Our latest thoughts from the world of technology in education & the workplace

Texthelp Blog - Our latest thoughts from the world of technology in education & the workplace

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Here eight ways the new version of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines will further improve digital inclusion:

See how you can improve digital inclusion. We asked tech experts and business leaders about the new WCAG 3.0 and how it will help.

8 ways WCAG 3.0 will improve digital inclusion

See how you can improve digital inclusion. We asked tech experts and business leaders about the new WCAG 3.0 and how it will help. 

How will the new version of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG 3.0) further improve digital inclusion?

To help you improve digital inclusion, we asked tech experts and business leaders this question for their best advice. From creating guidance for all digital assets to providing a blueprint for future design, there are several ways the new version of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG 3.0) can further improve digital inclusion.

As we reflect on the last 14 months in the education space, we all understand the toll the COVID-19 pandemic has had on students, teachers, and schools in the U.S. and around the world. With this understanding, we must look for ways that we, the EdTech industry, can add true value to these groups in order to help get them back on track in the current and post-pandemic worlds.

Although there are many areas where the EdTech industry can help, I have identified a few areas in which EdTech leaders, including myself, can make an immediate and meaningful difference:

PD to support in-person, hybrid, and remote learning

One of the first steps we should take is to ensure technology and remote learning pedagogy are critical areas of professional development (PD). As a number of today’s EdTech products could be used in a brick-and-mortar or online classroom environment, it’s key that their PD programs focus on the broader subjects of technology, not solely just on a product. Without the right training or understanding of the overarching concepts, those products will not be as successful.

Technology to seamlessly facilitate effective teaching and learning

Another key step for the EdTech industry is to ensure that all EdTech products currently in the market, or being developed, work across different learning environments and solve the challenges students and teachers are facing.

Seamlessly fit into the classroom workflow no matter where it is

Allow for easy transition from different classroom environments

Solve a particular problem that either students or teachers face currently in the classroom

Meet the needs of students and teachers of all abilities

If these criteria are not met in the technologies in the market today or coming down the pipeline, they could bring on more challenges than opportunities for students and teachers. And, unfortunately, not every piece of EdTech follows these guidelines.

The ability to address new challenges and changing needs

Lastly, as an industry, we must be there to support our educators and students. We must be ready and able to address any problems that arise within the education space as they work to get back on track. This means EdTech companies must remain agile and be able to adapt current or upcoming products to the changing needs of users and the overall market.

In order to understand what challenges may arise, it is critical that EdTech companies remain in contact with education leaders, teachers, and students. A few effective ways to stay in touch could be through:

Short monthly or quarterly surveys that gauge thoughts or feelings on certain subjects

In-product feedback mechanisms that allow for users to immediately provide commentary on how the technology is performing or how it could be improved

Close contact with tech support to know what questions or technical issues customers are contacting companies about the most

Attendance at local and national events (when able) to hear first-hand from customers

Customer focus groups (virtual or in-person, when able)

My team and I have done this ourselves regularly throughout the pandemic. Most recently, we surveyed English teachers to understand how the subject of writing and how the cultivation of writing skills were prioritized since school was disrupted in March 2020. In addition, we plan to also survey math teachers to determine how the pandemic has impacted their teaching of math concepts.

As we continue to deal with the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic now, and even down the line—it could be months from now or in a year or two—the EdTech industry will continue to play a supporting role in efforts to help students and educators. And because of that, we must maintain a firm grasp of the landscape and be able to provide near-immediate assistance as challenges arise and changes occur.

With an eye on professional development and high-quality instruction, the EdTech industry plays a vital role in post-pandemic education.

How EdTech can help get education back on track

With an eye on professional development and high-quality instruction, the EdTech industry plays a vital role in post-pandemic education. 

This article was originally published on eSchoolNews on 6/2/21. 

As more and more vendors double down on a digital-first approach, people with accessibility needs such as visual impairments have struggled to access online services. To keep customers engaged and provide an inclusive approach for those shopping online, businesses need to focus on accessibility.  

Those who don’t have accessibility needs can often forget the importance of an easy-to-understand, and simple-to-navigate website. 

Recent research indicates that less than 1% of website home pages are likely to meet standard accessibility requirements. Pair this with the knowledge that nearly three quarters of disabled online consumers will leave a website that they find difficult to use. 83% of disabled users will only shop on sites that they know are accessible. This means that UK retailers could be missing out on online sales of around £17.1 billion a year.

It’s important to remember that accessibility isn’t just about the technical aspects of your website either. It also encompasses the language that you use and how easy your content is to understand.

If you’re not addressing the inclusion on your website, then you are cutting out a significant proportion of your market. The NHS estimates that approximately 1.5 million people in the UK have a learning disability. Beyond this, there are approximately 2 million people in Britain living with sight loss that is severe enough to have a significant impact on their daily lives. Approximately 1 in 8 of adult males and 1 in 200 adult females have some form of colour blindness. In total, there are approximately 13.9 million disabled people in the UK, including 19% of working age adults.

These numbers are significant but they only include those with diagnosed disabilities. Uncaptured by these statistics is the fact that the average reading age for adults in the UK is roughly nine years old. If your online shop window has language that is hard to understand, you could be excluding an enormous pool of potential customers. If your UX is not accessible, struggling users will simply not reach the checkout. 

The importance of this cannot be overstated. The 2021 WebAIM Million report found that 86% of websites contain low colour contrast text. This could be enough to prevent the groups with vision impairments listed above from being able to use these websites with ease. Despite access to guidelines such as the WCAG, many e-retailers do not consider the accessibility needs of their customer base - taking a sledgehammer to their own revenue stream as a result. It wouldn’t be acceptable for 86% of public buildings to have no special access measures for those with physical disabilities. It is not acceptable that 86% of websites fail on at least one accessibility measure. 

User experience is a consideration at the forefront of many online retailers’ priorities. But what is often forgotten is that accessibility is a key part of that process. 

When using analytics to examine the UX there is more of a focus, particularly in e-commerce, on the journey that the user takes. Data around time spent on particular pages, or where people are dropping-off take the focus. To understand why this is happening, most look at the product, or at the interactions between these pages, for answers. In reality, vendors should also consider the complexity of language on each page and whether disabled customers can use them properly. It could be that these two factors are in fact driving customer drop-off. 

For a website to be fully accessible, then it must be possible to navigate using only the keyboard. For this to be possible, the website must have a clean and precise layout - making it easier to navigate for all. 

Having transcripts and closed captions for audio and video content is helpful not just for people with disabilities. It is helpful to a wide group of users. In the instance of a slow internet connection - the text will load faster and minimise frustration.  

Audit and improve accessibility with technology 

Making the UX as accessible as possible may seem like a monumental task, but it doesn’t all have to be managed manually. Technology has come a long way in auditing and providing insight on the accessibility of your site. 

Pages can be scanned for errors in seconds and issues can be prioritised for your team. Authoring tools can support content creators to write in an inclusive manner. Reading age can be measured, jargon words identified and suggestions for improvements easily made.

Utilising this tech should be a consideration for any vendor keen to prioritise online inclusion. 

Building brand reputation and customer engagement

Aside from engaging with a wider audience and building an inclusive brand, there are many other ways in which having an accessible website can benefit companies. 

For example, accessibility and SEO are linked very closely. Providing transcripts and closed captions for web content is a requirement for meeting web accessibility standards such as WCAG. As Google and other search engines provide search results based on matching search text with web text, they cannot search through your audio and video content. So, closed captions and transcripts help your SEO because the text enables your website to be discovered by search engines. 

Consumers are also increasingly prioritising spending their money with socially-responsible businesses.  Brands which disregard consumers with accessibility needs will not be attractive to the ethically minded consumer. Consumers will appreciate a brand which makes a demonstrable commitment improving the experience of customers with accessibility needs.

Accessibility measures are not just ‘nice to have’.’ They are essential if we are to strive towards a society that is accepting and accommodating of everyone, regardless of ability, illness, or special educational needs. Your website is now your shop window - you should make sure it’s as inviting and inclusive as possible. 

Accessibility is not only the ‘right’ thing to do in terms of making the lives of people with accessibility needs easier. It is also the ‘right’ thing to do in terms of maximising your businesses’ revenue. If a website is not easy to navigate and understand, dwell time on that website will drop, consumer engagement will decrease, and thus fewer sales will be made.  

As more and more vendors double down on a digital-first approach, people with accessibility needs such as visual impairments have struggled to As more and more vendors double down on a digital-first approach, people with accessibility needs such as visual impairments have struggled to access online services. To keep customers engaged and provide an inclusive approach for those shopping online, businesses need to focus on accessibility.  

Window shopping: drawing people in to your online store

Improving your online store's user experience with accessibility 

In the past year, lockdowns have meant we are spending more time online. This has forced many people to become more tech-savvy, but there are some who have been left out in the cold.

The Federal Education Minister Alan Tudge has flagged an impending review of the education sector, arguing that further reform is necessary to reverse declining academic outcomes and return the nation to the top of the global rankings by 2030.

As someone who has worked in the education sector for over thirty years, I know that there are a lot of factors at play. Here are some of the issues that we will need to address when reviewing our national curriculum.

Both parents and students are expecting more and more feedback from their teachers. However, the problem is that teachers have limited hours in their day to devote to feedback in great detail. Thus, they are increasingly turning to technology to help meet this growing demand.

The ‘red pen’ approach with formative assessment has long taken up too much time, forcing many teachers to depend on summative assessments or pass/fail assessments, even though they may not believe this is the right approach for their students.

Hence, I am finding more teachers are leaning towards technology and tools such as WriQ, which helps cut down on the time spent marking work as well as reducing subjective judgment. These tools can also enable a greater marking consistency in writing across age levels by using rubrics. The automation element of these technological tools helps to generate score writing indicators such as grammar, spelling, vocabulary maturity and punctuation.

Assistive technology is like giving the student the option of a ramp or the stairs to reach a new floor.  Although not every student would require the ramp, it should be available for those who do and accordingly, assistive technology tools should be implemented throughout our curriculums.

Over the past ten years, digital transformation is only growing faster, and the same must be applied to our education sector. Technology should be integrated into all Australian schools. Outside of school, we need to be equipping our students for the realities of the modern working society.

It’s no secret that the pandemic has accelerated the rush to online learning, and thus environment for swift and rapid innovation. Both principals and schools had to quickly test what did and did not work for teachers and students in completely foreign environments. Despite students returning to the classroom this year, we’re witnessing more schools moving towards a permanent hybrid model of teaching that places greater emphasis on technology.

As an educator, I paid little to no attention when I was teaching large mathematical topics. My experience over several years interacting with a variety of grade-level students was that most adopted curriculums would take large topics and would funnel multiple maths learning objectives into large content areas.

However, I recognised that students need to be foundationally sound in their thought process and had to learn to acquire maths language and be good problem solvers. Increasingly, there is a growing body of evidence that teachers are seeking new methods to integrate the periodic assessment approach over a final, finite test into their classrooms.

It is also common for students, and even adults, to openly express a ‘hatred’, or undermine their proficiency in maths. We have a collective and prevalent distaste and indifference towards maths as a subject in this country and that’s a big problem that we need to address.

The reputation for maths and science being a difficult subject has been routinely stigmatised and continues to be perpetuated when younger students hear phrases such as “I am not good at maths” or “I hate maths”, from both their teachers and parents.

Fundamentally, the subject being taught to students is not the problem. Students will not learn before developing a good relationship with their instructor or teacher. Relationships should be the principal focus and the forefront of learning in classrooms.

Originally appearing in Education Today in April 2021, our AsiaPac Education and Technology Lead, Greg O'Connor shares his thoughts on the issues we need to address to future proof education in Australia.

Making a nationally relevant curriculum for 2021 and beyond

Our AsiaPac Education and Technology Lead, Greg O'Connor recently shared his thoughts on the issues we need to address to future proof education in Australia. And as we celebrate 200 years of Catholic Schools in Australia, we need to make sure we're taking the time to look to the future, as well as celebrating the legacy of Catholic Education. Originally appearing in Education Today in April 2021, you can read Greg's thoughts below.

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We’ve taken everything our customers love about Read&Write, and created a brand new version, just for the Workplace.

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Top 4 tips for creating engaging math online using Google tools

Long time friend of Texthelp, Eric Curts takes us through some of his favourite ways to teach math online. Eric shows some great math tools in the webinar he recorded with us and links to lots of helpful online math resources that you can download. But to get some quick tips, check out the pointers below:

Blog

8 ways WCAG 3.0 will improve digital inclusion

How EdTech can help get education back on track

Window shopping: drawing people in to your online store

Making a nationally relevant curriculum for 2021 and beyond

Read&Write has graduated. Introducing Read&Write for Work

Top 4 tips for creating engaging math online using Google tools

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