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Instructions: Assistive Technologies Corner provides information on current hardware, software, and peripherals that will assist you in
delivering instruction to students with physical, cognitive, or sensory challenges.
1. What Is the Federal Accessibility Initiative?
In 1998, Congress amended the Rehabilitation Act to require federal agencies to make their electronic and information technology
accessible to people with disabilities. Under Section 508, agencies must give all persons with disabilities access to technology that is
comparable to the access available to others. In addition, the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) has developed accessibility
guidelines encouraging Web authors worldwide to create accessible pages.
2. What Are Accessible Web Pages?
Accessible Web pages are constructed to be usable by anyone, even if the person is using assistive technology to access the Web
page. Examples of assistive technologies are screen readers, screen magnifiers, voice recognition software, alternative keyboards,
and Braille displays. We speak of accessible Web pages as being Section 508 compliant, or meeting Web accessibility guidelines.
3. Do I Have to Make My Web Pages Accessible?
The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) of 1997 (with significant funding allocated under the The American Recovery
and Reinvestment Act of 2009) guarantees access to curriculum for all users. Many school districts have accessibility policies in place
and compliance with those policies is a professional responsibility. After a teacher-created Web page is posted, all should have access to
it, including persons with disabilities.
4. So, How Can I Make My Pages Accessible?
An educator can consider the following issues when developing Web pages to meet accessibility guidelines.
1
Use valid code. WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) programs for Web authoring, such as Dreamweaver, have
means for checking that the HTML code in the pages is valid (correct). Use the option to check code validity in your program of choice.
2
Use CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) when formatting pages. In the preferences of your WYSIWYG program, choose anything
that says, Use CSS.
3
Provide text alternatives to images. When you add an image to a page, write a descriptive phrase for the image, which a
screen reader will voice.
4
Make meaning independent of color. “Click the red triangle” can be a difficult task for a color-blind person, but making each
choice a different shape instead of a different color makes the task independent of color.
5
Include visible text links on a page for images that have hyperlinked hotspots.
6
Use column-and-row tables for data only. Put column and row headers in those data tables.
7
If you choose to use frames, be sure to title each frame you use.
8
Do not depend on scripts to make your Web site work. Some users (not only disabled users) may not be able to run the
scripts.
9
Caption video before putting it on your site.
10
Provide users with an option to skip repetitive links, such as site navigation links.