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ACCESSIBILITY PROJECT FOCUSING ON
PEDAGOGY AND TECHNOLOGY
A great
deal of activity comes out of UMUC’s Office of
Distance Education and Lifelong Learning
(ODELL), which is currently comprised of five
centers: the Institute for Research and
Assessment in Higher Education (IRAHE), the
Center for the Virtual University (CVU), the
Center for Intellectual Property (CIP), the
Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL) and the
Learning Marketplace.
"The purpose of these centers
is to identify issues and resources and train,
educate and support people inside the online or
digital environment that we all live in," says
Claudine SchWeber, associate provost of distance
education and lifelong learning.
One new center soon to be
launched by ODELL is the Center for Access in
Distance Education: Supporting Persons with
Disabilities (ADE), which is being funded by the
Verizon Foundation, the NEC Foundation of
American and the SBC Foundation.
ADE will feature a web site, a
handbook, and faculty training guides. The web
site is slated to go live in Spring 2003 and
will feature online courses prior to being
adapted for persons with disabilities and after
being adapted, says SchWeber. The site will
include recordings from faculty who are keeping
logs as they transform their courses, as well as
comments from students with disabilities
explaining what challenges they face and what
technology they typically use when going online
to learn. "This project is focused on the
front-end faculty or trainer," adds SchWeber.
"It covers what they need to know both
pedagogically and technologically in order to be
effective with persons with disabilities."
For more information about the
myriad of programs and services listed under the
auspices of UMUC’s ODELL, visit:
http://www.umuc.edu/distance/odell/ |
