site review

Hi, everyone:

As some of you may know, I'm in the middle of a three-year
collaboration with the Massachusetts Institutue of Technology (MIT)
to make an on-line physics course accessible to deaf, blind,
visually impaired and hard-of-hearing students.  The project
is called "Access to PIVoT (Physics Interactive Video Tutor)". 
A complete description of PIVoT is available at

http://www-ceci.mit.edu/projects/pivot/

Students will still attend regular physics class lectures but will also have
access to additional material via the Web.  These will include a complete on-line
textbook, quizzes, dozens of multimedia lectures and tutorials, and other materials.

Beginning this fall, NCAM and MIT will begin adding features to the
PIVoT Web site, including navigation enhancements (alt-text tags, improved
layout, text equivalents, D-links/LONGDESC, etc.), multimedia
captions and audio descriptions, and textbook enhancements to
make graphs and equations more accessible.

Judy has given me permission to post the accessible PIVoT prototype URL
on this list, and to ask EO members to take a look at the site and
give me feedback.  If you're interested in helping out, I'm certainly
interested in hearing from you.  The URL is...

http://www.wgbh.org/wgbh/pages/ncam/webaccess/Pivot/PIVoToff.htm

I know that the EO list is public, but I would prefer that you not pass
this URL around to non-list members.

A few notes:

1.  This site is a prototype, so many of the links will not work. 
As a matter of fact, only those links marked with an *asterisk* work. 
All others will take you to a dead page.

2.  Chapter 15.2 of the textbook, while marked with an asterisk and
available to you, does not yet contain access enhancements.  I hope to 
start uploading these next week.  When I do, I'll let you know.  
I'll be testing something called MathSpeak, which is a method of 
writing (and voicing) complex math equations.

3.  One multimedia clip, "Resistive Force: General Introduction"
is marked as being available.  However, due to server complications 
it will be a few more days before you can look at it.  Sorry. 
For the curious, SMIL will be the multimedia format; the RealPlayer 
will be the recommended player.

Any and all comments or suggestions will be given consideration! 
The site will be changing over the next few months and I will 
post updates as appropriate.  Since this is not official EO business, 
you may send your remarks to me at the address below (Judy, 
you can contradict me here if you disagree).  Thanks very much!

Geoff Freed
Project Manager
CPB/WGBH National Center for Accessible Media
WGBH Educational Foundation
geoff_freed@wgbh.org

Received on Thursday, 3 August 2000 09:11:22 UTC