Welcome in. Thank you for joining us today. We
actually built this tailored deep dive specifically
for you. Yeah, we really did. It's a great topic.
It is. Today, our core mission is exploring a
hidden, often frustrating, but absolutely essential
world. We're pulling back the curtain on digital
accessibility in education. Right, which is one
of those invisible infrastructures that you probably
don't even think about until you suddenly hit
a wall. Exactly. But behind the scenes, it's
causing this massive cultural shift in how knowledge
is delivered. And to guide our conversation today,
we're looking at a really fascinating, highly
practical piece of writing from September 2020.
A very interesting time for education, to say
the least. Right. The post is titled ADA Compliance
and Inclusivity, and it's by Gary Ackerman, published
on his site hackscience .education. And you know,
to truly grasp the weight of the insights in
this post, we really should look at who is delivering
them. Yeah, his background is key here. It is.
Gary Ackerman is not just some outside observer
throwing stones at the education sector. Based
on the metadata in his published works, he is
deeply embedded in the trenches of school IT
and leadership. He writes a lot about these systemic
challenges, right? He does. He has books with
titles like, Efficacious Technology Management
and Technology -Rich Teaching. He even hosts
this bite -sized show called, Crucial Plus Classroom,
where he tackles these messy intersections with
episodes like, Business and Politics are Not
Teaching and Learning. So he clearly deals with
the day -to -day headaches of technology planning,
data analytics, and actually managing educators
on the ground. Exactly. He is the person tasked
with turning grand abstract ideas about educational
technology into functional realities in real
-world schools. Okay, let's unpack this because
the core conflict he introduces right at the
beginning of this post is incredibly relatable.
He really is. He describes this boiling point
where faculty members are suddenly being bombarded
with strict mandates to make of their online
course resources accessible, the catch, as Ackerman
points out, is that these are steps they technically
should have been taking forever. Yeah, we are
looking at a classic collision of theory and
practice here. I mean, the ADA, the Americans
with Disabilities Act, it's a civil rights law
that has been around for decades. Insuring equal
access for individuals with disabilities? Right.
And in the physical world, we understand this
easily. You know, think of wheelchair ramps,
elevator access, or braille on room sides. Things
you see every day. Exactly. But in the digital
space of higher education, those long -standing
ADA compliance standards were largely treated
as theoretical ideals. They weren't really enforced
as routine parts of a teacher's workflow. Until
now. Right. Suddenly, an intense microscope is
placed on digital materials and a massive gap
in compliance is exposed. And the list of technical
hurdles these educators are suddenly expected
to clear is staggering, especially if they don't
have a background in web development. Oh, it's
overwhelming. Ackerman lists out the specific
mandates falling onto their pleats. First, faculty
are told they must provide alt text for all images.
Which, for anyone unfamiliar, alt text is a hidden
written description of an image embedded in a
document or webpage. Right, so if a visually
impaired student relies on a screen reader, that
software reads the alt text out loud so the student
doesn't miss the visual context. Without it,
the screen reader literally just announces image,
leaving the student entirely in the dark. And
the technical requirements keep going. They also
have to ensure the color contrast on every single
document, PDF, and slide presentation exceeds
a 4 .5 to 1 ratio. Right. And in plain terms,
a 4 .5 to 1 color contrast means the text needs
to stand out sharply against the background to
be readable for people with visual impairments
or color blindness. So that trendy light gray
text on a white slide. Or yellow font on a light
blue background. Yeah. That is an automatic failure.
under these guidelines. And it isn't just a visual
check either. They are mandated to proactively
run specialized accessibility checkers before
releasing any file to the students. Then comes
the video component. They have to provide accurate
closed captions and written transcripts for all
of their recorded materials. That's a lot. How
is a single educator supposed to absorb all those
technical formatting rules while simultaneously
teaching their actual subject? That's the million
-dollar question, and Ackerman breaks the sheer
scale of this problem down into what is essentially
a triple threat for faculty. The first part of
that threat is the backlog. Educators being told
they must go back and fix the massive archives
of files they have created over the years. Imagine
a biology professor who has been teaching for
two decades. Exactly. They have thousands of
PowerPoint slides filled with complex diagrams,
none of which have alt text, and many of which
fail the color contrast rules. Trying to retrospectively
fist 20 years of curriculum material sounds completely
unmanageable alongside a full -time teaching
load. It really does. And the second part of
the threat compounds the issue. They have to
adopt entirely new workflows to make sure all
new materials are accessible from the moment
of creation. So every new syllabus, every new
assignment sheet... Every single announcement
must meet the standards. They have to change
their deeply ingrained daily habits. Then Ackerman
points out the third, and perhaps most daunting,
part of this mandate. The vast new collection
of online materials being generated daily. Ackerman
specifically highlights recorded lectures. He
notes that this particular group of educators
cannot easily move away from lecture capture
as their dominant teaching method. And the sheer
volume of video content they generate is exploding.
Right. Every single hour of recorded lecture
now requires a highly accurate transcript and
closed captioning to meet the mandate. So they're
being asked to fix the past, completely rewire
their present habits and build a massive, perfectly
formatted future all at once. What's fascinating
here is the sheer disconnect between the longstanding
existence of these accessibility standards and
the sudden frantic expectation for compliance.
Because these aren't new laws. No, not at all.
The necessity of a screen reader is not a new
concept, but the operational culture of higher
education and school IT simply had not made these
practices a mandatory expectation until this
specific breaking point. So dropping decades
of deferred infrastructure maintenance onto the
laps of teachers creates this massive shock to
the system. Exactly. But Ackerman does not just
point fingers at the faculty for failing to do
this earlier. He actually shows a profound amount
of empathy for the educators caught in the middle
of this avalanche. He does. He repeatedly emphasizes
the phrase, I understand. He understands the
crushing time demands. And we must keep the context
of this source in mind. This post was published
in September 2020. Right. The entire landscape
of teaching had just been completely upended.
Institutions were facing a wildly uncertain future.
Everyone operating within a school system was
already stretched to their absolute breaking
point. Context is everything when analyzing institutional
change. I mean, faculty members are hired to
be subject matter experts. They hold advanced
degrees in literature, quantum physics, or medieval
history. They are not, as Ackerman clearly states,
experts in document creation. Right. When they
are suddenly instructed to spend countless hours
formatting paragraph styles and testing the hex
codes of their font colors to ensure a 4 .5 to
1 ratio, a very real psychological barrier emerges.
To a subject matter expert, wrestling with a
PDF tag tree feels entirely disconnected from
the core act of teaching. It feels like purely
administrative busy work. And the perception
of busy work is a massive hurdle in any organization.
Ackerman acknowledges why a teacher would resist
being asked to do something they've never been
asked to do before. Especially when their entire
professional world has just been turned upside
down and they're trying to keep their heads above
water. Let's bring this directly to you, our
listener, for a moment to put that psychological
barrier into perspective. Have you ever been
handed a sudden massive administrative task at
your job that felt like total busy work? Oh,
we've all been there. Maybe your company switched
to a convoluted new HR software and you suddenly
had to spend three hours re -entering project
data you already submitted months ago. Right,
and you likely resented it because it took you
away from your actual job. To the professor,
formatting a syllabus to ADA standards feels
like that frustrating software glitch. But to
the student relying on a screen reader, that
formatting is the crucial infrastructure that
determines whether they can participate in the
class at all. It is a painful but necessary period
of professional growth for the educators. The
task is objectively tedious, but the outcome
is a fundamental civil right for the student.
And Ackerman does point out a silver lining in
the text regarding the technology itself. The
software companies are not just sitting idly
by while users struggle. They are actively stepping
up to help bridge this gap. He notes that these
companies are significantly improving the functionality
of their accessibility checkers. The tools are
becoming much easier to locate within the software
menus rather than being buried in obscure settings.
Importantly, Ackerman highlights that the software
is starting to actively warn users when they
are failing to utilize these accessibility features.
Like a pop -up. Right. The platforms are building
in prompts that essentially say, hey, you are
about to publish a document that fails color
contrast checks. The burden of remembering the
rules is slowly being shared by the tools themselves.
Here's where it gets really interesting. Ackerman
doesn't just diagnose the problem and leave us
wallowing in the difficulty of it all. No. He
leverages his background in efficacious technology
management to map out a structural solution.
He lays out a clear four -step framework for
solving this systemic issue, making it crystal
clear that institutions cannot just dump this
mandate onto the teachers and walk away. Building
a functional ecosystem is the only way through
the transition. So step one of Ackerman's framework
starts at the very top of the institution, leadership's
role. He writes that leaders must make their
expectations clear, demanding a good faith effort
from everyone to make materials accessible. However,
an unfunded mandate is useless. Exactly. He suggests
leaders establish simple, actionable checklists,
but crucially, they must find the money to pay
for good tools. That funding aspect is huge.
You cannot demand high -level compliance if you
refuse to purchase the software that generates
accurate closed captions or seamless accessibility
checks. Once leadership funds the tools and sets
the expectations, we move to step two, the role
of educational technology professionals. These
are the IT staff and the instructional designers.
Their specific job in this ecosystem is to recommend
the best tools, teach the faculty how to use
them, and provide ongoing support. for the specific
items on leadership's checklist. They act as
the bridge between the administrative mandate
and the classroom execution. Right. And only
after the leadership funds the initiative and
the IT department provides the training do we
reach step three, teacher's action. Once the
clear expectations are set and the supported
tools are readily available, teachers must willingly
adopt and adapt to those tools. The institutional
resistance has to end. once the proper support
structure is in place. Which transitions seamlessly
into step four, perhaps the most philosophical
of the pillars, teacher's mindset. Ackerman insists
that teachers must recognize these tools. The
accessibility checkers, the captioning software,
are simply technologies. He grounds this idea
with a brilliant analogy about the analog tools
we used to rely on, the pencil analogy. I love
this part. He reminds the reader that even old
familiar technologies had severe flaws. Pencils
broke during exams, paper tore, typewriter ribbons
jammed. Even with those analog technologies,
educators were sometimes without the tools they
needed, and the results were rarely instantaneous
and perfect. We really do have a deep societal
tendency to romanticize the past. We assume older
tools were flawless, reliable extensions of ourselves.
While getting disproportionately frustrated by
the learning curve of any new digital tool. Right.
Every technology, whether it is a piece of chalk
or an automated transcript generator, requires
a baseline of expertise, and every technology
occasionally breaks down. Ackerman is demanding
that teachers apply the exact same patience to
a confusing digital accessibility checker that
they would naturally apply to a jammed pencil
sharpener. You can't just throw your hands up
and expect it to work perfectly by magic. It
takes time, patience, and a willingness to learn
the quirks of the tool. If we connect this to
the bigger picture, Ackerman is illustrating
how a shared responsibility model creates a sustainable
workflow. When leadership provides the funding
and clear checklists. When EdTech provides the
training and support. And when teachers adapt
with a patient mindset. The impossible avalanche
of accessibility becomes a manageable, routine
process. If any single one of those four pillars
collapses, if leadership hides the checkbook,
or if teachers refuse to learn the software,
the entire inclusivity initiative fails. It is
a highly pragmatic, operational way to view institutional
change. However, Ackerman does not mince words
when addressing individuals who refuse to participate
in this shared ecosystem. No, he takes an uncompromising
stance toward the end of his post. He issues
what amounts to a professional ultimatum. He
states plainly that if you find yourself in any
of these roles, whether you are a university
president, an IT professional, or a tenured teacher,
and you are not willing to accept this successability
work as a fundamental part of your profession,
then it is time for you to find a new profession
entirely. Wow. He really strips away all the
padding and puts the reality of the situation
right on the table. Furthermore, He directly
addresses the labor arguments that often arise
around new mandates. He states that expecting
digital accessibility is not a change in work
conditions that needs to be negotiated in a contract
dispute. And we should note here for our listener
that we are simply reporting Ackerman's stated
viewpoints from his 2020 post to explore the
ideas he lays out. Right. We aren't endorsing
this specific stance on labor relations, just
unpacking his argument. Exactly. His perspective
frames digital accessibility not as an add on
chore or an extra duty, but as a non -negotiable
baseline of what it means to be a modern educator.
Regardless of how a listener might view the labor
aspect of his argument, his train of thought
brings us to the ultimate conclusion of the text.
which I find to be a stark reality check. He
exposes a massive inclusivity paradox within
higher education. Colleges and universities heavily
brand themselves on the concept of inclusivity.
It is the centerpiece of every recruitment brochure,
every mission statement, every welcoming address
given to freshmen. They present themselves as
equitable communities dedicated to serving all
students. But Ackerman points out the inescapable
flaw in that marketing. No college can legitimately
claim to be an inclusive community if they are
not taking the creation of accessible materials
seriously. He emphasizes those words heavily
in the text. Seriously. Very seriously. This
raises an important question regarding the vast
chasm between public relations and operational
reality. An institution can host endless seminars
on equity, diversity and inclusion. They can
form committees and draft visionary statements.
But if a student who relies on a screen reader
cannot access the basic PDF syllabus for their
economics class because the professor felt formatting
the document was beneath them or just too time
consuming, then that institution is fundamentally
inequitable. True inclusivity is not a marketing
buzzword. It is a 4 .5 to 1 color contrast ratio.
It is alt text on a diagram of a cell. It is
accurately synced closed captions on a lecture
about the Civil War. It is highly technical,
deeply unglamorous work. The daily technical
execution of accessibility is the only true measure
of an institution's commitment to equity. If
the mundane, behind -the -scenes digital practices
do not align with the university's highest public
ideals, the public claims are essentially void.
So what does this all mean for you, whether you
work in education, corporate management, or entirely
outside of the office space? When we distill
this deep dive down to its core, the key takeaway
is that building a genuinely fair and inclusive
environment requires tedious, mandatory, daily
effort. You cannot simply declare equity into
existence through a mission statement. You have
to finkly and digitally format it into existence.
It requires leadership to spend actual capital.
on good tools. Tech professionals to offer patient
support. And individuals at all levels to accept
that proper formatting is a core professional
responsibility, not a dismissable administrative
annoyance. It demands a complete paradigm shift
in how organizations allocate their time, moving
past the philosophical discussions and into the
weeds of digital infrastructure. We want to leave
you with a final thought to mull over, building
upon Ackerman's uncompromising insights. If highly
respected, well -funded educational institutions
struggle this deeply to implement basic digital
checklists, like ensuring a simple contrast ratio
on a PowerPoint slide while publicly claiming
to be equitable champions. What other invisible
barriers exist in the physical or digital spaces
that you navigate every single day? What other
crucial infrastructures are easily solved by
basic tools but are currently being completely
ignored in your own industry simply due to time
constraints or the stubborn perception of busy
work. Applying that lens to our own workplaces
might reveal gaps in access we've been walking
past for years. Thank you for joining us for
this deep dive. Our goal is always to extract
the vital nuggets of knowledge from our sources,
keeping you well informed and ready to view the
systems around you just a little bit differently.
Until next time, keep questioning the invisible
infrastructure in your world.