RE: RE Checkpoint 3.4 again

Joel,

         Aha, an education question. What is the responsibility of an 
eLearning platform for providing their services to Learning Disabled 
students? What is the responsibility of an eLearning platform to deliver a 
usable course? What purpose would it serve for you to make your course 
usable to the blind and deaf who are a small number of potential students 
compared with the vast numbers of students who will need multi-media to 
learn the content.

         The professor who is designing the course has to plan the whole 
course, including what would in a classroom or lecture hall be considered 
inclusion of multi-media to address the many learning needs paying him for 
the course.  The only physics course I took in college (physics for 
teachers and other dummies), was chock full of live demonstrations of the 
basic principles. And movies for those they couldn't do live. And a well 
illustrated textbook.

         If eLearning is to become a useful part of the education scene, it 
will have to address illustrating the concepts you are teaching, and if you 
can't do it on the budget you have, perhaps the presence of a guideline 
like 3.4 will loosen up purse-strings or awaken creativity. And, so much of 
education depends on creativity! I was considering what to reply to your 
scenario, walking around the garden, came back and saw the results of 
Wendy's 12 minutes of research into what is available at that level of 
education, and it seems like eLearning needs to catch up! <grin> ....

         Joel, as you probably guess from seeing Mrs. P's Links pages, I 
put a lot of time into research on the Internet, finding, selecting, 
linking sites, then seeing how the kids like them .... and taking out the 
ones that don't do much... I would love to have a budget to develop 
educational content on the web, but I have to settle for making simple 
pages, like the one for Davy Crockett for the Kindergartners (Mrs. P's 
Links, Social Studies, Davy Crockett) . Low budget means you find as much 
as you can link to, and keep going back checking for more and more....  I 
look forward to the day when I can afford the software to make Flash stuff 
....

         Oh, and please, please, please do not use a video of the bald dude 
writing on the board with his wrinkled, patched jacket covering the screen 
.... YUCK! That "low budget" concept took hold in educational tv and nearly 
wrecked Distance Learning til the web began to rescue it (IMHO) ...

                                                         Anne

At 08:53 PM 8/1/01 -0600, Joel Sanda wrote:
>What really concerns me about 3.4 though, is how - written now - it can
>apply to *any* content - even content that isn't meant for a general
>audience but a very specific audience. Consider a physics course hosted on
>any major eLearning platform. The professor likely builds the class because
>there's no budget for course development professionals - or that budget is
>very limited. The professor is teaching a graduate level phsyics course.
>With a little effort the content can meeting the WCAG 1.0 - even if the
>mathematical formulas are images (use of the "alt" and "longdesc"
>attributes). But asking the professor to supplement that forumala - let's
>say a formula describing how asteroids are impacted by gravity in space - is
>a major undertaking with 3.4.
>
>What to do? A Java applet that displays the course of the asteroid? A video
>of the professor drawing the formula on a chalkboard and describing it? A
>sound file the professor recorded? Any one of those can easily be considered
>technically infeasible for the professor.
>
>The adoption of 3.4 could easily be a burden for a lot of folks - which is
>the source of my concern regarding it.
>
>Great comment on including the term being defined in the definition. I was
>humbled by that one my Freshman year in college when I defined the word
>"time" using the word "time" in my first exam <grin />
>
>Joel
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Emmanuelle Gutiérrez y Restrepo
>To: Joel Sanda; 'Anne Pemberton'; 'Jo Miller'; w3c-wai-gl@w3.org
>Sent: 8/1/2001 5:12 PM
>Subject: Re: RE Checkpoint 3.4 again
>
>Hi all,
>
>I believe that the polarization in the discussion on the point 3.4 is
>due to
>that not all understand the implied concepts in the same way.
>
>For example, I have visited the page of Joel (www.eCollege.com) and I
>have
>found that in it they are used the graphics profusely, to facilitate the
>understanding of the textual content. It is possible that he is not
>aware of
>it. A line is a graph, and in its pages these graphic elements are used
>to
>guide and to help the user. There is not more than to see the menu of
>their
>main page.
>
>Therefore, it is possible that when one speaks of non-text content and
>they
>put on as examples, images, sounds, video, etc. some understand that it
>is
>demanding to use complex drawings or pictograms, that which is not
>necessarily this way. The rhetorical complexity will depend on the
>necessity
>of its use and, sometimes, the simplest element gets the objective
>better
>that one complex.
>
>The drawing that has made Charles to illustrate the point it is
>magnificent,
>especially because it has been able to express, graphically, the case
>more
>difficult of application of this rule. But to apply this rule won't
>necessarily demand that each paragraph or each concept is expressed
>graphically. What demands the rule is that the capacity multimedia of
>the
>Web is used to facilitate the use and understanding from the contents to
>all
>the possible visitors.
>
>The multimedia elements (text, graphics, charts, sound, animation,
>videotape, table, etc.) they are, each one of them, more or less
>appropriate
>to express certain contents. For example, to express and to give to
>understand data, the ideal thing is to use tables and better if they go
>accompanied by charts. Evidently, the sound is the less appropriate
>element
>to express great quantity of data. Rules exist on the use of the
>elements of
>an application multimedia that, at least in Spain, they are studied in
>the
>career of Communication.
>
>Therefore, in my humble opinion, what we try to say with this rule is:
>use,
>jointly, all the "media" that they are appropriate to express and to
>facilitate the understanding of the content.
>
>As for the " non-text " definition, I believe that it deserves to be
>edited
>again because, at least in Spanish, a definition should not contain the
>defined term.
>
>Kind regards,
>Emmanuelle
>
>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Joel Sanda" <joels@ecollege.com>
>To: "'Anne Pemberton'" <apembert@erols.com>; "'Jo Miller'"
><jo@bendingline.com>; <w3c-wai-gl@w3.org>
>Sent: Wednesday, August 01, 2001 11:16 PM
>Subject: RE: RE Checkpoint 3.4 again
>
>
> > Anne -
> >
> > You are absolutely right about kids. My son is three. None of the
>parenting
> > books I dutifully read prior to his arrival into my life led me to
>believe
> > words would be an obstacle. Of course, he's the smartest kid in the
>world
> > <gin /> but doesn't care on bit about the words I read to him in the
>book.
> > He's into sounds, images, and texture. He loves words like all kids,
>but a
> > picture of a fire truck or the sound of a siren is all that is
>meaningful
>to
> > him right now.
> >
> > So: point taken well, and your logic is what led me to try and
>illustrate
> > 3.4 the past two evenings and refer to your Holiday's page for
>guidance.
>The
> > logic of 3.4 is 100% right on. I'm excited about the prospect of how
>we
>can
> > use XML and XSLT to render content in ways that are meaningful to all
>kinds
> > of people.
> >
> > But I have tried bouncing this off several people: graphic designers,
>web
> > developers, and content authors. Some at my work place, most friends
>at
> > other companies or folks I've done work with the in the past. All had
>the
> > same reaction: "yeah, that's cool, but I'm not gonna do it". Most
>seemed
> > intimated by the requirement or felt it was overkill and would consume
>too
> > many resources (time and money and bandwidth for the I.T. folks).
> >
> > I'm not sure 3.4 is appropriate for all web sites, or all content. We
>can't
> > swing it with the WCAG 2.0, so I am *very* uncomfortable including it.
>If
> > this group can't make it work with the requirement specifying it, I
>cannot
> > put my vote behind its inclusion.
> >
> > And if we continue the logic of the WCAG 2.0, and point 3.4, we could
>also
> > argue - with a greater sense of urgency behind it - that to be truly
> > accessible the site would be in English and Chinese, since there are
>more
> > people who can read English and Chinese than can't read text and leave
>with
> > an understanding.
> >
> > This leads me to believe we may find more common ground and a solution
>we're
> > happier about if we opt for a list of reasons to implement this
>technique,
> > as well as how to implement the technqiues. Is it appropriate to
>implement
> > this on the WCAG 2.0? Maybe not - since all the supporting material
>and
>the
> > WCAG 2.0 are all in text and no one has the time to implement 3.4 on
>the
> > content.
> >
> > Is it appropriate for an Internet Privacy Policy to implement this?
>You
>bet
> > - only attorney's enjoy reading those <grin />. Is it appropriate for
> > content geared to younger audiences or audiences that can't read?
>100%.
> >
> > Joel Sanda
> > Product Manager
> >
>-------------------------------------------------------www.eCollege.com
> > eCollege
> > joels@ecollege.com
> > > p. 303.873.7400 x3021
> > > f.  303.632.1721
> >
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Anne Pemberton [mailto:apembert@erols.com]
> > Sent: Wednesday, August 01, 2001 2:56 PM
> > To: Joel Sanda; 'Jo Miller'; w3c-wai-gl@w3.org
> > Subject: RE: RE Checkpoint 3.4 again
> >
> >
> > Joel, Kynn, and others ....
> >
> >          Thanks very much for the comments on the holiday page. Yes,
>it is
> > quite symbolic, but then it is created to be used mostly by
>non-readers
>...
> > I still have some illustrations (or symbols) to round up for some of
>the
> > links before school starts ...  The holidays pages is one of the pages
>that
> > I use a lot of clip art to illustrate the links. I have learned that
>if I
> > leave the links without illustration, the kids are less likely to use
>the
> > link independently, tho they will use it when told to.
> >
> >          Joel, in primary school, illustrating is an skill kids are
> > expected to come to school with. In Kindergarten it is a favorite way
>of
> > asking a child to show s/he understood a story. Throughout education,
> > students are expected to illustrate their written and oral work. They
>may
> > do pictures instead of a written book report, or as a part of one.
>They
> > create covers for reports that illustrate their topic. They include
> > illustrations in their reports -- in the lowest grades they are
>drawing,
> > perhaps pasted pictures, and by grad school they are all charts of
>data
> > .... but illustrating one's work continues.  After schooling, as one
> > settles down in a career, the need to illustrate doesn't go away. A
> > co-worker needs to understand the work flow --- you draw a flow chart
>or
> > something less ..... the head honchos want a demonstration of your
>idea or
> > concept .... better have illustrations for them to look at while
>you're
> > talking .... the need to illustrate is never far away.
> >
> >          Perhaps my optimism that web designers will jump at the
> > opportunity to consider illustrations for their sites is due to my
>place
>in
> > education. It behooves me to stay as optimistic as possible ... You
>guys
> > who expect a backlash from designers may indeed be right, since you
>have
> > the closest contact with them.  But I wonder if some of you who teach
> > designers would give it a try sometime and let me know how bad it
>crashes
> > ....
> >
> >                                  Anne
> >
> > Anne Pemberton
> > apembert@erols.com
> >
> > http://www.erols.com/stevepem
> > http://www.geocities.com/apembert45
> >

Anne Pemberton
apembert@erols.com

http://www.erols.com/stevepem
http://www.geocities.com/apembert45

Received on Thursday, 2 August 2001 11:56:17 UTC