The main reason this blog has been a bit “quiet” since its inception is that I, together with a hard working band of fellow organisers, have been very busy planning for the next HEFCW-JISC RSC Wales-Higher Education Academy conference, entitled E for Enhancement 2009. Since the programme went live on the RSC Wales website last week, the bookings have been piling in. If haven’t yet booked your place, then you’ll need to act fast. Check our events page at www.tinyurl.com/enhancement2009 for the latest booking information. If bookings have closed by the time you get there, it’s still worth registering your interest by emailing events@rsc-wales.ac.uk. We’ll maintain a waiting list and let people know if places becomes available nearer the time.

Higher Education staff working in the areas of adult community learning, voluntary sector studies and criminal justice may also be interested in the Building Bridges conference, organised by RSC Wales in association with a range of partners. The programme covers the effective use of learning technology across the ACL, voluntary and criminal justice sectors, and delegates may choose to attend one or both days. Building Bridges is on 4-5 March in Llandrindod Wells and bookings remain open until 23 February.

Back on 21^st January I was lucky enough to be able to attend a JISC Techdis workshop at University of Glamorgan, organised by CELT. It was actually a series of three workshops run together, and as such was an intensive day, but presenter Simon Ball kept up a lively pace throughout, with plenty of humour to sustain us. The full slides are available to all at http://www.techdis.ac.uk/community/ (you’ll need to create an account to view them). For those who weren’t able to attend, here are some of the key points from the day, as I saw them:

1.       Everyday Accessibility

This looked at ways to make MS Word, Powerpoint and Adobe PDFs more accessible. For example, if you’re making Powerpoint slides available on your VLE, you should provide the text in the Notes, as this is the only part of the software which is accessible to screen readers. Simon drove home the message that the use of Styles in Word, thus making documents easier to navigate, is one of the best things you can do to make your documents accessible. He also quashed the notion that PDFs are inherently inaccessible, and flagged some of their positive features.

We then had a quick overview of the HEAT (Higher Education Assistive Technology) scheme. A number of HEAT3 projects are currently running, including a number in Wales. We were advised to keep our eyes open in May 2009 for news of further funding. Have a look at the HEAT pages to see what others have done on their projects, and if you have a similarly good idea, keep it up your sleeve till after Easter!

Finally we heard about the forthcoming series of free online events looking at the JISC Techdis Self Evaluation tool – a great way to see how well your institution is doing (or otherwise!) plus tips on how take positive steps towards improvement. There are dedicated events for staff in a range of different role, and they are taking place online over the next four months. For more details about this free tool, and to book a place, check here.

2.       Achievable technology: making teaching more inclusive using simple techniques

A vast array of free tools were covered in this session, from the relatively commonplace (eg Audacity free sound recorder/editor) to Dasher, an amazing piece of software that allows someone with minimal mobility to ‘type’ by means of slight movements of the eye or head. For a handy collection of links to many resources recommended by Techdis, see the Moodle area on Accessibility which my colleague Helen Hodges has created. Many of the tools are useful for anybody, whether they have a disability or not.

3.       Accessibility roles and responsibilities

This session focussed mainly on assessment issues and Simon’s main message here was: tell students early on what is expected of them, to give time for adjustments. This session provoked some interesting discussion, particularly about the challenges of ensuring accessibility within assessed group work.

Finally a few more new things to look out for:

·         Revised HE Senior Management Briefings to be sent to Pro VCs for teaching plus Heads of E-learning, later this year

·         Technology Change for Inclusion – a new report to be launched in April

It says a lot for the quality of the resources and the delivery of the workshop that I have actually enjoyed the task of writing up my notes of the day, so a big thank you to Simon Ball and to CELT. For more free CELT seminars in the coming months, see http://celt.glam.ac.uk/Seminars/?c=ForthcomingSeminars