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EOWG Minutes, March 31, 2000

Participants

[note from scribe -- some attributions of Alan's & Geoff's comments may be reversed]

1. Outreach updates

JB: Previous minutes just received, will post after reviewing. CSUN face-to-face - People’s reaction?

AC: Did accomplish a lot, 10 levels below exhausted, Ended before 5:30

SS: been to past two, This was the most fatiguing, Accomplished a lot, Next time – not have it as a full day?, More breaks?

AC: identify what worked well, More breaks, Variety of activities – small groups?

WL: was my 11th day on the road, Hard to maintain a flow with 23 people waiting to speak

JB: outreach updates

WL: outreach at CSUN, Attended all sessions on cognitive disabilities, that I could find – many people have e-mail but make little use of the web; publishing, guidelines

AC: William did you attending a learning disability session?

KA: still working with the city of Hartford

JB: small group today – back to LA meeting, in depth

2. Training Page

JB: Curriculum promotion – brainstorming – specific direction – Web design – courses -universities , Getting started page – training – resources?

AC: do we have to do this? Would an instructor want a curriculum defined for them?

JB: we get asked for many more presentations than we can deliver. We are also producing materials for people that are new to the topic. People have little idea how to take advantage of the resources that DO exist. WCAG – instructors read the slides line-by-line. Need to rehearse the path to show the richness in the curriculum. Fair amount of inaccurate content in some presentations. How to frame the intro to the material?

??: Overview. Auxiliary materials. Interactive exercises

WL: agree with both of you

AC: sounds like what’s needed – not here’s the resources – not good if they’re not going to use them, Need a concise introduction, examples, and pointer to other resources.

JB: people in this field have diverse backgrounds, found people who are seeking ideas, open to input on how to use the materials, what if there were a "getting Started on Training" page?

WL: teach them to fish.

JB: we get calls – training in the Midwest – give me a few ideas on where to start.

AC: been teaching for 20 years

JB: a lot of people in the field have no teaching experience

//Geoff joins//

JB: Jeff how much teaching had you done in other settings before you became involved in this field?

GF: none

GF: break it down into 2 hour, 4 hour and 8 sessions – here are the main things. Most organizations want something at lunch.

AC: the structure for all the sessions would be identical – longer sessions have more time for practice –

Alan will send curriculum by e-mail, "The 10 commandments of HTML", examples of exemplary inaccessible and accessible sites

JB: where does WCAG curriculum fit in to this?

AC: part 2 – understanding the principles

JB: other resources?

AC: that’s it – never time to redesign their own sites, fascination

JB: SS – generic web accessibility presentation

SS: never done a complete curriculum. Generally show Quick tips card, Run sites through Bobby, legislation, lobby for electronic content, acts for disability access, concrete tools that they can take away, my thoughts –

AC: another curriculum for executives – business case was front and center,

JB: Geoff, do you have a general training

GF: half day sessions, 1 or 2 hours cover a lot of ground, accessible multi media, alt text tags, tables, columns, contrast, 15 minutes of questions, confusion, multimedia, comparisons multimedia on web and broadcast and movies. Also talk about the law and legislation, whirlwind stuff, never done more than 3 hours, more corporations come in for training

KA: session with JAWS

JB: before and after demo

??: Can we make a video?

JB: Yes, we have one in fact. Some things on it that need to be finished.

MS video – how applicable is to the web - Not at all

JB: training approach? What would you recommend? "Equipment needed: screen reader or voice browser available to demonstrate inaccessibility"

GF: I’ve recorded JAWS or Outspoken reading a company’s site into a .wav file and send it to the company

KA: I hold my phone up to the speakers

JB: training scenarios are so diverse, core understandings are different, focus on efficiencies

SS: will mock up something for the group

JB: helpful to start with an intro to the issues, resources, principles, Section on demonstration, handy to have equipment ready. Hands-on,

AC: another way to frame it – people need to know – options on what it is they are trying to get across

JB: know your goals

AC: objectives: you will know the business case. You will be aware of key concepts, Assistive technologies, and key principles

JB: The "How to do a training" page is not intended as a policing action, just to provide suggestions and to promote WCAG in a consistent way. Give examples on how to pre-memorize paths and example levels in the curriculum. Reminder that it is important to have a screen reader demo available.

WL: most points are contained in the cirriculum

JB: curr says how to use these slides, not how to do a Web accessibility training.

WL: Policy page and business case will become increasing important as…

JB: agenda question: standards…drop discussion of review process for this week, 10-15 minutes at the end of today’s meeting for standards coordination, Leaves 15 minutes now to continue the education discussion.

WL: know your audiences

SS: know your audience’s need, needs and goals

WL: preparation

JB: needs, goals, expectations, find out what your audience needs are, what the goals of host are, set clear expectations on what they will learn

AC: incredible course on curriculum planning – 20 years ago – the greatest lesson most important thing is to know what your aim (or goal) is. Say what you want to say in a sentence or two – gets decomposed in a set of objectives

JB: we are not trying to save the world on this one page

SS: how they need to use our materials effectively

JB: arrange equipment, order hard copy resources in advance, What to download on your computer if no connection, pre-whack web sites

WL: preparations

SS: never done a screen reader demo, richer way of demonstrating a point, pull it together for a training session, outreach more cohesive, a lot of value

AC: curriculum for… Rather than doing something general

JB: that’s where I’d like to head, start with generic, then branch out from there, every training request is a little bit different. Basic, then build from that. Combine – more personalized, pages that are linked from this, this is what Alan Cantor might do talking to managers, this is another approach, 40 sentence outline, favorite training’s

//Karl joins://

JB: If you have someone who does flat-out web design, what would you want to have in their training? [drafting a sentence – here’s some ideas….] 

//SS leaves.//

JB: Title: I’d like to lace it with some examples of learning objectives

AC: Overall goals

JB: keep it specific to web access, not ‘how to teach’. Next: select said core sections of curricula. Intro to issues, overview of guidelines, etc

AC: choose core objectives, depending on the audience, List of 8 or 10 objectives, people would end up choosing 5 of them

JB: devil’s advocate: 4 chunk sections.

  1. Intro
  2. Overview of guidelines & principles for accessibility
  3. Demo
  4. Resources & Actions

AC: myth that is a curriculum about accessible web design. Means to fulfilling objectives, rather than the method. Demo of screen readers – not an objective, it is the means.

WL: avoid ‘duh’ items, the most beautiful sound is the sound of your name on the lips of another – use their own web sites as examples

GF: show them what their page looks like now and with some changes

AC: get to know the client’s web site

3. Standards

JB: did anybody look at the standards coordination draft page yet? Have any comments on the introductory section? Purpose? Pull together coordination w/ various standards activities regarding accessibility in any way. Next meeting Friday April 14th – maybe meeting next week – Thursday.


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