>> Hello everyone.
I'm Cynthia Curry, director of the National Center
on Accessible Educational Materials or AEM Center for short.
Before we begin the presentation, I'm going to take just a couple of minutes
to orient you to the Zoom interface.
So Luis, if you would advance the slide once.
This webinar is being live captioned.
And to view the captions, you click on the closed caption button which is
in the upper right corner of your Zoom window.
You should see a callout stating that closed caption is available.
We'd like to thank Donna who's our closed captionist today.
We know it's a lot of work to do this.
We always rely on the expertise of our captioner.
So, thank you for your service today.
Upon activating those closed captions,
you'll see your captions appear along the bottom of the Zoom window.
And of course, it wouldn't be an AEM Center webinar if you weren't encouraged
to contribute to the conversation in the chat.
If you don't see the chat panel, click on the chat button at the top
of the Zoom window, near the closed caption button.
And when you enter text to the chat, make sure that all panelists and attendees appears
in the two field, that the bottom of the chat panel right
above where you enter text, you'll see a two field.
It may by default say all panelists.
If it says all panelists, it means that your messages are only going
to the panelists for this webinar.
We want to make sure that whatever you are contributing,
your questions, comments are seen by everybody.
So, click on the dropdown arrow and choose all panelists and attendees to make sure
that everybody sees your comments.
For those of you who are tweeting today, you can contribute
to the conversation by using the #aem4all.
So, please do that and spread the word about accessible presentations.
And finally, if you want to-- advance the slide Luis, a reminder that you can download materials
for this webinar including both the SlideDeck
and the digital handout that Luis has prepared for you.
It's on the event page on the AEM Center website.
The URL is on the screen.
And Luis-- Leslie O'Callaghan, our AEM subject coordinator operations coordinator,
is dropping those links in the chat as well.
Finally, there's going to be a recording of this webinar within a week,
and it's going to be at that same URL.
So just before moving on to Luis's accessible presentation,
I'd like to formally welcome you to this webinar.
As many of you know, the AEM Center and SETDA have what we're promoting
as an Ed Tech-Accessibility Partnership.
We're grateful for the opportunity to support you
as you work toward making products more accessible for your stakeholders.
This is the third webinar that we've presented for SETDA members.
The first two were accessible websites which was presented in November
by Lynn McCormack, our software engineer.
And in December, the topic was accessible documents that was presented by Luis Perez
who was not an AEM Center technical assistant specialist
at the time, but we have nabbed him since.
So, we're delighted that this presentation is being presented
by an AEM Center TA specialist, Luis Perez.
So if you missed those presentations, the original--
the first two webinars, I will drop the links to the recordings
in the chat during Luis's presentation.
So Luis, take it away.
>> All right.
Give me a one second, everybody, while I find my cursor here and go to the next slide.
All right.
So, Leslie, if you could, you just go to the chat area.
And for every fifth person that's watching the webinar,
if you could just go ahead and turn off the sound for them.
Just kidding, Leslie, I don't want you to do that.
I just wanted to make a quick point.
So, here's the issue.
When we look at the incidents of people with disabilities in the United States,
that's one in every fifth person, and that's actually probably a conservative estimate
because that's just the people that have reported that they have a disability.
But there's probably a lot of other people that, you know, have not either been diagnosed
or they don't want to disclose that they have a disability.
So, the number is probably a little bit larger than one in fifth.
But even starting from a baseline of every fifth person having some kind
of disability, they're visible or invisible.
Imagine that you're having a meeting or imagine that you're having--
doing a presentation and every fifth person can't see the slides or can't hear the--
what you're saying during your presentation.
Imagine the impact that that would have from their ability to participate and then take
out that information from that meeting and then have an impact and promote your message
for them in just that presentation.
So, that's really going to be the topic today is how do we make our presentations more accessible
so that we allow everyone to have equal participation in our meetings,
in our presentation and in our events.
So as Cynthia mentioned, my name is Luis Perez.
I'm now a TA specialist for the National AEM Center.
I'm really happy about that.
It's a great place to work and great group of people that are really passionate
about accessibility and inclusion.
So, it's a great fit for my passion for this topic as well.
All right.
So, I have a question that I want to start with, what does a pitcher of water have to do
with creating an accessible presentation?
Go ahead. And if you have any clues, any ideas, go ahead and put those in the chat area.
See if anybody gets this.
So as Cynthia mentioned, make sure that you're sending your messages to all panelists
and attendees so that everyone can see your message.
And if you don't know what a pitcher of water has to do
with creating an accessible presentation, well then stay tuned
because you're going to find out.
Christine, that's great.
Yes, absolutely.
You don't want to leave participants with a glass half full.
All right.
Great. Well, thanks for that comment.
So, we will move on, but just keep that in mind.
So, I will answer this question, what does a pitcher of water have to do
with creating an accessible presentation?
I also want to give you a chance in the spirit of UDL
to give you our universal design for learning.
I want you to, in the chat area, create a goal for yourself for this session,
so one is that you came to this presentation that you're hoping that to get out of it.
So, go head and type into the chat area.
And this is also great because it helps me know that you can find the chat area.
So, what is that you want to get out of this presentation?
And if you're feeling shy and sometimes people are a little shy, you don't have to share it
in the chat area, but you can write it down for yourself on a post-it or on a piece of paper.
Be more thoughtful.
I'm just going to read out some of the comments that are coming through, at least one nugget
to use in my next presentation, to be more thoughtful about my PowerPoint presentations,
want to know what I can change about my presentations to make them more accessible,
you've come to the right place, to improve presentation quality and accessibility,
two or three strategies that I can easily incorporate into my work and share
with educators in a way that's actionable, lots of good stuff coming through.
So, I want you to keep that in mind as we go through the presentation
and I will pause a few times and just give you a chance to reflect on those goals.
All right.
So, the goal today is really focused on accessibility.
But what I found is that there is a very tight relationship
between just creating a high quality presentation and accessibility sometimes.
So, what you do to develop your message, to create a presentation that's clearer
for everybody sometimes improves the accessibility and vise versa,
if you make it more accessible, it makes the presentation work for even more people.
So in that spirit, I want to share with you a little bit of my presentation journey and some
of the resources that have shaped that journey.
So, my first presentation was in fifth grade.
And I was living in the Dominican Republic at the time and I was going to Catholic school.
And for a Mother's Day event, and Mother's Day was Sunday, so it kind of reminded me of this,
I was asked to recite a poem in front of the entire school.
Of course, I didn't have PowerPoint at that point, being in fifth grade
in the Dominican Republic, but all of the elements of a presentation were there, right?
I was out in front, in front of an audience and trying to deliver a message.
And I don't know if it was because of the nuns or just the pressure of the moment,
but towards at the middle of presentation,
I kind of forgot my lines and kind of froze for a second.
After a few, you know, couple of minutes, I kind of recovered
and I delivered those lines as best as I could.
But from then on, that whole experience of being exposed out in public really shaped the way
that I presented, and public speaking and doing presentations kind of gave me a lot of anxiety.
And I'm sure some of you have experienced this as well.
Well, what I've been doing for the last few years, at least the last three to four years,
I've been doing presentations for a living basically before joining the AEM Center.
And so from a person that, you know, had a lot of anxiety around public speaking,
over time I was able to improve and continue to get better and better to where I was able
to do that for a living basically.
So what I'm trying to say is that if your work at it,
you will get a lot better at creating presentations.
Malcolm Gladwell says there's a 10,000-hour rule that basically, it takes about 10,000 hours
to become an expert in a field or a topic.
I don't think it's quite that many, but the idea holds is that if you practice--
the more you practice, the better you will get at the skill.
So, these are some of the books that I've used along the way.
Probably the one that changed my life the most as a public speaker
and presenter is Presentation Zen by Garr Reynolds.
And I will probably refer it to a field his big ideas as we go through the presentation.
More recently, Resonate from Nancy Duarte really had a big impact on me.
And she really emphasizes the importance of storytelling in your presentations.
And Nancy Duarte, in case you're not familiar, there was one presentation,
this is a trivia question, what's the only presentation in history to win an Oscar?
Let's see if any of you can put that into the chat area.
Only presentation in history, and I'm kind of stretching the definition of presentation here.
The only presentation in history, Christine, that won an Oscar, any ideas?
The last lecture, thinking, thinking.
See, I got you thinking now.
All right.
I will give you 25 seconds and I'm going to give you the answer.
Are you ready for it?
Here it goes.
An Inconvenient Truth, the only presentation to win an Oscar, and I'm stretching it a little bit
because it really was the recording of the presentation that's been edited into a video.
Well, that presentation was the team behind-- that presentation was Nancy Duarte's team.
So if you want to learn more about her techniques that, you know,
led to winning an Oscar, you can read the book Resonate.
And then, Made to Stick by Heath brothers, it's not necessarily about presentations,
but it's about crafting a good message.
One that's going to be sticky in the sense that people are going to go
out and it's going to be actionable.
And so, those three books have really changed my life when it comes to presentations,
and I encourage you all to pick them up.
You can-- They're available in paperback, they're available as e-books as well.
All right.
So moving on from some resources to help you craft better presentations,
lets then shift gears here and talk about why accessibility.
I think I hinted it that already that, you know, there are people out there
that have significant challenges with vision, with hearing and we need
to address their needs during our presentations.
But there's also something called the curb-cut effect, and that really kind
of captures the idea of universals design.
And the way that I like to put universal design is the idea that what is essential
for some is almost always helpful for all.
So, here on the screen are some examples of solutions that were developed with one group
in mind, and then they benefit everybody else in society.
Seat belts were originally just for young children.
Well, now, they've saved, you know, thousands of lives over the years.
Affirmative action originally was really meant to open the doors
to higher education for African-Americans.
But, you know, women and other groups have benefited from those policies.
Bike lanes is one of the ones that I found the most interesting because it turns out, you know,
bike lanes are meant to benefit bicyclists, but bike lines also make the roads safer
for everybody else especially pedestrians,
probably because we're paying more attention when the bike lanes are there.
And then obviously, the best example is the curb-cut where it--
originally designed for people in wheelchairs.
But now, people are pushing strollers, UPS, delivery people,
I'm sure they love those curb-cuts when they see them if they're pushing a big cart.
So, how about presentations?
What are some examples that you can think of where that idea still holds that--
which is essential for some helps us all?
So, let's see.
I'll give you a second in the chat and see if you can give us some suggestions there.
If you think about presentation, what are some great examples of universal design?
>> And Luis, I'm just going to remind everybody because I know some people came
in a little bit late that when you are entering your messages in the chat area,
just above where you're entering text, you'll see a two field within blue.
It indicates to whom you're sending, to whom who's seeing your text.
So, just make sure that that says all panelists and attendees.
If it doesn't, click on that dropdown arrow and choose all panelists and attendees
so that everybody can see your massages.
>> And that's really important because I really try to make this into a conversation
and try to get us engaging with each other.
So, I see some options here, large font, use of images, use of closed caption
of course, that's a classic example, right?
Closed captioning benefits not only someone who has difficulty hearing,
but also your speakers may stop working.
Not that-- Now, I'm speaking from experience here or anything.
Well, you start a presentation with a video that you want to capture everybody's attention
and then realize, well, the audio is not working.
Well if you have the closed captions, everybody can still follow along
and you don't want to lose some of your time.
Somebody mentioned large font.
Well, great.
That benefits somebody with low vision, but it also could be
that you're in a large lecture hall.
And so, you-- but presenting that information in larger font, simpler font and so on,
it could benefit the person in the back of the room who shows up late.
Or how about if you're presenting in an online platform where it's not necessarily
that they see the entire slide at once, they may see the participants area, they may see the chat
and so on, and the slides are actually pretty small or smaller
than they normally would be when you're presenting live.
And so there, it makes-- you know, it's a great benefit
if you have simple slides with large text on them.
If you make that third text larger, you're probably not going
to have a lot of space to put a lot of it.
So, lots of great examples there.
Thanks for sharing everybody.
Now, we also want to think about presentations form a UDL perspective,
so not just accessibility, but keeping accessibility
in mind in the context of neuroscience.
I'm not going to go over the principles of universal design for learning in detail.
If you know that the AEM Center is part of CAST, and CAST has tons of resources
that explain universal design for learning
in even more detail including recently updated UDL guidelines website.
And that we have a link for that in the chat.
It's udlguidelines.cast.org.
But just in brief, the general idea of behind universal design
for learning is that we all vary.
We all bring great variability to a presentation or to a meeting.
And we vary in what engage us, we vary in how we take in information to make sense of it
and we also vary in how we're able to sort of demonstrate our understanding,
how we're able to navigate, how we're able to respond.
So, those are the three core principles of universal design for learning.
They represent the why of learning, the what of learning and the how of learning.
For the rest of this presentation, I'm going to focus primarily on the what
and how, right, those principles.
But I do want to touch on the engagement principle because that's a really important one,
and that's really where it all starts is with capturing people's attention
and then making sure that you're delivering your message in a way
that works according to neuroscience.
So for example, some of the things you can do.
We are wired for story, some of you have heard this expression.
And so using stories throughout your presentation is important.
There's just an emotional connection that stories make
that just makes the information a lot more memorable.
And I shared the story with you already, right?
I shared my story of my first presentation.
So, I want you to share one of your stories.
What is your presenter's journey?
When did it start?
Do you remember your first presentation?
Or even better, can you share what's the weirdest thing
that has happened to you during a presentation.
So, I'll give you a second to do that.
And while you do that, I'll share mine real quick.
Towards the middle of a presentation, I am visually impaired
and I have no peripheral vision, right?
And so, I needed to plug in my computer in the middle of a presentation.
And as I bent down to plug in my computer, I caught the edge of the podium,
right between the eyes and it actually caused a really deep cut and there was blood everywhere.
Well, after getting patched up, I proceeded to complete my presentation.
And then, that presentation was part of a tour.
So then, I actually incorporated that into future presentations.
I kind of wove that story into my presentation.
And, you know, it was a nice starting point for our--
just creating some empathy between presenter and the audience.
So again, stories are really powerful.
It's good to include them in your presentations.
Let's see.
Yeah, it was.
We'll, it worked out in the end, so no worries.
Christine says, our computer popped up pictures of our daughters.
So, that could be distracting, especially if you have somebody
in the audience that has idea ADHD, right?
And so all of a sudden, they're just focusing on those photos rather than the context
or the content that you're trying to share.
Lost of power in the middle of a presentation, that has happened to me as well.
And so, that kind of brings up the point of, you know, always having a plan B, right?
So, you could have handouts or you could just--
it's OK to ditch the slides and just have a conversation with the audience.
Blackout seems to be common.
So, we're knocking on wood here that we don't have one of those in the middle
of this presentation because of bad weather.
All right.
So, here are some other ways.
So, stories are one way that you can tap into that engagement principle.
Another one is embedding reflection or discussion throughout your presentation
so that you're emphasizing that connection,
you're emphasizing the application of the new learning.
Another way you can sort of break up the content is by using accessible media throughout,
that could be a video, that could be a cartoon, just something that kind
of tells the audience it's time to take a little bit of a mental break,
a cognitive break because our ability to hold information is kind of finite.
And so if we go for an hour just kind of doing the firehouse approach
where we just throw information at people, at some point, you're going to reach the limits
of your, you know, memory and your processing capabilities and you kind of shut down.
So, it's good to sort of put in some breaks into your presentation,
and you can do that using either reflection or using accessible media.
Or even just a music break just so that you break things up and then you indicate
that we're ready to move on to a new topic.
So again, we're not going to spend a lot of time on engagement in this presentation,
but I can't emphasize enough that it is such an important principle to address.
All right.
So, here's what you came for, right, the best practices, the tips that will get to the what
and the how of how to make your presentations more accessible.
I do want to share this quote from Maya Angelou before we move on to the specific techniques
because this is just as important as the techniques you're going to learn today.
And this is the mindset that I want you to have going forward is that when it comes
to both presentations, so the quality of the presentations and accessibility,
you should strive to do the best that you can until you know better.
And then when you know better, you do better.
So, this is a quote that was shared with me by my colleague Mindy Johnson.
And there it is.
She has it.
I don't know if you can see it, but Cynthia has Maya Angelou.
Is that the book?
I think-- So, she has something from Maya Angelou in her room.
So again, great quote.
>> Just a card I received from a friend.
>> Oh, awesome.
I mean, I think this should apply to everything in life but especially for our presentations.
Do the best you can until you know better, and when you know better, do better.
All right.
So, remember that question that I asked at the beginning?
That's where that pitcher of water comes in.
The picture here, you see an image of the tip of the pitcher of water kind
of pouring water into a wine glass.
And the reason why I used that image is because there's an acronym that's helps us keep
in mind the principles, big principles of accessibility, and the acronym is POUR, P-O-U-R.
And these are the big principles that are sort of the scaffold if you will
for the web content accessibility guidelines.
So basically when you're designing a presentation, when you're designing any kind
of message, the information, the interface, the navigation, they need to be perceivable,
operable, understandable and robust.
And so, that is out acronym for this afternoon, our graphic organizer, POUR.
So, I want you to pour in the accessibility into your presentations.
And you're going to see this graphic several times just as a reminder.
I hope it doesn't make you want to go to the bathroom or anything,
but it's just there as a reminder.
All right.
So when we look presentations, we need to consider that there are two parts to them.
And there's a slide deck and then there's the handout.
Now, a concept from Garr Reynolds' book, and I mentioned that I was going to refer
to him a few times, he says that we should avoid creating slideuments.
How many of you have created a slideument in the past?
I'm going to raise my hand because I know I've done that.
So, a slideument basically is where you try to create both the slide deck and a handout
in one product because you put in all the text into your slides.
And so, step 1 in Garr Reynolds' book in his method is you take all of that text
and then you move it into the presenter's area.
And then, you replace that text with just some high quality images
and some limited text, right?
That basically captures the main idea that you're trying to convey.
And then, you create a handout where you share things like the links,
you share some of the big ideas, you share the resources that you want people
to have access to after the presentation.
This is your value add.
So after the presentation, they can make use of that information.
Unfortunately, a lot of times what people do for the handout is they take the slides,
and then they print them out and then give you a copy of that.
The problem is that without the presenter, a lot of times those handouts don't make any sense
because you miss a lot of the information that the presenter has kind of interjected
between the slides or in between the bullet points.
So, I want you to keep this in mind.
Let's avoid slideuments and kind of think of them
as separate items, the slide deck and the handout.
And of course with both, we need to make them accessible.
There is an accessibility implication here as well because even you
if you make your presentations accessible, there is still kind of a challenge sometimes
for screen reader users in navigating those slide decks in their presentation software.
Whereas when you create the handout, you're probably going to use something
like Microsoft Word or a word processing application of some kind
that is a little bit more linear in its presentation format.
And so, that can be a little bit easier to navigate for screen reader users.
So again, that handout is for after the presentation and it's also a way
that you can provide the information in a linear format that can work a little bit better
for assistive technologies such just screen readers.
All right.
So now, let's get to POUR and accessibility.
We're going to begin with the first principle here, perceivable, and the three things--
I'm only going to cover three things for each of these.
But then, I'm going to share a resource with you where you can find more information.
So for perceivable, the key ideas are we need to add alternative text for images
and other visuals, we need to closed caption the videos that we embed into our slides,
and then we also need to make sure that the contrast between the text
and its background is sufficient so that everybody can see it without doing effort.
So, let's begin with the first item here, adding alternative text to our images.
Here are some directions for how to do that.
And I'll go through them first in the slides.
And then, I'm actually going to do an example for you so you can see it in action.
So basically, I'm going to start with PowerPoint.
And what you'll do once you add the image to your slide, you'll right click on it
and you'll choose format picture or size and position.
It really depends on which version of PowerPoint you're using.
And then, you're going to see a pane open up, the format picture pane.
You want to select layout and properties.
And then, you're going to look for the description field,
and that's where you're going to add your alternative text.
So, that's the text that basically none of you read out loud
to somebody who's listening with a screen reader.
So, here is the next step of that.
You can see the format picture pane.
And then, I've selected the layout and properties item
or tab which is the third one from the left.
And then all the way at the bottom, I'm going to find the description field.
Now, what's really confusing here, and even we were confused a little earlier today
when we were discussing this, is there's a title field as well.
In practice, what I've done in the past and I think it's a good approach is just focus
on the description field and putting the text in there.
If you have a more complex image, you could provide some information
in the title field, a shortened description.
And then in the description field, you could put
in more expansive explanation of what the image is.
The problem is in practice with my screen reader,
it reads both of them one after the other.
And so, it's difficult to tell which one is the title, which one is the description.
So over the years, what I've seen is most people just focus on the description field.
And if you put it in there, you're going to be safe.
The other thing I should mention is with Office 365, so that's the latest version of Office,
Microsoft is actually now using AI, artificial intelligence,
to actually try to guess what the alternative text should be.
But as we know, alternative-- or artificial intelligence not always gets it accurately.
So, we want to make sure that we go in there and we check to make sure
that it's actually a valid description.
So, that's only possible if you have the latest version of Office 365.
We're able to do that automatic alternative text description.
But always, for quality, make sure that you go in and you check
that it's been described correctly.
All right.
So, here is a quick demo.
We're going to break things up here.
I'm going to exit it out of my slides.
And right on the presentation that I'm delivering to you,
we're going to go through the steps here.
So, I'm in PowerPoint for the Mac, obviously.
That's what I use in a daily basis.
But the steps are very similar.
It's just that way things are called maybe a little bit different.
So in here, I'm going to select my image.
And then, I'm going to right click or control click if you don't--
if you're on a computer that doesn't allow you to, you know, have a mouse.
And then, I'm going to choose format picture.
This may be called something different if you're on Windows,
but in this case if we format picture.
And then, I'm going to choose the third option here, layout-- or size and properties.
And there we go.
So, you can see there's the title field, there's the description field.
I'm going to focus on the description field,
that's the most reliable place to enter this description.
So, I'm going to go ahead and choose that text that I'd put in, that placeholder.
And then, I'm going to put in the text.
That's it.
We are done.
So again, the steps is select the image, right click, choose format picture,
then choose the third option here.
I'm going to hover over it, size and properties, and then look for alt text
and then the description field and you'll put in your description there.
Are there any questions about that?
Go ahead. And if you have any questions, go ahead and put those into that chat area.
No questions so far.
Great. All right.
So if you're in another presentation software,
the steps in general are, you know, pretty similar.
It's just the name of the options on the screen.
The interface is going to change a little bit.
So in Keynote which I use quite a bit as a Mac user, you'll choose format in the toolbar,
and then you'll choose the image tab.
And towards the bottom of that pane, you will find a description field as well.
And to answer your question, yes, it would be a good idea as you work on your presentation,
make sure that you save on a regular basis so that that way if you move away
from that text field and for some reason, you know, you remove it for whatever reason,
then it's-- you know, it's not missing.
>> But Luis, you don't have to-- there's no save button right after you enter the alt text.
There's no place which is-- can be a little disorienting.
You just have to trust that what you entered into that field is going to stay.
>> Absolutely.
And just-- you can also leave that pane open and just keep going from image to image
that you need to enter the alt text for if that saves you a little bit of time.
So, Keynote has that option as well.
It's just called something different.
And then Google Slides.
In Google Slides, you will right click the image.
You'll choose the alt text option.
So, it's a little bit clearer there.
And then again, you'll enter your description into that field
that appropriately is called description.
So, all of these software applications over the years have gotten this capability.
Again, it's just-- it's called something different
or the path may be a little bit different,
but you do have the option of adding that alternative text.
And Diana just shared a great tip in there.
So in Microsoft 365, you can add an icon for alt text on the quick start menu bar.
Also I mentioned in Office 365 that it's now using artificial intelligence.
You will actually see it on the screen at the bottom of the image that's going
to be a little field and it's going to show you the text for the alternative text.
And you can right click on the image and say edit alt text if it's not the right text.
So, it does give you that option to edit them.
I think that's a great addition.
Now, in addition to making sure that the images have alt text,
we also want to make sure that it's good alt text.
Now going into that discussion beyond the amount of time we have today,
but I do want to share a couple of options here, couple of resources.
WebAIM, it's a great website and they have a page that focuses on alternative text,
it has a number of examples that you can work through.
So if you want to work on your alternative text skills,
this would be a great place to check out.
And then for more complex images, the DIAGRAM Center has some guidelines.
And Leslie has put in both links into the chat area.
So, those are two resources that kind of go into different types of images and what kind
of alternative text or long description you need to use for those images.
The second thing we would want to do in order to make the content more perceivable is we want
to make sure that the videos that we embed have closed captions added to them.
And with PowerPoint 2016, there's great support for captions built in.
You can select the video and go into the playback tab,
and then you'll see an option for insert captions in there.
What you are adding is actually the captions file.
So, this is a text file that has the text equivalent for what's being said
in the video along with the timing.
And the format that PowerPoint needs, it's called WebVTT.
And there are number of applications that allow you to create those captions files.
I'm going to show one with you that is definitely going to be in your budget
because it's free and it's called CADET, C-A-D-E-T.
And it's a new captioning and description tool
from the National Center of Accessible Media or NCAM.
So, that is a tool that you can use as a standalone tool that you can use
to create your caption file that then you can then add to the video in PowerPoint.
And then, the final thing that I will address here is the need for sufficient contrast.
So, I want you to tell me what does it say in the first box in this example if you can see it.
Some of you may be able to, right?
But it does take a little bit of effort, doesn't it?
And what is says is, not enough contrast.
That's why it has an x next to it.
Now, compare that with the bottom example there where we have a much better contrast.
We're using black text on a yellow background.
And so, we have a check mark because that has, you know, much better contrast
and it takes a lot less effort to read that text.
So just as with the captioning, I just provided with you with a free tool,
there a couple here for checking your contrast.
WebAIM is a web-based contrast checker.
And then, my favorite one and the one that I use day in day out for everything from presentations
to websites is the Color Contrast Checker or Color Contrast Analyser from the Paciello Group.
And what I like about that one is that it's cross platform, it's Windows
and Mac, and it gives you a color picker.
So, you don't have to kind of, you know, find the color values or anything like that.
You just use that color picker and you select the colors in your presentation or your website
or your document and then you select both colors, the background and the foreground,
and then it tells you if it meets the contrast requirements for accessibility.
So, it's a very easy to use tool.
It's free, cross platform.
I highly encourage you to check it out.
And we have the link in the chat area for you to download that.
All right.
So, let me pause here and see if there are any questions about perceivable or any tips.
So if you have other tips, feel free to share those in the chat area as well.
Collectively, we know more than any of us knows individually.
>> Luis, Cristine had a question earlier that I don't think got through to you.
I think you were moved on.
The question which I think this may be rhetorical but very worth the discussion,
what percentage of the presentations that you accessed have this completed?
And I believe Cristine is referring to alt text.
And she says, I see it as straightforward but just need to get into the habit.
>> That's it.
You got it there, it's just getting into the habit.
It's not difficult.
And I think for a lot of people,
they don't realize what a huge benefit it is for, you know, people who are blind.
And you don't have to be blind.
You could be like me.
I have low vision.
And if I'm watching-- you send me some slides and I need to review them, well,
towards the end of the day, my eyes get tired.
So even though I have some vision remaining,
I may just turn on the text-to-speech just to give my eyes a rest.
Or it could be that I multitask and I want to review something
and while I'm doing something else, well, I can listen to it as well using text-to-speech.
So, there are many options, many reasons why we would want to do this.
But again, I think it's just more of like having the mindset of wanting to do it and then kind
of getting into the habit of it because the more you do it, the easier it gets.
Remember that quote from Maya Angelou.
Are there any other questions that I may have missed?
>> No, I don't think so.
Cynthia said-- and I think there are two.
There may be another Cynthia Curry in the attendees.
I was kind of thrown by that.
I didn't think I was logged in twice.
>> That's Joy, probably.
>> Oh, that is Joy.
Yes, thank you.
Yes, Joy Zabala.
We're having an issue with identity in Zoom.
She made the comment that retrofitting in accessible slides can lead
to some weird error messages from the accessibility check.
>> Well, and it's always better to kind of do this as you go through
and design your presentations rather than at the end because as Cynthia can tell you,
if it's the night before, and I can tell you this too,
and you have all of a sudden a presentation with 50 slides and you have to go through and do this
for all of those 50 slides, it becomes more of a lift.
So if you do as you go along, it becomes a little bit easier.
All right.
So, I'm looking at time here.
So, I'm going to move on just to make sure we have enough time
to cover the three remaining principles.
So if P is for perceivable, O is for operable.
And there's few things here that we can do to make our slides work better.
We can provide unique slide titles, we can use descriptive link text
and then we can check the reading order.
So, let's go ahead and take a look at those three items.
So, providing unique slide titles in Microsoft PowerPoint, you can go in and look at an outline
of your content, and you do that by choosing view and then outline view.
This is important because it benefits screen reader users.
They can go through that outline.
And, you know, as I navigate through the outline, when they get to this title
for the slide that they want to explore in more detail, then they can choose that slide.
So especially if you have a very long presentation,
this is a really nice navigation aid that you can provide.
But it could also be beneficial for other,
people with learning disabilities or cognitive challenges.
They may want to open that outline and see how the content is organized and they can serve
as a good graphic organizer for them.
And you can see an example there of that outline view.
So, the slide titles are going to be in bold.
And then right underneath that, you're going to see the content, and that's not in bold.
The other thing we can do is we can make sure that our link text is descriptive
because that will help us screen reader users again.
So, here's an example for you.
Screen reader users may access links out of context on a list.
Which of these two links takes you to the CAST home page?
Now, this is-- you know, this is a very simplified example.
You have a 50-50 chance here, right?
But it could be a lot longer.
There could be many more items on the screen.
And so, I like to call this mystery meat navigation.
So basically, you don't know what's at the other end of each of these links.
It's mystery meat.
So, here's an example of how we can make that better.
How about if we do this instead?
Let's try that again.
And in this case, we've selected some text that's descriptive and we've made that the link.
So now, there is no guessing, there is no mystery meat.
You know exactly when you click on this link where it's going to take you.
One of them takes you to the CAST website, the other one takes you to the AEM Center.
And the reason why this is really important is I may access this on my screen reader just
by pressing a keyboard shortcut and it shows me all of the links.
And so, you can't count on the surrounding text to provide that context.
Here's another challenge that I see with links and presentations
where people put in the entire URL.
And for this example, we actually have a demo.
So, this is a link to the handout for this presentation.
So, let's listen to it with a screen reader.
I'm just going to click play here and hopefully, it will come through for you.
Oh, sorry, clicked in the wrong place.
Let's try that again.
>> Https://docs.google.com/document/ d/1sduH25w_plSQRnSEi57rPl.
>> Everybody got that?
You know what that link is referring to?
Probably not.
So, the problem there is most screen readers, once they get past the main part of the URL,
you know, the docs.google.com, and they're going to read everything one character at a time.
That could be numbers, it could be letters, it could special symbols like question mark.
So again, the best practice here is
to select some descriptive text and make that the link instead.
And that will help you not just with your presentation,
but it will also help you with your handout.
So, that's a great practice for both.
And then the reading order, so this one is a little bit tricky, and I put in a note here
because this is really important to keep in mind.
Once you go into the home tab, you're going top find an arrange option,
and that will let you open the selection pane.
In there, you can see the reading order.
But here's the trick, the reading order is the inverse of what would you expect.
It doesn't read it from top to bottom.
It actually reads it from the bottom first.
So, you can think of it as different layers.
And so the first layer, the one at the bottom, that's the first one that it will read
and then will progress from there.
Guess what, I have a demo.
So, I'm going to show you in this presentation how I can do that.
So, I'm going back to the previous slide on reading order
and I'm going to choose the home tab.
In the home tab, I'm going to choose arrange and then the selection pane.
And here you can see the items in my slide.
I'm just going to click on them.
And as I do that, you will see a border around the item that's selected.
So, here is one of the ways that I prefer my reading order.
The first thing that I want to have read is the number of the slide
so that I know I'm in the right place.
Next thing is the title.
Again, that's location support.
It lets me know I'm on the right slide, the one that I intended to read.
And I'll have the main content.
I'll have the image.
And then finally, this hashtag at the bottom there, that is not as important.
So, I have that read out loud last.
So again, the first thing that gets read by the screen reader is the one
at the bottom, not the one at the top.
The other thing you can do here is if for aesthetic reasons you want to have a title
on your slide but you don't want it to show, you can click the little eye icon,
and that turns it off, turns off its visibility.
So, it's still on the slide and it can still be read
out by a screen reader, it's just not visible, OK?
So, it's that little eye icon there.
You can see I'm removing that from the visual display.
But if I go to the outline for this presentation,
you will still see a slide title on there.
So, I can't emphasize enough.
Having clear descriptive slide titles is really important for orienting people
if they're using a screen reader.
All right.
So, let me go back over here and go back into my presentation.
Are there any questions about those techniques for making your presentation more operable?
Let's see what people have to say.
>> Luis, there was a-- well, Cynthia Curry,
I happen to make a comment, but we know that's Joy Zabala.
She says, if someone prints the slides, is there a way for them to see the URL?
So, this is in relation to making sure that you descriptive URLs within your slides.
>> I will generally want-- my practice has been-- I put it in the handout,
and then I'll put them at the end of the handout as a list.
So within the main part of the handout, I'll use descriptive hyperlinks.
And then maybe on the last page, I'll put in, you know, the names of the resources
and then what the actual links are if people want to print it out.
Again, it's that idea that the slideshow is for a specific purpose for presenting
and the handout is what people will be able to use afterwards.
Does that make sense Joy?
All right.
She's giving me the thumbs up.
She says, good idea.
Let's see.
There's another comment from Christine from Maine.
Oh, yes, that kind of brings up to mind.
You don't need to say image of because the screen reader already does that.
You just need to provide the description.
So, that's just the general good accessibility practice.
All right.
So, I'm going to move through the last two concepts here, understandable and robust.
So for understandable, just basically keeping things consistent, focusing on simplicity,
always a good idea because that benefits people that have cognitive or learning challenges.
So in this presentation that you're looking at, I've only used two different types of slides,
one, to introduce each big section and then the other one
for the individual points that I want to make.
So, that keeps things simple but also gives you a consistent layout that you can focus on.
And then, this is-- doesn't have so much to do with the actual presentation,
but when you deliver it, and it has to do with using descriptive language.
And in your handout, there is a link to this great article, This, That and There from 2013.
And it's that idea that a lot of times in meetings
and in presentations, we'll say, over here.
Well, if you're not looking or even if you're-- or if you're remote, if you're calling in,
right, you may be calling in, that doesn't mean anything to you, right?
Over here doesn't mean anything.
Or it's this big, right, I'm holding my hands here below me, it's this big,
you can't see that if you're calling in
or if you're not looking at the presenter at that moment.
So, it's important to use descriptive language.
So, here are some examples.
New Zealand is here while pointing on a map.
Well, instead, we could say, New Zealand is in the South, you know, Pacific,
right next to Australia, to the right of it or something like that.
So, you get the idea, right?
Just be more descriptive.
And then the last concept is that of robust.
And here, Microsoft PowerPoint really helps us out because it has an accessibility checker.
It's really easy to use.
Basically, I'm going to show it to you real quick.
We're going to run it on this same presentation that I'm on right now.
So what you'll do is while you're on your presentation, you go to the review tab
and there's a button called check for accessibility.
I'll go ahead and run that and it gives me a rundown of some of the errors that it found.
Now, in this presentation, you're going to find some errors because I put them there
on purpose, for illustration purposes.
But there are some things that you will have to check manually
because the PowerPoint accessibility checker can do that for you.
So for instance, the contrast is something that you will often have to check yourself,
or the reading order, that's another one that often will come up
and that you may have to check for yourself.
But this is a great starting point.
It's a great way of getting a general sense of how accessible your presentation is.
The one that you'll often get is missing slide title.
So again, I did that on purpose on one slide, or missing alternative text.
It won't tell you whether that alternative text is good or not, but at least it's a good start
to know which images are missing it.
And as you click around, it will actually take you to the slide where that problem is found.
So, it can save you quite a bit of time.
How many of you have used the accessibility checker?
What's been your experience?
Go ahead and share that in the chat area while I find my place here.
Yup, same TSS reading order.
That's our checkers.
I'm just not that good at that yet.
We need some human interaction to do that.
Joy, so Joy is talking about engagement here for herself.
She says she gets it through when there are no errors, you feel mighty.
I do too. It really makes you feel good when you get one that doesn't show, you know,
page after page that you have to scroll.
That is always a good thing.
All right.
So just to wrap up here, so again, POUR, perceivable, operable, understandable
and robust, those are the big principles.
And once you kind of focus on those big principles,
then you can then move on to the individual techniques.
But it's really the mindset of wanting to make the presentations more accessible
and then having those big principles in mind, that's important.
So just remember, the handout has to be accessible as well.
So a lot of these techniques-- Yes?
>> This is your requested five-minute warning as requested.
Thanks.
>> You got it.
There's only one more slide or two.
So again, the same things that you do in your presentation,
make sure that you're following the same ideas in your handout.
You need to have descriptive links.
You need to make sure things are-- the images are accessible.
So the same thing applies to your handout.
So, where can you learn more?
Oh, I know just the place, the AEM Center.
We have a resource called Designing for Accessibility
with POUR, and it starts with a nice video.
And then for each of the principles, we break it down into the specific techniques
and you'll learn the why, the how, the what, all of that is included in there.
So, I encourage you to check that out on our website.
That's it for me because Leslie says so.
And here's my contact information.
My email is lperez@cast.org.
And if you want to follow me on Twitter, I'm @eyeonaxs, E-Y-E-O-N-A-X-S.
We also would love for you to take a survey.
This helps us improve our presentations, make them better for the future,
or just kind of get an idea of, you know, what we can do to meet your needs.
So, please take a moment to complete our webinar evaluation.
That's going to be shared in the chat area, I believe.
>> Yes, yup, Leslie just dropped the link to the survey.
>> Yup. And so, are there any last minute questions or thoughts?
I want you to go back and just take a second.
You said you came in here-- actually you didn't say it, I asked you.
I asked you to set a goal for today.
So, I want you to think, was that goal met?
And if not, then what is one outstanding question that you have
in the few minutes that we have remaining?
>> Oh, and Luis, we just want to reserve a couple of minutes for Christine as well.
So as these questions-- as these-- as the comments are coming in,
perhaps we can give Christine the mic.
Go ahead Christine, you're currently muted.
>> Hi everyone.
First, I want to say thank you to both Cynthia and Luis.
And I know for myself, not only have I learned things that I should be doing,
but also things that I can share some to the staff that's on today, some are not.
We also work with multiple consultants that start using more best practices
in our SEDTA world and hopefully, that will support everyone.
And then, I just have a few quick membership updates.
So if people can hang on for a couple extra minutes, we would appreciate that.
And again, our AEM Center partnership I think is invaluable and I'm so glad that you're able
to archive these and have the transcript and we will definitely push them out.
And we want to encourage our members to share them amongst your colleagues
in your state departments and even to your LAAs as well.
And then, I'm guessing that Cynthia and Luis would love feedback.
So not only your feedback of you enjoyed the presentation today, but if you are able
to share it in your states, that would be helpful to their cause to be able
to learn how you've been able to leverage these resources that they supported as well.
So just really quickly-- Yeah, and the survey is helpful to them.
Just really quickly, some membership updates.
We hope that you have seen there is a big buzz on Capitol Hill around net neutrality.
And on Thursday, it will be brought up into the Senate to reverse the changes in net neutrality
that came about with the new administration.
So, please note that SEDTA is partnering with ISTE, CoSN and other organizations to make
that push forward because we feel that it will benefit especially those rural
and small schools and districts.
In addition, we're continuing to advocate for Title IV-A and the funding within that program
and being able to support the states as leaders in that program,
so the funding is used most efficiently and effectively
and hopefully they're leveraging the digital learning option.
There has been quite a bit of-- in the news about the US Department
of Education and some reorganization.
We have a call later this week with the office of Ed Tech to try to get some insight there.
If you're following that on social media, it probably is a good idea
if you haven't seen anything as of yet.
We're really not sure where things will land, but we just wanted to make you aware
that we're-- we understand the situation and we're trying to investigate and we will share
as much as we can as soon as we are able to do so.
And I think there are a lot of unknowns in that.
Then with the emerging technologies leadership forum, I'm happy to say that both Cynthia
and Luis will be there in person.
They are going to be providing some accessibility sessions for our emerging cohort,
of our emerging partners as well as our annual private sector partners.
And there was a couple of them on the call today, but I think that this is a big--
a great opportunity for you all to meet them in person and connect as they'll be
at the reception and some other, the meals, et cetera, so--
and then can also participate in our-- on conference sessions at the end of the day.
So hopefully, you'll get to meet them in person.
In addition, I'm excited to share that we have 48 states, three territories in the District
of Columbia participating this year.
It is the largest turnout we've ever had before our June event with almost over 95 attendees.
So if you have friends in South Carolina or Rhode Island,
I'm on a mission to get all 50 states.
And we are working with some of the folks we know and trying to make new friends there
so that we can say that all 50 states attended our event.
Hopefully-- And I'll type this in here.
Hopefully, you are saving the date, November 4th through the 7th
for the leadership-- our June event.
And we hope to-- again, last October was our largest leadership summit as far participation
and we're hoping to see that this year.
So put them on your calendar, invite a guest.
Thank you to Stan for your report.
And then strategic initiatives, SEDTA has been a very busy place over the last few months.
We launched yesterday the interoperability paper, and that has gotten some traction
on social media and Tracy is participating in several interviews.
So, please be sure to check that out.
We are excited that we're able to continue partnership with Ed-Fi and Dell Foundation
at our June event to provide technical assistance and professional development
for instructional leaders on interoperability.
And then a couple of weeks ago, we launched the Transformative Digital Learning,
A Guide to Implementation.
That's a revamp of the digital learning .setda.org website.
So please check that out.
And on May 30th, we are hosting a webinar on edWeb, Navigating the Digital Shift 2018.
So, that will be our third inauguration of that paper.
And again in partnership, Cynthia and Luis are taking a look at that draft and helping
to ensure the accessibility content in there is thorough and that we can link
out to as many resources as possible.
We're happy too that so many of the AEM contacts in your state supported the process on DMAP.
So, we have access to the accessibility policies
and we look forward to that continued partnership.
So, I rattled off a lot of updates and information.
Please feel free to post a question.
And then, I think Missy [assumed spelling] is on, anyone else from the staff,
Tracy had a conflict, please feel free to speak up.
OK. And I also would share, just because we're talking about accessibility today, you're right,
the transformational guide also has references to accessibility, and I'll just give applaud
to Cynthia and Luis who are always coming with new ideas.
We probably can look at that and see what else we can add and share.
So, that's it from the SEDTA side.
>> All right.
Well, thank you SEDTA side.
It's always good to have a name side in the SEDTA side.
I think we work really well together.
So, thank you Christine for, you know, obviously all the activities you mentioned.
You know, the AEM Center accessibility really has been embedded in SEDTA's work,
and this goes back several years, I know.
So, it's great to have these webinars to continue to promote it.
And Luis and I and some of the AEM best practices leaders from other states will also be
at the leadership summit in November as well.
So, we'll be looking forward to participating in that event as well.
Luis, I'm going to give you the final words, other than asking everybody to please,
if you're still here, thanks for hanging on and please complete the survey for us so that we--
part of that is like you know we're going to be continuing our partnership with SEDTA.
So, what else can the AEM Center do to support you if you can get specific
that will help us make sure that we are meeting your needs and learn from you as well.
So, thanks so much for the opportunity.
>> No final thoughts.
Just thank you very much everybody for hanging in there.
And again, you can get in touch with me as--
at the AEM Center and I'll be happy to provide technical assistance in any way that I can.
So, thank you everybody and have a great rest of your afternoon.
>> Thank you.
>> Thanks Donna.
Thanks Donna for the captioning and Leslie for helping us
out in the chat, technical assistance.
Thanks everybody.
>> Thanks.
Bye-bye.
>> Thank you.
>> Yeah, till next time.
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