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Are Schools and Edtech Companies Ready for the Digital Accessibility Deadline? From Daniel Mollenkamp for EdSurge- "When Jacob, a 10th grader with vision impairment, signed up for an AP class, it made him feel like a castaway. His ambitions to learn were thwarted because his teacher had assigned handouts and a three-week-long lesson plan that relied on a website that wasn’t easy for him to navigate. So he felt frustrated, isolated: “I am stranded on this desert island because that site doesn't work [with my screen reader],” Jacob later told a researcher, also adding, “You can't just re-change your whole teaching plan, especially when you've distributed it.” Like Jacob, many students with disabilities are forced to work extra, advocates argue. They have to learn just like other students, but they can also have to deal with assignments they can’t access and other digital hurdles. That’s particularly the case in K-12 classes, where teaching materials may be hard to parse, according to the preprint of a research article that argues that many of these students have to figure out how to access basic documents on their own, outside of school. (The article cites Jacob’s story, though the author declined to provide further details to EdSurge, citing ethical concerns.) But there’s a push to change that." #AccessibilityInTheNews Glenda Sims U.S. Department of Justice U.S. Department of Education https://lnkd.in/gKUJKhbn
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5moInsightful - thanks for sharing Jack. For many the deadline seems a log way off - as a typical project takes 9-15 months, time may have already ran out.