• Access,  Educational Technology,  Writing

    Screenreaders, Twitter and OCR

    In between living with sink-lessness and unpacking in my old-new home, I find some time to read the #DigiWriMo tweets. After my guest blog post on Digital Inclusion, there were several people who tweeted about the Twitter tips and how my suggestions might begin to have them rethink how they write or tweet. It was good to read about these “wonderings” and to have folks talking about digital inclusion. @brunowinck @Maha4Learning @yinbk are uppercase chars generally easier on dyslexics? #DigiWriMo #a11y — ℳąhą Bąℓi, PhD مها بالي 🌵 (@Bali_Maha) November 6, 2015 @drgbz @40houradjunct…

  • Access,  Inclusion

    There’s a Place for Us

    VCU Summer Institute on Inclusive Teaching 2015

    [I revised this piece quite a bit and it is published at EdContexts: http://edcontexts.org/diversity/theres-a-place-for-us/]In late 1999, I relocated to the USA and have had much adventure navigating cross-cultural zones of change. As a Singaporean Chinese, I am often perceived as someone from the Republic of China, which is not a problem or a bad thing at all. It is when I am expected to exhibit behaviors that go along with that misperception that things get awkward and challenging. What follows are little snippets of the faux pas some people have committed…

  • Instructional Design

    Designing a Course Worth Learning Part 2

    Style Options on the HTML Editor

    I learned about assistive technology when I was on a graduate teaching assistantship and tasked with shadowing a senior graduate assistant before she graduated. I was to then take over her Assistive Technology course for pre-service teachers.Over the years, I’ve gained a greater awareness and understanding of disability and accessibility. But I still have a lot to learn. I believe every instructional designer (and instructor) must be equipped with the knowledge and skills to design accessible courses. As I plan to teach a summer online course, I want to make…

  • Teaching

    Online Teaching and “Body Language”

    Image description: A quotation by Jenifer Ringer, “Terry taught ballet as if it were very important and precious.” Vignette 1: “Terry taught ballet as if it were very important and precious.” – Jenifer Ringer, Dancing Through It: My Journey in the Ballet.  Image Description: Feet clad in ballet shoes standing on pointe position A line in a book given to me during the early days of losing my parents; supposedly the heroine’s victory over her struggles would inspire me. A short sentence fraught with meaning and implications. I especially love…

  • Inclusion

    Accessibility, Uniqueness and Accommodations 1

    “We don’t see things as they are, we see things as we are.” – Anais Nin First, I don’t have a disability and do not speak on behalf of disabled people because I do not know what it is like to not be able to see, hear or not have mobility of all my limbs. Second, I do claim to be unique; I acknowledge that everyone is uniquely different, although some people may be more alike in several ways. Therefore, we each learn and process things differently through our filters.…