That's the truth, Ruth!
I am someone who is very into knowing what The Right Thing To Do is. I do not necessarily think this is a good trait; it mostly means I'm the adult version of a grade grubber, whatever that would be. I also have 100% passed down those anxieties and insecurities to my kid, who would never dream of using a red pen if the form said to use black or blue ink. It's not great in many ways.
However, sometimes in my quest to find The Right Thing To Do, I stumble onto something that actually matters to me a lot more than black or blue ink. Sometimes I realize that The Right Thing To Do is actually really important, and a lot of people aren't doing it. Once I find out about something like that, I won't stop shouting about it. And digital is one of those things, so get ready to hear some shouting.
Perceivable, Operable, Understandable, Robust
In a second I'm going to say more about what I mean by "digital accessibility," but first I want to explain why you're reading about it in a newsletter that purports to be about parenting and education. This is partly because digital accessibility is the main thing I've been thinking about this week, and I promised you (and myself) that this newsletter was going to be about the things that are on my mind. But I actually think this has a lot to do with both parenting and education, even if the conversation about digital accessibility doesn't always include those two facets.
But first: what am I even talking about? (Skip this part if you already know what I'm talking about.) Digital accessibility refers to ensuring that information presented digitally can be accessed by all, including people with disabilities. Sometimes this is pretty straightforward, like including captions on videos for people who are d/Deaf and/or hard of hearing. Sometimes this is more complex, like considering how someone will navigate a website or an app depending on their physical ability, whether they use a mouse or a keyboard, and other considerations.
Ensuring that digital content is accessible to all users is part of my day job. And when I started to learn about it, I had two thoughts simultaneously:
Wow, this is really complex and I have a tremendous amount to learn about it
Wow, no one is doing this right.
The two are also related. If No. 2 were not true — if most websites and apps and documents were designed and created accessibly from the ground up — No. 1 would be less of an issue. But No. 2 is true, albeit slightly of an exaggeration, and slightly less true today than it was, say, five years ago.
So what does all this have to do with parenting and education? Well, if your kid did any remote schooling this year, maybe you already know where I'm going with this.
Whoever thought it was a good idea to use Google Slides as a homework tool for second graders deserves to be punched in the face.
— Shannon Carpenter (@HossmanAtHome) April 8, 2021
Death to the Bitmoji Classroom (and Death to PDFs)
I don't have any hard data on how many teachers created "virtual classrooms" using Google Slides during the pandemic, but my anecdotal information suggests it is a lot. And one form that those have taken is my arch nemesis, the Bitmoji classroom.
I made this and I hate it so much
I can't quite pin down when Bitmoji classrooms became a thing, but Google Trends tells me that searches for that term spiked in May 2020. (I was gonna say "their origins are shrouded in mystery" but that's just a corny way of me saying I gave up trying to figure it out after approx. 5 minutes of effort.)
I HATE Bitmoji classrooms, where you have to click around and guess at which things are just pictures and which things are secret links (why??). I hate students having to do work on a Google Slide that may or may or may not have the correct permissions set, where you have to use the tiny trackpad on your tiny Chromebook to try to move stuff around on your tiny screen. I hate it when something is a PDF just to make it look cute when it could have just been text on the screen.
But as much as I hate all of these things (which is ... a lot!!), it is nothing compared to the frustration of someone who literally cannot use these things because of an accessibility barrier. Maybe it's someone with a visual impairment whose screen reader is getting zero information from the Bitmoji classroom because there was no alt text written for any of the images (or the auto-generated alt text is garbage). Maybe it's someone whose motor function makes it really difficult for them to do that clicking and dragging on a trackpad (or at all!). Maybe it's someone who's trying to do their schoolwork on their mom's phone in a parked car and that PDF is just honestly impossible for them to read at that scale.
Several months ago I spoke with a mom who's visually impaired about the impact of remote schooling for her family, and the first thing she talked to me about was Universal Design. Universal Design "creates products, systems, and environments to be as usable as possible by as many people as possible regardless of age, ability or situation," according to the IDeA Center.
"It's when you make the world navigable for everybody," this mom told me. "Everybody benefits, and there's no stigma, there's no marginalization. In order to promote inclusion, you need architectural and other barriers to be lifted."
Everybody Means Everybody
It continues to frustrate me that the world at large, and schools as one corner of that world, don't see the need to make the world navigable for everybody. I know that a lot of this is out of ignorance, but that kind of just makes it worse. And the thing about accessibility and UD is that "everybody" really means "everybody." If I could get information as just text on a screen, as opposed to having it locked inside a $#$(%@*#@ Bitmoji classroom or Google slide or PDF, I would also benefit, even though I'm not disabled.
If you are wondering, "Hmm, is there anything I can do to support digital accessibility?", the answer is God absolutely yes please. Here are a few things you can start doing today, right now (please note these are things I also often forget to do, it's a learning process and messing up happens but it's really important to try):
Put alt text on images! Including on social media.
Use native tools to format content! What do I mean by that? I mean, if you want a bulleted list, go up to the menu of whatever program/platform you're using and find the "Bulleted List" tool, rather than just like typing in a hyphen (please don't just type in a hyphen!) Same goes for numbered lists, spaces after paragraphs, page numbers, and things like that. If there's a tool within the program that will do that for you, please use it.
Don't be too cute. If the image, icon, emoji, infographic or whatever isn't really aiding in the understanding of the information you're trying to convey, maybe leave it off? Obviously the rules are different if you're in a group chat with people you know really well, vs. if you're producing something for the general public. But, just think about it anyway!
Don't make people download things. Whenever you can, just present the information as text. If you have a cute flyer (although, honestly, see above) or a graphic or whatever that you want to use, that's cool, I guess you can use it. But please, for the love of all that is holy, also include the information as text. For example, if you're sharing something on Facebook about a fundraiser that you organized, please put all the information from the flier in your Facebook post! Just type it right in there! (Or copy and paste!) (All these exclamation points are a loose facsimile of what my voice sounds like when I talk about this stuff. Please imagine my arms flapping around and my eyes getting really big also, for emphasis.)
If you can do any of these things, that would be way more than, honestly, a lot of public schools and government institutions and major companies are doing. So the fifth thing you can do is advocate for these things in your community. I will be the first to admit I don't always do things, I mess up, I forget to add alt text, I get lazy. It's a new habit I'm working to form and I'm still learning. But I try, and you can too!
Quote of the Week
"We must move beyond what is legally “owed” to someone to what we must change to recognize them as our colleagues and neighbors."
— Carrie Basas, "The Problem With Curb Cuts"
This Week's Links
What I Saw When I Spent A Month Watching Middle School on Zoom (Elana Sigall, Chalkbeat)
School Wasn't So Great Before COVID, Either (Erika Christakis, The Atlantic)
Students With Disabilities Need Accessible Learning Platforms (me! I wrote this, with Hannah!)
Closing Notes
Please forgive me my typos and be warned, as always, that there may be swearing. If you found this newsletter from a link or a friend, why not subscribe? It's free! :) And I'd love your feedback on any and everything you read here. I hope your week is a great one.