Hi everyone,

Activity 3: Record Audio

I chose to start my audio recording using 44,100 Hz. I also started my audio recording with 20 seconds of silence to assess whether noise reduction was required. I did not find any large amounts of background noise so I simply edited out the first 20 seconds of silence. My short audio recording is simply a brief personal introduction. I was happy to discover that Audacity was the chosen audio-editing software for this activity as I have prior experience working within this specific program. I was able to effectively follow the “Record” tutorial (Audacity, 2019) and I was able to set my recording meter without any distracting feedback or mic noise. I am excited to learn more about recording audio for the purposes of podcast and educational lessons.

Please listen to my brief recording below…

Activity 4: Edit Audio

I chose to edit my Open Yale Course resource from Activity 2. I used Audacity to trim all audio outside of my chosen 10:00-14:44 selection of audio. I first had to download the original 45:04 audio recording from Tamar Gendler. I then imported the audio recording into Audacity. Once Audacity finished importing my resource I then chose to use the Selection Tool (F1) which allowed me to highlight from 00:00 to 10:00 and from 14:45 to 45:04. Once I highlighted these two sections using the Selection Tool (F1), I then clicked Trim Audio Outside Selection (CTRL+T). Clicking CTRL+T deleted my two chosen selections which left me with my trimmed audio recording of 4:44. I also chose to use the Normalize effect which reduced peak amplitude to -1.0 dB.

Please listen to the edited Open Yale Course resource below:

Activity 5: Use Audio Filters

I chose to use noise reduction to filter out some of the background noise from the “Oral Book Reports” (Unidentified & Meyers, 1967/1968) audio clip. I used my keyboard to Select All (CTRL+A) and then I selected Noise Reduction in the Effects list. Within the Noise Reduction settings I chose 10DB noise reduction with 6.00 sensitivity as I personally felt that anything above 10-12 DB noise reduction reduced the overall clarity of the narrator’s voice without major benefit to the reduction of background noise. Overall, I felt that the Noise Reduction effect worked effectively to reduce the large degree of background static in the original recording.

Please listen to the original “Oral Book Reports” (Unidentified & Meyers, 1967/1968) audio clip below:

Now, compare the original “Oral Book Reports” (Unidentified & Meyers, 1967/1968) audio clip with my noise-reduced edit below:

 

Activity 6: Combine Audio Files

I created an audio file on the topic of art within human psychology. I chose to add a basic piano music file from Last.fm to work with my narration file. Please listen to the embedded audio file below.

I chose to follow the “Mixing a Narration with Background Music” (Audacity, 2019) tutorial throughout this activity.

The main difficulty I discovered was that Step 4 of the Audacity tutorial only provides guidance pertaining to overlapping the primary narration sections with the background music. However, for the purposes of this activity, I chose not to overlap my background music throughout the entirety of my narration. As a consequence, I had to learn how to cut my music track into four smaller sections in order to use them as intermissions before, between, and after my narration sections.

I also chose to record my narration section in one attempt as I wanted to challenge myself to edit out coughing, audio-peaks, and stuttering. My original recording was close to 10-minute in duration and was disjointed prior to my editing.

Throughout this activity I had to use the cut tool, the selection tool, and the envelope tool in order to create fade in and fade out effects. I also needed to use the Amplify and the Normalize effects in order to reduce peaking sounds which were quite loud in my original recording (I could use a new mic). I would imagine using my audio file on Carl Jung’s (1933) Modern Man in Search of a Soul as a brief podcast or as a supplementary material to a psychology unit.

Best,

Carson 🙂

References

Audacity. (2019, November 15). Record. https://manual.audacityteam.org/man/record.html

Audacity. (2019, November 15). Tutorial: Mixing a narration with background music. https://manual.audacityteam.org/man/tutorial_mixing_a_narration_with_background_music.html

Gendler, T. (2012, March 27). 3. parts of the soul I : Tamar Gendler. Internet Archive. Retrieved February 28, 2022, from https://archive.org/details/podcast_philosophy-science-huma_3-parts-soul-i_1000112264831

Jung, C. G. (1933). Modern Man in Search of a Soul. Harcourt.

Unidentified (Speaker), & Meyers, M. (Collector). (1967/1968). Oral book reports with 18 year old white female, New Haven, Connecticut [Speech audio recording]. Library of Congress. https://www.loc.gov/item/afccal000204/

Hi everyone,

Learning Outcome

Students will be able to identify, understand, and differentiate between Freud’s id, ego, and superego.

Listen to the following podcast by Tamar Gendler (Parts of the Soul I) from Internet Archive and Open Yale Courses . Please be aware that you are only required to listen to the section from 10:30-15:00.

Using Audio to Support Learning

This audio resource supports my learning outcomes since it first differentiates how the id, ego, and superego differ from one another. Secondly, this audio resource supports my learning outcomes since it clearly argues that while the id regards human impulse and drive in an unconscious way, it is the ego which manifests human consciousness and self-reflection. The selected section of the audio resource is then concluded by stating that the tension between the impulsive action of the id and the conscious awareness of the ego is counterbalanced by the absence or presence of the human integration and internalization of social norms and taboos.

Carter’s (2012) Principles of Audio Design & My Audio File

My selected audio resource from Open Yale Courses is well-supported by Carter’s (2012) four audio design principles. For example, the lecture recording of Tamar Gendler uses a combination of Carter’s (2012) informational narrative of presenting facts in a clear and concise way with brief references to student participation in their course-readings (p. 55). It is also evidence that Tamar Gendler speaks in short-sentences which is indicative of Carter’s focus on the fleeting nature of spoken words which dictates that audio recordings need be avoidant of unnecessary complexity (p. 56).

It is also very clear that my chosen Open Yale audio-resource avoids inappropriate environmental sounds which would have distracted students listening to the audio recording (p. 56). Lastly, my selected audio recording of Tamar Gendler’s brief lecture on Freud’s Theory of Personality helps to reinforce student listening since it Tamar Gendler avoids the “unexpected silences, hesitations, and ‘um’ moments” which helps all students listening to the audio recording to not exert excessive cognitive processing (p. 57).

Suitability & Reflection

Upon reflection of the overall suitability of this audio-file, I believe that it is highly suitable but that it requires minor editing. For instance, while I feel that the selected audio from 10:30-15:00 behaves as an excellent supplementary resource for my learning outcome, I nonetheless believe that if I were to edit/clip the audio to only be my selected portion of the entire 40-minute lecture that students would have an easier means of managing the content.

Best,

Carson 🙂

References

Carter, C. W. (2012, October 26). Instructional audio guidelines: Four design principles to consider for every instructional audio design effort. Techtrends: Linking Research & Practice to Improve Learning, 56(6), 54–58. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11528-012-0615-z

Gendler, T. (2012, March 27). 3. parts of the soul I : Tamar Gendler. Internet Archive. Retrieved February 28, 2022, from https://archive.org/details/podcast_philosophy-science-huma_3-parts-soul-i_1000112264831

Hi everyone,

Learning outcomes measured by the assignment:

After you successfully complete this module, you will be able to:

(1) Differentiate types of learning disability.

(2) Consider challenges to university learning.

(3) Connect theoretical knowledge of learning disabilities to personal case study.

(4) Create a PowerPoint demonstrating knowledge of learning disabilities, the challenges they present to university learners, and the challenges they might present to educators in the creation of universal design for learning.

Short, descriptive title:

A multimedia student project on the impact of learning disabilities within college environments.

A plain-language purpose for the assignment:

The purpose of this assignment is to ensure that students will understand how learning disabilities provide opportunistic challenges to better student-teacher interaction.

A narrative description of the deliverable(s) that includes two or three of the criteria items (that would be used in an assessment rubric):

(1) Your group is responsible for creating a PowerPoint media presentation. Be creative in terms of your use of photographs, words, voice-narration, and other forms of multimedia.

(2) Use the first half of your PowerPoint to lay out an introduction of team-members followed by outlines of learning disability characteristics and a brief personal case study of being exposed to or having a learning disability and how this impacted your learning experience. Use the final half of your presentation to ensure that you connect your personal case study of a learning disability to theory.

(3) The included grading rubric is based on the creation of a presentation which is no longer than 10-minutes in length. Be sure that your presentation differentiates 3-4 different learning disabilities and that you concisely connect your personal case study to theory.

A short description of the process(es) and/or steps that students will take in producing their media:

Step 1: Use the ERIC database to search for scholarly journals pertaining to various learning disabilities.

Collect 3-4 scholarly journals on different learning disabilities. Read your sourced journals and take thorough notes. Consider how your chosen 3-4 learning disabilities might affect individualized and group learning contexts. Source Creative Commons photographs for each learning disability that you are researching.

Step 2: As a team, demonstrate your knowledge of your chosen learning disabilities within the first half of your presentation. It is particularly important that you differentiate your chosen learning disabilities and how they independently create unique challenges to learning.

Step 3: Connect your theoretical knowledge of your chosen learning disabilities to a personal case study of having been exposed to someone with a learning disability or having a learning disability. It is particularly important that you use the final half of your presentation to personalize what your team learned during the research stage by making specific personal connections to how learning disabilities provide opportunities to reinforce greater interrelationship between students and teachers. It is also important to identify how physical or learning disabilities interact with the social classrooms we share.

Team or individual responsibility for the project (or for specific steps of the project):

In this group project, you will be working with 3-4 students. Each student is independently responsible for contributing an equal share of work while simultaneously being responsible in the overall completion of their chosen group goal. I recommend that you meet with your fellow group members prior to beginning your group project in order to foster preliminary rapport and team building.

A timescale for the project:

You should intend to meet with your group members at the beginning of Week 5 and begin the research process for your group project beginning in Week 6. It is expected that your rough draft be handed into the collaborative group project forum by the end of Week 7 with your final amended draft submitted to the Moodle Dropbox by the end of Week 8.

Best,

Carson 🙂

Activity 5: Student Media Project Rubric

Rubric	3-4 points	2 points	1 point	0 points
	Excellent	Good	Adequate	Requires Improvement
Organization of the Project	The project clearly organizes and describes 3-4 learning disabilities throughout the first half of the presentation.	The project organizes and describes 2 learning disabilities throughout the first half of the presentation.	The project organizes and describes only 1 learning disability throughout the first half of the presentation.	The project does not organize or describe any learning disabilities.
Exploration of Research	The project contains 3-4 scholarly references.	The project contains 2 scholarly references.	The project contains 1 scholarly reference.	The project does not contain any exploration or selection of scholarly references.
Connection to Experiences	Project clearly identifies how 3-4 articles of learning disability research applies and connects to three or four personal/group experiences.	Project identifies how 2 articles of learning disability research applies and connects to two personal/group experiences.	Project only connects one article of learning disability research to one personal/group experience.	Project does not connect any articles of learning disability research to any personal/group experiences or case studies.
Presentation	Information was presented with 3-4 different forms of multimedia (i.e., narrated slides, video, photographs, and artwork were implemented).	Information was presented with 2 different forms of multimedia (i.e., narrated slides and video were implemented).	Information was presented with only one form of multimedia (i.e., only narration of slides was implemented).	Information was presented without any use of multimedia (i.e., the slides were all blank).
Group Responsibility	Student displayed unwavering listening and dialogue skills. In specific instances of group debate and negotiation, the student displayed measure and respect for all opinions.	Student displayed reliable listening and dialogue skills. In specific instances of group debate and negotiation, the student displayed respect for all opinions but at times was distracted with their own tasks and responsibilities which detracted from their attentiveness on group needs.	Student displayed reasonable listening and dialogue skills. In specific instances of group debate and negotiation, the student displayed respect for most opinions but when faced with disagreement, the student would not find mutual compromise.	Student displayed a total lack of listening and dialogue skills. The student did not participate in any group dialogue, negotiation, or activity.
Individual Responsibility	Student contributed 100% of their expected share of the group project submitted the group project to the Dropbox prior to or by the due date.	Student contributed more than 75% of their expected share of the group project and submitted the project to the Dropbox by the due date.	Student contributed less than 50% of their expected share of the group project and submitted the project to the Dropbox after the due date.	Student did not contribute anything to the group project and did not submit anything to the Dropbox prior to or after the due date.

Hi everyone,

-Psychological Theory-

Learning Outcome

Students will be able to identify, understand, and differentiate between Freud’s concepts of the id, ego, superego, and their associated levels of consciousness.

Goal

In this activity, you will explore Chapter 14 of Psychology (Wade et al., 2015) which will help you to complete the provided end of unit quiz.

1. Focus on Freud’s Theory of Personality.
2. Understand and differentiate between consciousness, pre-conscious, and unconsciousness.
3. Understand and differentiate between Freud’s conception of id, ego, and superego.

Scope

As you read Chapter 14, please consider the following questions:

• Does acknowledging the existence of unconscious forces matter? Is acknowledgement of the unconscious enough to resolve inner conflicts?
• What do you think Wade et al., (2015) means when he writes that our conscious intentions have less power over our personalities than our unconscious motives?
• Which defense mechanisms do you see occurring in your own behavior?

After you have completed the required reading, please view the attached quiz below, and re-visit the questions above in order to answer the quiz questions in your own words.

Note: it is also expected that you will provide brief examples of how you have used defense mechanisms in order to avoid conflict or anxiety in your own life.

Timings & Submission Location

It is expected that you complete the required Ch. 14 textbook reading by the end of Unit 2 with the completion of the attached quiz by the end of Unit 3. The reading and quiz should take you no longer than 3 hours to complete. Please submit the quiz into the drop box by the end of Week 3.

Conclusion

I enjoyed this assignment as it enabled me the opportunity to remix a piece of media I found through a Creative Commons search which re-routed me to Wikipedia Commons where I found this original piece of media below:

According to the Wikipedia Commons site, this piece of media is Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International which allowed me free reign to remix and adapt the image through the use of Paint 3D so long as I provided appropriate credit. I felt that by turning the original media into a quiz that I was able to not only add additional visual content pertaining to defense mechanisms but also challenging and self-reflective questions for the first-year psychology students to consider.

Best,

Carson 🙂

References

File: Diagram of Freud’s Psychoanalytic Theory of Personality .WEBP. Wikimedia Commons. (n.d.). Retrieved February 15, 2022, from https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=84506706#filelinks

Wade, C., Tavris, C., Saucier, D., & Elias, l. (2015). Psychology (4th Canadian ed). Pearson Canada.

Hi everyone,

Introduction

While I have taken a brief reprieve from publishing psychological and spiritual articles on sparrowsoftruth.com, I nonetheless share in supporting the psychological and spiritual learning of others on this website on occasion. I intend to create an activity where learners can create a graphic to demonstrate their understanding of narcissistic personality disorder. My graphic creation activity is designed to be completed within 2 hours.

Learning Outcome

Upon completion of this graphic creation activity, students will have learned how to conceptualize and create a graphic which best represents a minimum of 3 primary facets of narcissistic personality disorder.

Activity Description

Goal

Create an infographic explaining three characteristics of narcissistic personality disorder and their deleterious effects on psychological well-being within human relationships. Your infographic should be conceptually reinforced through one reading of the provided texts of MacKenzie (2019) or Durvasula (2015).

Scope

The size of your infographic should fit within a 960 x 720-pixel Google Draw document. Before beginning this task, ensure that you understand and focus on including Mayer’s (2014) coherence principle, Dunlap & Lowenthal’s (2016) principle of immediacy (p. 47), and Clark & Lyons (2010) focus on organizational graphics (p. 18). You are free to exclude relational and interpretive visuals as this creative project is qualitatively designed rather than focusing on quantitative or biological aspects of narcissistic personality disorder (Clark & Lyons, 2010, p. 19).

Boundaries

This graphic design activity is designed to be completed at the individual level of study. You are free to create an entirely new piece of graphic content or remix an online infographic insofar as the infographic is Creative Commons licensed.

While I recommend that you use Google Draw due to its ease of use, you are free to use Inkscape or Sumo Paint. Keep in mind that your graphic need not be graphically extravagant. Rather, my expectation is that you will be able to create a graphic which is logically coherent, concise, and capable of evoking attention for the purpose of illustrating the deleterious relational consequences of narcissism within relationships (Dunlap & Lowenthal, 2016, p. 47-48).

Timings & Submission Location

It is expected that this creative design activity will only take roughly 2 hours to complete. While there is no Drop Box for submission, you are free to send me your completed infographics through my websites contact form.

Technical Tutorials

Google Drawings Tutorial

Sumo Paint Tutorial

Inkscape Tutorial

 

Best,

Carson 🙂

References

Clark, R. C., & Lyons, C. (2010). Graphics for learning : Proven guidelines for planning, designing, and evaluating visuals in training materials. Center for Creative Leadership.

Dunlap, J. C. & Lowenthal, P. R. (2016, September 8). Getting graphic about infographics: Design lessons learned from popular infographics. Journal of Visual Literacy, 35(1), 42–59. https://doi.org/10.1080/1051144X.2016.1205832

Mayer, R. E. (2014). Multimedia instruction. In J. M. Spector, M. D. Merrill, J. Elen, & M. J. Bishop (Eds.), Handbook of research on educational communications and technology (4th ed., pp. 385-399). Springer Science & Business Media. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-3185-5

Hi everyone,

-Drama of the Amygdala-

Learning Outcome

Upon completion of a brief study of the amygdala infographic it will be each student’s responsibility to ensure that they are capable of describing at least three emotions with examples which the amygdala is responsible for producing.

Intended Audience

This infographic would be directed towards the learning of first-year psychology students who are taking an introduction to psychology course. Age-group would be 18 years of age and up with no educational pre-requisites aside from documentation of a GED or Grade 12 diploma.

Theoretical Underpinnings

By surrounding my sourced amygdala infographic with a title, a brief caption, and a learning outcome, I am better able to support student learning through greater adherence to Clark & Lyons (2010) notion of interpretive graphics whereby my infographic displays the general location of the amygdala within the human brain and how it explains invisible emotional processes within the human brain (p. 19).

This infographic also allows students to only focus on one learning outcome while simultaneously creating compellingness since the infographic effectively “propels the learner through the content via a succession of related ideas” surrounding emotions (Dunlap & Lowenthal, 2016, p. 48, 55).

Best,

Carson 🙂

References

Clark, R. C., & Lyons, C. (2010). Graphics for learning : Proven guidelines for planning, designing, and evaluating visuals in training materials. Center for Creative Leadership.

Dunlap, J. C. & Lowenthal, P. R. (2016, September 8). Getting graphic about infographics: Design lessons learned from popular infographics. Journal of Visual Literacy, 35(1), 42–59. https://doi.org/10.1080/1051144X.2016.1205832

Hi everyone,

Original Photograph

I chose to use the open-source Gimp application. I chose to crop a photo of a Buddha statue which I felt contained quite a bit of extraneous and inconsequential background.

Cropped Photograph

I chose to focus on Buddha rather than the open-sky or the brick wall below since Buddha was the focal point who contains a lot of meaning in Buddhist tradition. It was important for me to ensure that I followed Mayer’s (2014) coherence principle since Mayer argues that readers and viewers of multimedia projects learn more readily when the images and written content avoids “extraneous material”. Since it would be my intention to focus on Buddha’s life within a piece of curriculum, including the open-sky would do little to add to my focal point.

Workflow Concerns

In the end, I felt that navigating and understanding how to use Gimp to crop an image was a somewhat indirect process since the cropping tool was not linear but required the use of a ‘snipping’ tool which took some getting used to. I also had a small amount of difficulty understanding how to save my cropped image in JPEG format since every time I tried to save my image it saved as a .XCF file. If you choose to use Gimp to edit your photographs ensure that you navigate to:

Select File > Export As.
Use the Export As box to assign a name and location to the image.
Click Select File Type to open the list of available file types.
Scroll down the list and select JPEG Image.

Finally, you can see my re-sized imaged below. This one is roughly 25% the size of the original cropped image I made above.

Activity 5: Create a Graphic

An old learning objective I created for a course pertaining to Sternberg’s Triangular Theory of Love is:

“By the end of this unit, students will be able to create a short-essay that demonstrates a clear understanding of Sternberg’s three principles of love”.

Once again, this graphic would serve as a supplement to a textbook such as Branscombe & Baron’s “Social Psychology” but this graphic nonetheless would aid students towards understanding the abstract interactions between Sternberg’s notions of passion, commitment, and intimacy.

The graphic I created to help students with understanding the triarchic dynamics of Sternberg’s Triangular Theory of Love is seen below:

I chose to use Google Drawing as my graphic design tool. The primary reading which supports my design is once again Mayer’s (2014) coherence principle. My design process involved the creation of a three-pronged lightning strike towards the center of the screen where ‘love’ emerges. I felt that by making each lightning bolt an independent color which I felt best represented the feelings of passion, intimacy, and commitment that the viewer would connect emotionally through the immediacy of the visuals (Dunlap & Lowenthal, 2016, p. 47).

Through adherence to Mayer’s (2014) coherence principle I created a graphic which avoided extraneous words and images. I also followed Clark & Lyons (2010) recommendation of making use of two-dimensional graphics rather than three-dimensional graphics since third-dimensional images have a negative propensity to create “extraneous mental load” (p. 15).

I hope this helps!

Carson  🙂

References

Clark, R. C., & Lyons, C. (2010). Graphics for learning : Proven guidelines for planning, designing, and evaluating visuals in training materials. Center for Creative Leadership.

Dunlap, J. C. & Lowenthal, P. R. (2016, September 8). Getting graphic about infographics: Design lessons learned from popular infographics. Journal of Visual Literacy, 35(1), 42–59. https://doi.org/10.1080/1051144X.2016.1205832

Hello everyone,

Learning Objective

“By the end of this unit, students will be able to create a short-essay that demonstrates a clear understanding of how the amygdala directly influences their emotional well-being”.

Infographic Link

https://www.flickr.com/photos/190553986@N08/50420143571

Connecting Infographics to Learning Objectives

This psychological infographic is creative common licensed according to Attribution-Non-Commercial-Share Alike 2.0 Generic (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0). This license signifies that I am free to share, copy, distribute, remix, or build upon this infographic as much as I desire so long as I give appropriate credit and indicate if I made any changes to the original infographic.

This infographic supports my learning outcome due to the fact that it concisely describes through the use of sub-headings how the amygdala is responsible for the emotions of human beings. For example, my chosen infographic clearly describes how the amygdala is responsible for fear response, anxiety response, aggression, and happiness.

Recommendations

While I enjoy how this infographic concerning the amygdala acts as the emotional center of the human brain, I would nonetheless use this image as a supplementary material alongside a required textbook such as Chance’s Learning and Behavior textbook. I believe that this infographic is sufficient as it is kept to only one page and connects visual content to written content effectively (Dunlap & Lowenthal, 2016, p. 45, 55). I also believe that my chosen infographic does an effective job of “directing learner attention” to the basic role of the amygdala in terms of producing emotions such as fear and anxiety which therefore supports one of the primary psychological events of learning (Clark & Lyons, 2010, p. 20).

Thanks for reading,

Carson 🙂

References

Clark, R. C., & Lyons, C. (2010). Graphics for learning : Proven guidelines for planning, designing, and evaluating visuals in training materials. Center for Creative Leadership.

Dunlap, J. C. & Lowenthal, P. R. (2016, September 8). Getting graphic about infographics: Design lessons learned from popular infographics. Journal of Visual Literacy, 35(1), 42–59. https://doi.org/10.1080/1051144X.2016.1205832

Hi everyone, I chose to use the Hinterland Who’s Who – Moose resource.

My Vision Impairment Experience

This was the first time that I used the No-Coffee Firefox extension and it was incredible to ‘see’ through a different set of eyes. Navigating through the various degrees of eye blur, contrast loss, glare, ghosting, and cloudiness brought the reality of accessibility to my heart and mind.

Of particular interest to me was how very little blur and cloudiness created a great amount of challenge in perceiving and understanding the Hinterland webpage. Going through this experience reminded me of the importance of web-design and how Hinterland’s use of a grey background rather than a white background added to the perceived blurriness that I experienced.

This activity reminded me of the importance of including audio and visual resources within any websites/blogs that I create. If someone cannot read my webpage, then they should at least be able to navigate towards audio resources as an alternative.

One significant problem I identified was that the only reason that I was able to identify where the YouTube video was on the Hinterland page was because of the bright red button which emerged. If this bright red symbol did not appear, I would have no idea that there was a video on the webpage.

I intend to implement larger fonts with bright-white backgrounds in order to create clear reading contrast. I also want to ensure that where I am able to, I will begin including audio/visual resources where applicable on my own writing website.

Carson 🙂

Hi everyone,

The existing online resource which I used is Hinterland Who’s Who – Moose. 

Since the WCAG guidelines for accessibility directly refer to the POUR set of accessibility it was important for me to identify whether the Hinterland Who’s Who site was perceivable, operable, understandable, and robust.

POUR stands for:

Perceivable: Can materials be observed, heard or seen by learners?

Operable: Can learners interact with the site as intended?

Understandable: Is the site and associated media comprehendible by learners?

Robust: Does the site work across platforms (Windows and Mac, tablets or phones) and is it usable by assistive technologies like screen readers (Hyatt, 2012)?

Assessment of Hinterland Who’s Who Website

On first appearance, it is clear that the Hinterland Who’s Who site concerning the North American moose can be effectively read, heard, and seen since the site contains not only written materials but audio/visual materials which satisfies the perceivability component for accessibility.

Secondly, I was able to easily navigate the Hinterland webpage through the use of both my text-to-speech Chrome extension and through the use of my mouse and keyboard. In my eyes, the Hinterland webpage is very operable and satisfies the operability component for accessibility.

Thirdly, I was able to understand the Hinterland content concerning the North American moose as bullet points, headers, subheadings, photographs and audio/visual resources organized the basic description, habitat, feeding, breeding, and conservation of moose in a clear and concise way. I believe that the Hinterland webpage is thoroughly understandable and satisfies the accessibility requirement for understandability.

Finally, I was able to access the Hinterland Who’s Who webpage on both my PC and my cellphone which allows me to feel that the Hinterland webpage is robust across various platforms.

Conclusion

I believe that the Hinterland website would be an effective resource for my teaching practice since it effectively outlines an excellent model of not only a universal design for education but one which is accessible and interesting. While Hinterland is primarily a biology oriented website, I can nonetheless work at adapting the layout onto my own psychological interests if I were to create an online source for psychological or writing interests.

References

Hyatt, G. W. (2012, September 14). Surf a GB with Glenda’s thumb. Blog Accessibility. http://blogaccessibility.com/surf-a-gb-with-glendas-thumb/

Moose. Hinterland Who’s Who – Moose. (n.d.). Retrieved February 4, 2022, from https://www.hww.ca/en/wildlife/mammals/moose.html

National Center on Accessible Educational Materials. (2015, March 3). Simply said: Understanding accessibility in digital learning materials. YouTube. https://youtu.be/HzE5dj1WTSo