Better late than never?

Sue Watling / / digital divide, digital exclusion 2010, equality and diversity, visual impairment

Digital divides had some publicity this week – the Guardian Professional Housing Network Blog (so if you’re not online you’re unlikely to have read it) ran a piece by James Grant from Joseph Rowntree Foundation called Housing should take the lead on digital and social exclusion. It calls for housing associations to empower tenants by providing internet connections. Great idea. It would certainly be useful and shame the comments are so few. Where are all the advocates for digital inclusion???? But once again, the answer to digital divides is being seen as access. While the article says almost half of those not online are disabled this is merely a statement with no solution. Anyone operating outside the standard MEE-Model of Mouse, Eyes and Ears soon comes up against the triple barriers posed by assistive technology; too expensive, too steep a learning curve and a WWW which is too reliant on visual access.

Yesterday I met the New Media Director and Web Content Developer of a local web design company, Strawberry, who have won the role of redeveloping the HERIB website. It’s a fantastic opportunity for them to get an up-front understanding of inclusive digital design which looks great while still being fully accessible to users with sight loss who operate a wide range of assistive technology. Broadly speaking, this divides into screen magnification and screen reading software – each available in multiple formats and all with a range of pros and cons. I was encouraged by their genuine interest but saddened by how new the concepts of people with visual impairment accessing the Internet were and how far the world of web designers is removed from the reality of  digital exclusion.

Lest we forget – in 1997 at the very start of the WWW, Tim Berners Lee called for equity of access and participation.

“As we move towards a highly connected world it is critical that the web be usable by anyone regardless of individual capabilities and disabilities. The W3C is committed to removing accessibility barriers for all people with disabilities – including the deaf, blind, physically challenged, and cognitive or visually impaired. We plan to work aggressively with government, industry, and community leaders to establish and attain Web accessibility goals.”  (Berners Lee, 1997)

My hope is that partnerships between organisations like HERIB and Strawberry, alongside the advocacy of those calling for greater awareness of the impact of a digital society and its subsequent digital divides, will prove to be the answer;  a case of better late than never.

Berners Lee, T. (1997) World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Launches Web Accessibility Initiative. WAI press release 7 April 1997. Available at http://www.w3.org.

exclusion by language…

Sue Watling / / digital divide, equality and diversity, inclusive design, visual impairment

I’ve been sent a link reporting on an Accessibility Hack Event at Birmingham. This is a great idea – put together the people who are interested in accessibility. We should do this at Lincoln. Here’s a few comments on the blog post.  

The affordances of digital data have never been utilised effectively – it’s the optimum opportunity for ensuring equality of digital access but too often the theory gets privileged over practice and the opening promotion video by GPII is typical:

e.g. user is recognised at public access point and now sees large print on ticket machine = one happy user  but…. magnified text requires increased screen size – other wise you need navigational devices which then mean all the information can’t be seen at once… another e.g…..back of seat monitor on aircraft customised to suit user preferences – you can hardly see (or hear) these in the first place – so increased text size is not going to assist…

The ratio between content and monitor size is so relevant but easily overlooked.  I’m working with someone with macular degeneration whose family have bought them a new widescreen Acer laptop all set up to display large tools and text. But email via Windows Live is almost unusable because the screen size doesn’t support the chosen display size. Sounds obvious but unless you’ve tried it….

The idea of providing accessibility rather than having to  adapt to a standard environment has long been a dream of Assistive Technology users. This is why I’m so interested in the idea of ‘intuitive digital data’ which knows how to adapt to the device being used or ideally can provide itself in the appropriate file format as requested – something I believe we are working towards.

A keynote speaker at the event was correct in saying accessibility should be a right for all, and whereas most people see accessibility as about disabled people, it is actually about everybody – then they spoiled it saying the aim is to deliver the best website that is ‘accessible to as many people as possible, a website that is accessible to everyone would just be text, which would be ugly’.

This second statement is both contradiction and backwards step – accessibility is not about as many people as possible – it’s about everyone full stop – and a website which is accessible to everyone does not have to be plain text – that’s the reason text-only alternatives were dropped. A fully accessible website can have pictures and multimedia and interactive forms – it just needs to include the information to be given in alternative formats,  and all content to be correctly and appropriately labeled for screen readers.

An Accessibility Hack Day is a great opportunity to bring people together to talk about important issues. It’s in the nature of digital exclusion to be invisible. But the key issue the blog post raised for me is how the language was indicative of the current cultural shift away from the social model of disability – which sees the external environment as disabling by not recognising and providing for a diversity of requirements (digital disability is an ideal example where we have the technology to ensure 100% access but all the barriers are economic, political etc) and back to the old medical model of disability which saw the reason for lack of participation as being caused by individual impairment – be that physical, sensory or cognitive. It’s concerning how the language of disability is changing with references to disabled people rather than people being disabled by society – you may think this is being pedantic – but it isn’t.

The GPII video says ‘those of us with disabilities often run into a situation where the technology doesn’t work well enough to meet our abilities’. Another presenter refers to ‘people who are severely disabled with motor neurone disease’  These are examples of language use which need to be challenged. The Social Model calls for disability to be seen as something imposed on individuals by society – motor neurone disease is an impairment – and to call someone disabled by it is an example of the old medical model in action. I worked with someone with motor neurone disease whose used a computer for years. But the disease is reducing ability to move fingers and keyboards are designed with the assumption that we will only hit one key at a time.  With a keyguard in place, the computer can be used again (although it means a laptop remains inaccessible). 

The solution lies first and foremost in the external environment where the limitations of the technology are the disabling factor. Subscribing to a social barriers model is an essential prerequisite to enabling independence and social participation – in particular with ensuriong digital inclusion.  Technology can be empowering but the problems begin when perceived solutions derive from the viewpoint of the technologist – not the user – we have to step outside of our world and into the life-world of other people in order to experience the barriers to know how best to help remove them.

Finally – the disclaimer at the end of the GPII video sort of says it all.

The contents however do not necessarily represent the policy of the funders and you should not assume endorsement by the federal government.  It would have been more encouraging if it had said Accessibility is the policy of the funders and you can assume endorsement!

Digital narratives; not new but still interesting…

Sue Watling / / conference, digital literacy

The idea of digital narratives or digital storytelling is not new. The University of Gloucester has a section on Digital Storytelling under Pedagogic Tools and Guides and I’d like to investigate this further; digital narratives as pedagogical tools for combining critical thinking with reflective practice. Not just the skills involved in making your own narrative (selection, rejection, sequencing, synthesising, presenting) but also peer assessment and sharing across disciplines and cultures as a means of discovery and enquiry. Apart from the opportunity for exploring creativity and acquiring multiple digital literacies, the scope for internationalisation may also be worth considering. Here’s a link from Daniela Gachago from Cape Peninsula University of Technology who I met at the recent Diversity Conference   The video is a digital narrative from Nonhlanhla Nyingwa and her words, music and images combine to create a powerful story.

I know digital story telling is not new. The Internet is full of them. But I wonder if we could make more out of the processes and in doing so put critical reflective theory into practice – while maybe even having some fun. Not everyone will agree. The thought of having to manipulate multiple digital media clips will not go down well with many staff and students. But we’re living in a digital society in a digital age and graduate attributes must include digital literacies alongside transferable skills of critical thinking and reflective practice. Involvement in the creation and sharing of your own digital narratives – which could also be a digital cv or digital portfolio – must be worth consideration as part of subject curriculums.

For more information: ‘Using digital storytelling to develop reflective learning by the use of Next Generation Technologies and practices’. JISC (2009) Reflect 2.0

Digital Storytelling and its pedagogical impact in the HEA (2009) report Transforming Higher Education through Technology-Enhanced Learning

Warning! the Microsoft phone scam is still happening

Sue Watling / / digital divide, digital literacy, visual impairment

The Microsoft phone scam is still going strong. It works like this. You get a call from someone saying they’re from Microsoft and they’ve heard from your ISP that you have virus problems on your computer. They then get you to open Windows Events Viewer and display a seemingly scary array of files with red crosses and yellow exclamation marks next to them. They tell you these are viruses and you need to open a certain website and key in a six digit security code – then hey presto they have access to your computer. After pretending to fix everything they ask for a fee and enough people pay this to make the scam a lucrative one. Microsoft will never phone you unsolicited. If you get a call from Microsoft hang up.  More importantly tell everyone you know to hang up because there are plenty of people out there who in all innocence will believe it and think they are acting in their own best interests.

With the sender’s permission I’m sharing this text message from a friend with sight loss who was the unlucky recipient of just such a call. For once, it was a benefit to be using screen reading software which couldn’t cope with the poorly labeled site and she was unable to enter the 6 digit number. Needless to say ‘Microsoft’ didn’t call her back as they promised and left her in a distressed state for 24 hours.

“Got software problems – Microsoft have been in touch and we tried to sort it out. But I couldn’t manage without sighted assistance. This happened yesterday and I really felt like giving the computer up. They are supposed to be calling me back. They don’t know what to do about helping an unsighted person. I daren’t use the computer. ”

It’s all sorted now but there’s still the need to tell everyone you know – if they say they’re from Microsoft its safe to say no thank you and goodbye.

More information here  http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jul/18/phone-scam-india-call-centres

lest we forget….

Sue Watling / / digital divide, digital exclusion 2010, equality and diversity, visual impairment

While protests are in the news there’s another – more invisible – coalition led disaster which is causing exclusion and distress on a daily basis. This is the government’s attitude towards people with sight loss who are struggling to operate in digital environments because of insufficient action to ensure digitally inclusive practice and accessible web design. As the government moves towards the online-only provision and management of welfare it’s doing nothing to challenge the increasingly visual nature of the Internet and digital designers assumptions of a narrow range of access criteria (i.e. everyone uses a Mouse, their Eyes and Ears – the MEE-Model). This is making it difficult to impossible for users of assistive technology, in particular screen readers, to have equity of digital access. At the same time it also ensures denial of participation in the public sphere where the platforms for debate and dissent are increasingly digital ones.

Digital discrimination is already a serious problem and will become even more critical as more services look to online provision believing it will increase efficiency and cut costs. Assumptions about access need to be challenged; not everyone can operate an out of the box laptop bought from a local supermarket or a high street retailer and the way in which the government is choosing to ignore this is an issue which needs to be made more public.

From face-to-face to face-to-screen

Sue Watling / / Blackboard

Recently I spoken to several people who’ve been asked to create an online version of an existing course but without additional resources or support. This suggests something is still missing from strategic approaches to digital teaching and learning. Over a decade ago, the VLE came in on the back of promises of transformation of teaching and learning while increasing efficiency and cutting costs. In 2011, it seems nothing much has changed. The recent report to HEFCE by the Online Learning Task Force (January 2011) Collaborate to Compete  continues to associate quality and cost-effectiveness with engaging, flexible interactive online resources although there are two noticeable differences between then and now.

The first is the student voice which is suggesting early promises of elearning have not yet been realised. Comments in Student Perspectives on Technology  (October 2010) include concerns regarding ICT competencies of teachers, variation and inconsistency in use of ICT and lack of attention to digital literacies as a whole institution approach. For those who have been bridging the gap between the technology and the pedagogy over the past decade this comes as no surprise. Attention has always been paid to embedding the technology within the systems rather than investing in appropriate training and support for those who will be using it on a day-to-day basis. Moving from face-to-face to digital delivery involves significant shifts in skills, attitudes and practices not least because teaching and learning are social activities. To achieve a successful online equivalent is perfectly possible but requires investment in human computer interaction. The problem with technologists leading technological innovation can be lack of empathy for the non-technologist. This barrier has to be overcome if digital education is to achieve its potential for inclusion.

The second difference is a notable shift in the HEFCE document from VLEs to OERs.  Open Educational Resources have taken the VLE’s place as catalysts for change, ensuring cost effectiveness, high quality content and quality, flexible engagement. The only word which is new is ‘mobile.’ However, OERs remain the preserve of the technologist – the person with confidence and competence with working in digital environments – and therein lies concern of the gulf between the early and late adopters as well as those who have yet to get to grips with education in a digital age. Nevertheless, the report is hopeful. It concludes with recognition of the need for investment in greater engagement with the technical and pedagogical aspects of online learning. We have been here before and failed to cross the gulf between the technology and the pedagogy. Hopefully this time round those lessons will have been learned and appropriate and lasting bridges can be built.

District 6

Sue Watling / / conference, equality and diversity

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District 6 is a community museum which uses story-telling to recover and display memories. It tells the story of the forced removal of an entire black community from Capetown. In 1966 under the Group Areas Act of 1950, District 6 was declared a White Group Area. In the next decade over 60,000 people were forcibly removed to the barren lands outside Capetown known as the Cape Flats and their streets and homes flattened by bulldozers. The District 6 Museum contains the collective memories of their eviction. I don’t know who saved the street signs. Its one of those questions you don’t think to ask at the time. Or the examples of the mass manufactured signs with the messages SLEGS BLANKES and VIR GEBRUIK DEUR BLANKES but these remain stark reminders of the inhumanity of Apartheid. The floor of District 6 is a street map of the area. The tapestries hanging from the ceiling have been created by the people who lived there. The white sheets are an invitation for visitors to write down and leave behind their stories. As an outsider, I can’t comment with any authority because I wasn’t there but I can bring back pictures as a reminder of the need to celebrate diversity and not discriminate against it.

Imizamo Yethu

Sue Watling / / conference, equality and diversity

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You could visit Capetown and believe it is a prosperous city; the streets are clean, the new Victoria and Alfred Waterside offers multiple retail and leisure opportunities and tourist guides go to great lengths to point out the affluent beach apartments and hotels. You could think the democracy which followed Apartheid in 1994 had solved the city’s racial divides – but you only need scratch the surface to see inequality and poverty still exists. Massively. It’s evident in the city where you are advised not to go out alone at night. To walk the streets during the day is to be jostled and asked for money for sick relatives and dying children. On the Cape flats there are miles of shanty towns stretching as far as you can see and opportunities to visit these – in the company of a tour guide – which sounds like an anomaly – but this is cultural tourism at its rawest – there’s no fun or pleasure involved – its dirty and difficult. For hundreds of thousands of people, the hope for a better future after Apartheid remains hope rather than actuality. You have to hold onto hope because when you have so little, there’s not much else. The hope in Imizamo Yethu (meaning “our combined effort” in Xhosa) is with the children along with the school, library and church but when your ‘home’ has no toilet or running water life is tough. While politicians wrangle (and have ‘homes’ with amenities) it’s charitable organizations like the Niall Mellon Foundation in Ireland who are making a difference by building houses with sanitation and electricity. But nowhere near enough to go round. Then there’s the tourist trade. It’s uncomfortable to experience social inequity on a scale like this and not least because you know you are only visiting before returning to a better living place. The difference you can make feels minimal and Imizamo Yetho represents only a tiny proportion of the human struggle for survival. In these finance stressed times, the value of conferences is often questioned but they offer a unique exposure to the human consequences of international politics. At Lincoln, strategic emphasis on internationalization will hopefully further opportunities to promote the sharing of cultural difference and social justice, in both their positive and negative forms. Conferences are bridges in the process of internationalizing the higher education experience. They offer potential opportunities to bring back stories of the stark realities of difference and remind us we are all human. We all want the same things – to be warm and dry, to have food and water and to raise our children in the hope they will have a better life. Conferences are not a luxury; they’re a reminder that higher education in the UK is still a highly prized commodity and that in many parts of the world, turning on the tap is still a privilege and not a right.

Diversity in Organisations, Communities and Nations

Sue Watling / / conference, digital literacy, equality and diversity

This link is to my public iGoogle page listing a range of short Assistive Technology videos. These demonstrate the inherent flexibility of digital data to adapt to multiple input and output devices. Link to iGoogle Assistive Technology videos

Here is a link to the presentation slides for ‘Access Enabled Access Denied: supporting inclusive practice with digital data’  DiversityConference presentation slides

For any further conversations please do get in touch at swatling@lincoln.ac.uk

JISC World

Sue Watling / / digital exclusion 2010, digital literacy

Income generation has become the new job criteria and on the line between Desirable and Essential it feels closer to the latter. The JISC Digital Literacies Call4 was my first experience of seeing through a bid application from start to end – or should that be ‘start to send’ – when the final process is an irretrievable click. Pressing the send button on an email is the digital equivalent to dropping the letter into the post box – something else from the analogue world to tell our children about! A colleague said the other day there’s no excitement about the post arriving any more and they’re right. Another human activity has been replaced by a virtual one. Communication defines us as human yet we are using more and more inhuman ways of interaction.

 

But back to JISC World and the business of ensuring we engage effectively with increasingly digital ways of working. JISC use the definition of digital literacies as the capabilities which fit an individual for living, learning and working in a digital society. We added ‘constantly changing social practices’ to this because digital literacies are more than digital activities. They’re about who we are and we are work in progress. We never quite finish being who we could be. Instead, we’re continually evolving,  living mostly in a state of getting there rather than arriving. After two weeks of living with a JISC Bid I still see digital literacies more as unique individual characteristics than sets of skills or abilities (although of course these are component parts). What has become clearer is the enormity of a whole institution approach to what our bid describes as ‘enabling enhancing and embedding digital literacies’ at Lincoln. A strategy for digital inclusion will be a challenge but I’m confident it can be done. Defining digital literacies as social practices brings in the key higher education attributes of critical thinking and reflective practice. To be critically digitally literate is to be socially responsible. I see this as a real opportunity for an integrative approach across the university, not just computer science and social science coming together but for all disciplines to find common digital grounds supporting genuine cross-departmental partnerships.