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Thursday 16th May 2024

Championing accessibility within the PebblePad community

Category: Company

by: Samantha Hibbert

To celebrate Global Accessibility Awareness Day (GAAD) on May 16, colleagues across the company are involved in several activities to make the student experience more accessible. You can watch our video on creating accessible content in PebblePad, check out the portfolio on accessibility and read about the events taking place to raise awareness at the University of Leeds below.

Accessibility Matters!

This week, the University of Leeds, as part of their Accessibility Matters! Campaign, is running 12 sessions using a PebblePad accessibility training workbook. Visit the GAAD at Leeds web page to find out more about their activities.

To support the digital learning accessibility week at Leeds, PebblePad was invited to talk on the theme of learning, talking and thinking about accessibility and inclusion. Fabienne Loveder, Product Manager and Accessibility Champion at PebblePad, created a video on creating accessible content in PebblePad.

To spread awareness of how to ensure your portfolios and workbooks are accessible, we’ve included the videos below, as well as links to the Accessibility at PebblePad portfolio created by Fabienne to help educators improve the student experience.

Creating accessible content in PebblePad

Watch the video for Fabienne’s whistle stop tour of the accessibility at PebblePad portfolio, which includes a list of the design crimes to be aware of when building content inside PebblePad.

Scroll to the bottom to see further resources on Accessibility at PebblePad.

PebblePad’s Colour Contrastathon

In addition to our collaboration with customers, PebblePad is hosting an event on Thursday, May 16th, to mark Global Accessibility Awareness Day: the Colour Contrastathon. PebblePad is focusing this event on color contrast because it plays a vital role in digital accessibility, enhancing readability for users with visual impairments, meeting accessibility standards, reducing eyestrain, and ensuring universal design principles are upheld.

During this event, a team of developers will review our platform with a specific focus on color contrast. By focusing on accessibility in our own platform, we reaffirm our commitment to creating an inclusive environment for all users.

Accessibility at PebblePad

The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) guidelines are developed by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and are a set of standards for making web content more accessible to people with disabilities. WCAG provides recommendations for making web content perceivable, operable, understandable, and robust for all users, including those with disabilities.

WCAG guidelines are integral to PebblePad’s development processes. From the outset, the system has been built to underpin WCAG’s four principles of accessibility. You can read more in Fabienne’s Accessibility at PebblePad portfolio below.

Accessibility at PebblePad Portfolio

Link to public Portfolio

If you would like more information about accessibility at PebblePad and further support, please get in contact. In the meantime, please see the following resources and further reading.

Talk description: I will use the themes of reflection and experiential learning, skills development and assessment (including programme level assessment and changes in assessment practice) to explore this process in more detail. This includes the link between disciplinary and institutional curriculum reform, learning from local innovations and changes, and using this to inform University level changes and support.

Bio: My current position is leading the University wide Curriculum Transformation Project. This is a major and long term initiative for the University considering all areas of the University’s undergraduate and taught postgraduate curriculum. Prior to this Jon set up and led the Institute for Academic Development (IAD) at the University of Edinburgh. The IAD provides University level support for teaching, learning and researcher development, including direct support for students and staff, and support for enhancement and innovation in curriculum development, the student and researcher experience. Jon has a PhD in petroleum geology.

Mission Possible: The DNA of a bespoke professional development program

Talk description: The diversity of students in higher education dictates that there cannot (and should not) be a single ‘silver bullet’ approach to address the complex challenge of career readiness learning. However, the reality of modern university structures is that delivering bespoke experiences for each student is a challenge in and of itself. And yet, all things are possible with creative use of PebblePad to streamline delivery (for the university) and make it highly personalised (for the student).

Bio: Gayle Brent is a Learning and Teaching Consultant (Employability) at Griffith University, Queensland, Australia. Gaye’s specialist area of interest is developing and implementing strategies to enhance staff and student understanding of employability in both curricular and extra-curricular contexts. She completed a Master of Education and Professional Studies Research to explore the potential barriers and challenges to embedding employability-based learning in higher education curriculum and is currently completing a Doctor of Philosophy exploring the impact of an extra-curricular employability program on the individual student experience.

Dr Melissa Highton. Assistant Principal, University of Edinburgh

Talk description: A journey through the stories told by wicca data. How a neglected research data set was used by students to overturn historic injustice and shed new light on the lives of women in Scotland.

Bio: Melissa has worked for many years in higher education at some of the UK’s finest and most ancient institutions. In each place she enjoys discovering the hidden histories and less heard voices which can be surfaced in new ways using the most up to date and open technologies. She is a champion of playful and curious approaches to engagement with audiences on campus and online, and is an invited speaker at events about dangerous women.

Education is an Experience That Should Be Designed

Talk description: We have any number of problems and opportunities as universities, and universities must adapt to help students from diverse backgrounds develop the knowledge and skills they need to thrive and make a positive impact in the world. Key to those adaptations is understanding that we provide students with an experience. We ought to design them with intention and purpose. This talk with take up this argument and ground it within a large educational transformation project at the University of Leeds.

Bio: Jeff Grabill is Deputy Vice Chancellor for Student Education at the University of Leeds. Prior to joining the University of Leeds, Grabill was at Michigan State University (MSU) in the United States for nearly 20 years. He served Michigan State University as the Associate Provost for Teaching, Learning, and Technology. In that role, he was responsible for facilitating innovation in learning and educator professional development via his role as Director of the Hub for Innovation in Learning and Technology. Grabill’s research focuses on how digital writing is associated with citizenship and learning. That work has been located in community contexts, in museums, and in classrooms at both the K-12 and university levels. Grabill is also a co-founder of Drawbridge, an educational technology company.

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