Poet Ponders the Digital

Visalia Direct: Virtual Valley January 7, 2013 Deadline February 2013 Issue Accommodating Difference with Good Design Websites and software should be accessible to as many people as possible, including individuals with physical and neurological differences. Developers sometimes forget the various challenges people experience when visiting websites or using software. Failing to test interfaces for accessibility leaves barriers in place that exclude readers and users, the last thing any good organization or company wants to do. In the physical world, we notice the obstacles others encounter. Most of us try to help when we notice steep steps, heavy doors, high shelves or small print frustrating another person. Whether out of empathy, compassion or a sense of obligation, we don’t need laws to tell us that helping other people is the right thing to do. Of course, there are laws such as the federal Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), amended in 2008, and the Individuals with ...

Selected Bibliography Some texts either specifically or indirectly on the history of education and education theory (pedagogy) that have influenced me. The list is exported from my Bookends database, so there might be some formatting errors. I am trying to clean up my database, but I have several thousand books in the system (and on my shelves). Beniger, James. The Control Revolution: Technological and Economic Origins of the Information Society Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1986. Berlin, James A. Rhetorics, Poetics, and Cultures : Refiguring College English Studies . Lauer Series in Rhetoric and Composition. West Lafayette, Ind.: Parlor Press, 2003. Corbett, Edward P. J., Nancy Myers, and Gary Tate. The Writing Teacher's Sourcebook . 4th ed., New York: Oxford University Press, 2000. 0195123778 (alk. paper) Cuban, Larry. The Blackboard and the Bottom Line : Why Schools Can't Be Businesses . Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2004. ---. How Scholars T...

http://chronicle.com/article/Blind-Students-Demand-Access/125695 I have argued that online courses are not equivalent to traditional spaces and often are more of a barrier than an accommodation for students with special needs. I remain skeptical that online spaces can be made flexible enough to accommodate all students. Nor, honestly, do I believe it is right of universities to suggest to many disabled students that online courses are somehow better for them. In the case of blind students, clearly the online spaces aren't working as planned. For students with limited mobility, maybe online is a good alternative, but I found them less engaging and harder to comprehend. Right now, we don't consider the pedagogical implications carefully enough, but I also understand the rush to online spaces is an economic necessity for some institutions. Since I have difficulty with mobility as well as some cognitive differences, my views of online education are biased. I like the conven...

Visalia Direct: Virtual Valley April 2008 Issue March 7, 2008 Computers, Disabilities… and Miracles “Doctors Amazed by Autistic Girl’s Computer Use.” ABC News featured the story of Carly, a 13-year-old girl with autism during a February newscast, with additional information appearing on the network’s Web site. Not long after Carly’s story aired, another network featured a16-year-old boy with spina bifida using a special pad to control a computer. Both young people were miraculously performing well academically thanks to technology. A series of stories soon circulated on the Internet, most featuring disabled individuals using computers with “adaptive technologies” to communicate. From autistic children to adult stroke victims, miracles were being proclaimed. Because these stories generally appear in clusters, I knew it wouldn’t be long before a parent asked me the tough question: “Should I get my child a computer with some of that special equipment?” This is a very difficul...

What makes a Web site readable? As the Internet moved from the ASCII texts of the USENET and FTP repositories towards HTML, no one really cared about appearance. The notion was that content was everything — and most content files were journal articles and scientific research. The early notion of specifying fonts on the World Wide Web was a major shift from the original notion of the Web. You can look at changes from HTML pre-1.0 to our current standards and the shift towards visual content is obvious. The reality is that there was no stopping the drift towards a visual medium. Given basic HTML 2.0, designers resorted to complex tables-within-tables to mimim familiar print designs. From the earliest handwritten manuscripts, artists have known how words are placed on a page (or screen) affects how they are read. No one was about to settle for no control over a Web site's appearance. Temptation to experiment can lead to innovation, but on the Web it also helps to k...

Selected Bibliography My views on the implementation of online writing curricula are also informed by the following texts and articles: Anson, Chris M. "Distant Voices: Teaching and Writing in a Culture of Technology." College English 61.3 (1999): 261-80. Applebome, Peter. "The on-Line Revolution Is Not the End of Civilization as We Know It. But Almost." New York Times 4 April 1999 1999, sec. Education Supplement: 26-28, 35-37. Armstrong, Alison, and Charles Casement. The Child and the Machine : How Computers Put Our Children's Education at Risk . Updated ed. Carlton North, Vic.: Scribe Publications, 2001. Beniger, James. The Control Revolution: Technological and Economic Origins of the Information Society Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1986. Berlin, James A. Rhetorics, Poetics, and Cultures : Refiguring College English Studies . Lauer Series in Rhetoric and Composition. West Lafayette, Ind.: Parlor Press, 2003. Callister, Nicholas C. Burbul...