On February 1st, 2024 we had the pleasure of participating in an online presentation, Inclusive Practices, by Victoria Woelders, an ARC BC Outreach Coordinator. The Accessible Resource Centre BC is your source for high quality alternative formatted digital books/prints that aligns with BC’s K-12 curriculum. This resource was created to help those students with diverse needs such as learning disabilities, physical disabilities and or visual impairments with an online repository of digital books while adhering to the appropriate copyright laws.
In order to access this resource, you must be an eligible educator in BC and or the Yukon and register online by completing a registration process. If you know that you have a student that would benefit from this resource, you would check to see if there is something already available online, and if not, then you would submit the text or material for processing.
Some of the key understandings I took away from this presentation is the idea that as an educator you need to be familiar with the accessibility options within the main platforms like Word and Powerpoint. Within these programs it is also important to pay attention to text-based alternative access so that our diverse learners can benefit from understanding and enjoying the content being taught. It wasn’t until this presentation where I became aware of how simple things like colour contrast, colour schemes and even font style could affect some of our students abilities to learn. If you visit the link below, it will take you to some great resources where you can find tips and tricks on curating materials around issues mentioned above that are inclusive to all students needs. Arc BC has done a great job at providing you with easy online instructions and support for teachers when it comes to providing access to digital learning materials using Google, Adobe and Microsoft.
https://www.arc-bc.org/universal-design
It is more important than ever as teachers, to ensure that we are utilizing universal design for learning in our classrooms. ARC BC is one of many ways you can do this. To be honest, I never really gave much thought to the tools and resources required to help those students with disabilities that can prevent a child from reading or hearing the given material from a teacher. I am grateful for the opportunity to hear Victoria discuss what options are available to teachers in order to help our students feel more confident and have access to learning the given curriculum in a way that benefits them the most.
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