Accessibility Bites Copyright © by BCcampus is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.
Accessibility Bites Copyright © by BCcampus is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.
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This book contains a collection of recordings and resources from the BCcampus Accessibility Bites series.
The first series was facilitated in Fall 2023 by Josie Gray, the manager of the Open Education team at BCcampus. Josie designed each session to include a presentation of key concepts and practices, while also building in time for attendees to try things out for themselves. The series generated interest and excitement from folks in and beyond BC, which led to a second series in Fall 2024. Six facilitators from across Canada presented on topics of interest identified through survey feedback from the first series.
Whatever brought you to this book, we hope that by compiling these openly licensed resources, you’ll continue your learning path and perhaps adapt and share the content with your own audience.
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The first iteration of the Accessibility Bites series focused on hands-on learning exploring tools and practices that are key to creating digital content that is accessible for students with disabilities. The five sessions explored:
Scheduled for 30 minutes during the lunch hour once a month, the hope was to give busy educators bite-sized learning that they could put into practice right away. Each session followed a similar structure: a presentation of key concepts and practices, time to attendees to try it out for themselves, and a group discussion and questions.
The materials from this series have been compiled in this Pressbooks so it’s easy for people to continue to learn from and come back to this content. In addition, the session slides are openly licensed to allow others to adapt and offer the series for their own audiences.
Josie Gray (she/her) is a manager on the Open Education team at BCcampus, where she has worked to support and grow open educational practices in British Columbia, with a specific focus on critical and equitable practices. Josie leads BCcampus’s open publishing work and has expertise in open licenses, accessibility, Universal Design for Learning, and Pressbooks. Josie has been learning about and teaching accessibility best practices in OER since 2016 and has a Masters of Design in Inclusive Design.
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Our first drop-in session is designed to explore the assistive technologies and customization options available in the digital tools educators and staff often use. The goal is to explore these tools and identify what might make your work easier.
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This is a short drop-in session that will allow you to practice describing images. If you share images through documents and publications, social media, digital interfaces, or presentations, this session is for you.
What to bring: Any images you want to make accessible — preferably ones you use in your work. We will also have images to practice with if you don’t have any.
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This is a short drop-in session where we will explore how to design and remediate presentation slides so they are accessible. We will talk about design considerations unique to slides for teaching both online and in-person and how you can create accessible content in PowerPoint.
What to bring: A slide deck you want to make accessible — preferably one you use in your work. We will focus on Microsoft PowerPoint, but you can bring in Google Slides too. We will also have a PowerPoint presentation to practice with.
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This is a short drop-in session where we will talk about accessibility considerations across social media platforms. If you use Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, or TikTok, these considerations will apply.
What to bring: A device you can use to access your social media accounts (mobile or computer is fine). These can be your personal or professional accounts.
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This is a short drop-in session where we will explore how to create accessible content in Microsoft Word.
What to bring: A document you want to make accessible — preferably one you use in your work. We will focus on Microsoft Word, but you can bring a Google Doc or webpage too. We will also have a Word document to practice with if you don’t have anything.
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The second iteration of the Accessibility Bites series built upon the success and interest of the first series, also offering hands-on learning while exploring tools and practices that are key to creating digital content that is accessible for students with disabilities. While the first series was facilitated by Josie Gray, six facilitators from across Canada facilitated the following topics for Accessibility Bites 2.0:
Scheduled for 30 minutes during the lunch hour once a month, the hope was to give busy educators bite-sized learning that they could put into practice right away. Recognizing the short duration of these sessions, the hope has always been that these resources would be used as a starting point, prompting attendees to dive deeper into the work and have conversations with their peers about how we can create more accessible learning experiences for our students.
Session slides are openly licensed to allow others to adapt and offer the series for their own audiences.
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Join us for a short drop-in session to explore how alternative format textbooks and course materials are provided to students. You will also gain valuable tips on how to improve the accessibility of your classroom materials.
Your Facilitator for this session will be Jennifer Weldon.
Jennifer (she/her) is the accessibility librarian at the Centre for Accessible Post-secondary Education Resources BC (CAPER-BC). CAPER-BC provides accessible learning and teaching materials to students and instructors at post-secondary institutions in B.C. who cannot use conventional print because of disabilities. Jennifer is responsible for outreach activities, providing accessibility training to faculty at post-secondary institutions, and for overseeing special projects.
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Using plain language means communicating so your audience can understand your message the first time they read or hear it. Plain language makes your message accessible, ensuring people can quickly and easily find and use the information they need. This session will be a brief introduction to the principles of plain language writing and design. It will give an overview of what plain language is, why it is important, and suggest some tools and resources to help participants develop their skills.
Your facilitator for this session will be Kaitlyn Vecchio.
Kaitlyn Vecchio (she/her) is grateful to live, work, and play on the traditional and unceded territory of the Lheidli T’enneh. Kaitlyn is a dedicated librarian with a passion for information accessibility and has led numerous workshops and conference presentations focused on plain language, helping diverse audiences enhance their ability to convey information clearly and effectively. Kaitlyn currently works as a librarian at the Prince George campus of the College of New Caledonia.
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This session will provide an overview of alternative techniques, tools, and strategies blind and low vision (B/LV) students use to succeed in their courses. Drawing from his experience as a blind student and the collective knowledge of the B/LV community, the facilitator, Ka Li, will offer practical insights to help make courses more inclusive for B/LV students, with an emphasis on science, technology, engineering, art, and math (STEAM).
By the end of the session, you will:
Your facilitator for this session will be Ka Li.
Ka (he/him/his) is an accessibility consultant focusing on digital access and tactile graphics. He is dedicated to empowering blind and low vision people to use tactile graphics and advocates for their inclusion in novels and leisure activities. Ka strongly believes in universal accessibility, emphasizing STEAM fields where persons with disabilities are underrepresented. Ka recently graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in the Kinesiology and Health Sciences Honours program at York University. In his free time, he enjoys practicing Krav Maga and reading good books.
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This short drop-in session will help you understand the importance of designing an inclusive and accessible classroom, whether your classroom is face-to-face, online, or a combination. You will gain helpful tips for delivering content in person and for creating accessible videos and audio files.
By the end of the session, you will:
Your facilitator for this session will be Jamie Drozda.
Jamie (she/her) is a coordinator, educational technologies at Thompson Rivers University. She enjoys researching and analyzing the effectiveness of current learning technologies and assessing the challenges in adapting new technologies. Jamie strives to address accessibility, interaction, and assessment issues along with integrating technology with classroom pedagogy.
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In this session, we will explore how to create and review PDFs for accessibility. The session will reinforce the importance of ensuring documents are accessible before converting them to PDFs and will cover the remediation process. We will also discuss tools that can review PDFs for accessibility and how PDFs can be a barrier to learners.
Your facilitator for this session will be Ann Gagné.
Ann (she/her) is a queer settler with invisible and dynamic disabilities, passionate about increasing awareness of accessible pedagogy and resources to include disabled learners. She has been working in higher education for almost 20 years. With an interdisciplinary educational background, Ann has used her training and experience in her roles as an instructional designer, curriculum developer, and educational developer.
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This is a short session to familiarize you with accessible video content. If you record lectures, make instructional videos or demonstrations, produce social media content, or create any other video content, this session is for you!
Your facilitator for this session will be Luke McKnight.
Luke McKnight (he/his) is a digital accessibility specialist, an IAAP certified Accessible Document Specialist, and a Certified Professional in Accessibility Core Competencies. Luke works at Langara College snəw̓eyəɬ leləm̓ in Vancouver and is in the Inclusive Design graduate program at OCAD University. Find more information about Luke at Digital A11y.
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| Version | Date | Change | Details |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1.00 | Mar 31, 2025 | Resource published. |