The E-Learning Experience

Here at OLG, like various other organizations, we have an e-learning department. For those who aren’t in the know, e-learning is an interactive way for employees to educate themselves on topics pertaining to their job specifics and/or learning about core business values and the like. And hey, it’s supposed to be fun and educational. Anyway, one of my tasks here is to make sure that the material that we produce for e-learning is accessible to all. Although I may have personal reasons in wanting to make learning fully accessible, it also benefits others. Think of keyboard users for example. News flash, not everyone is in love with mice or touchpads. Colour contrast, font size, close captioning for videos are all considerations as well. 

Rewind back 2 years ago when I joined OLG… has it been that long? As a new hire, there was a selection of e-learning modules to complete. The interface was less than adequate and keyboard access was minimal. I was able to complete some of them with a bit of fandangling on my part, but it certainly wasn’t much fun. I reached out to our e-learning team and they suggested reading the transcripts which accompanied the modules. But why should I need to use a boring alternative to the actual module? Besides, they were untagged PDFs… and we know how much I loath those. I insisted that there must be something we can do in order to have an accessible e-learning solution for all. 

So, I invited a member of the e-learning team over for a demonstration on how access technology worked. In particular, a screen reader. What is a screen reader you might ask? Well, it’s technology that can be built into the operating system or an add-on that takes information on the screen and synthesizes it into speech or into electronic Braille. Have I lost you yet? Essentially it makes your computer talk. If you’re on a PC, press Windows+Enter and you might get speech; depending on your Windows version. On your Mac, press COMMAND+F5 for a similar result. On your iPhone, hold down the home button to initiate Siri and say” Start Voiceover”. This is all old hat to me, but for an individual who has never experienced someone who actually needs to use access technology every day, it certainly can be an eye-opener. So where was I, oh yeah, demonstrating a screen reader.  

I showed this person how I would access the modules, where the pitfalls were and how I went around reviewing the screen with speech and braille output. 

I like the speech aspect, but I find that I can visualize in my head more clearly if I can also get a braille representation of the information. Besides, an electronic braille display can be pretty impressive when you first encounter it.

At any rate, my work colleague received a better understanding of the controls and my interactions with the e-learning system. I suggested running a screen reader on her PC so she could get used to the alternate interface. I still offer access technology demonstrations to whoever asks, because I feel it’s important to experience how it benefits an individual and hey, it’s pretty darn neat. 

Forward to the present and we now have a library of fully functional and accessible e-learning modules, which anyone can complete no matter what technology they choose to use.  We still have the PDF transcripts, (which incidentally, are properly tagged for accessibility). We also now have documented best practices that guide the construction of every new module that we add to our library. Furthermore, I’m frequently asked to review the new modules in order to ensure their accessibility. It’s been a blast helping the e-learning team, as accessibility can sometimes be a foreign concept to many people. I mean, besides seeing talking computers in movies, or interacting with Siri or 

Google assistant, screen readers are not a common thing to encounter in your day-to-day routine.