facets of education. None of the courses included
obvious bias against disabilities or people with disabilities
“Hearing Accommodations”
95% of all courses did not provide barriers for people with hearing disabilities though audio usage is still
uncommon
“Vision Accommodations”
59% did not pose any obvious problems
Problem areas included use of pop-up windows and use of moving content
1/4 of the courses failed to provide adequate textual descriptions for all visual elements
None of the courses had audio components for all text
Website Design
This category focuses primarily on visual design, but also addresses issues of navigability, link structures,
and overall congruence of the site across pages
Site and page layouts and Visual design of pages
Layouts need to offer a consistency that allows users to actively and fully participate in the entire expected
experience of a website (e.g., completing the course). Students with disabilities must be able to learn the
content and participate in instructional activities and assessments at a level equivalent to their nondisabled peers. They are unable to do this if simple accessibility issues deter them before they even
reach the primary content. For instance, if the site structure is so confusing that they cannot access
individual lessons, they will not be able to complete the course. This could be a problem with visually
impaired individuals who cannot see visual cues or to learning disabled students who become quickly
frustrated when facing incomprehensible situations. Issues such as lack of white space, busy
backgrounds and inconsistent page patterns attribute to this frustration.
Overall, current course designs are doing well in regard to site and page layouts as well as visual design of
pages.
Graphics
Course designers are included images in 83% of their lessons
More complicated
While graphics are difficult for people with visual impairments, they can be extremely beneficial for
individuals with cognitive impairments. Supplementing text with graphics can facilitate comprehension.
Some may even do better with the absence of text.
Also, some graphics may not be possible to adequately describe without graphics. (e.g., describe a feeling
gained when looking at before and after satellite shots from the Asian tsunami or the screaming picture).
Universal design suggests use of a multi-modal approach while Bohman suggests a targeted approach.
Identify your target audience and design for them.
Technologies Used
Category addresses web (e.g., use of forms or threaded discussions) and non-web materials (e.g., lab kits,
videos, or novels) needed to successfully complete a course.
Non-web-based materials
59% of the courses required non-web-based materials.
Materials that fail to offer accessible alternatives are not accommodating. (Einstein trying to take calculus
from a textbook.)
Web-Based Technologies
Audios and videos may not have comparable textual alternatives.
Downloads (second-generation artifacts) may not be accessible.
Pop-ups and animations may be very distracting to students with ADD and ADHD, or
even dangerous for students with photosensitive epilepsy.
Threaded discussions, chats, and simulations may move too quickly for students with
motor impairments.
Instructional Methodologies
This category addresses issues relating to activities students engage in during individual lessons.
Lecture may be good for visually-impaired individuals, but often this is hard for cognitively impaired
individuals to follow. They may prefer more active methodologies such as:
Project-based learning
Labs
Brainstorming
Role Playing
Peer communications
Group discussions (24%) of the sample are hard for cognitively disabled students who have difficulty
expressing themselves in writing.
Chats (0% of the sample) are particularly difficult for students with special needs. Chats are not always
readable by screen readers, they require fast typing so many with mobility impairments cannot keep up
with their peers, and the pace of communication is often disjointed increasing the cognitive load on
individuals with cognitive impairments.
Cook and Gladhart (2002) encourage designers/teachers to limit the number of participants in groups.
Use asynchronous communications when possible.
“Student Options”
Provide example of the astronomy course that gave students options of creating a children’s book to
describe the planets or writing a research paper on the same topic.
Less than 20% of the courses, lessons, and assessments offered alternatives.
“Timed”
Only 10% of the assessments had timed components. Many of these were non-traditional (observe the sun
for a full day at 2-hour intervals) or emulated AP testing environments.
Designers should make accommodations for ensuring adequate time. One suggestion was to time the
student, recording the answers at the cur-off time, but allow the student to complete the assessment and
grade it completely.
“Reading Level”
Lesson must be comprehensible at students’ independent reading levels, not their instructional or
frustration levels. The average reading grade level of the sample courses was eighth grade with a range
from fifth to twelfth. Too high of level may add too much cognitive load on your cognitively impaired
students.
“Summaries”
Only 14% of the lessons included summaries.
Summaries are particularly important for students with special needs because of the possibility of missing
content due to design errors (e.g., lack of alternative text), assistive technology malfunctions, inability to
focus for extended periods, or visual tracking problems.
Context-Sensitive Help occurred in 27% of the lessons.
Can have ASL, definitions, audio pronunciations, graphic explanations, etc.
41% of the sample courses required some support individual other than the teacher. This is important because a
student with a special need may not be able to communicate in writing what they are having a problem with.
A person who can communicate with them face-to-face (23%) or using other non-text-based media can figure
out the problem and communicate it to the teacher.
Limitations
Use of single instrument
Excluded elements
Theoretical-basis of Keeler instrument was not special education
Data collection method did not include source code and use of assistive
technologies
Data is 2 years old
Generalizability
New Research Questions
Would we find the same results if collecting data at different academic levels?
Are there variables or clusters of variables that are better for use with individuals with specific disability types?