Welcome to today's deep dive. I am I'm so glad
you're joining us today because we are starting
off with a bit of a thought experiment Oh, I
love these. Let's hear it. Right. Okay. So I
want you to imagine you are trying to navigate
through a sprawling densely populated city you
have a critically important meeting to get to
but There is a major catch. There's always a
catch always all the street signs all the subway
maps even the crosswalk signals They only appear
if you are wearing a very specific, very expensive
brand of glasses. Oh, wow. OK. Yeah. If you don't
have those glasses, the signs are just, you know,
blank metal plates. The maps are empty paper.
The city is still there bustling all around you.
But the infrastructure, you need to understand
it to actually move through it is completely
invisible. That's, I mean, it's a profoundly
isolating image. You were essentially locked
out of the flow of information. And the reason
it's so striking is that it perfectly captures
the daily reality of the digital landscape for
millions of people. You know, when accessibility
isn't baked into the design from the start, that's
exactly what it feels like. And today we are
going to explore how that exact scenario plays
out in one of our most critical environments,
which is the classroom. We are pulling from an
incredibly insightful article by Gary Ackerman
from his site hackscience .education. Yeah, his
work is fantastic. It really is. The piece is
titled Ed Tech for IT, Accessibility. And as
a quick side note for you listening, Ackerman
also produces this really cool microed audio
series called Crow Plus Classroom. Oh yeah, the
short ones. Exactly. It's brilliant because he
tackles these massive complex topics like ADA
compliance and inclusivity. But in these incredibly
tight 90 -second bursts, I mean, it is pure distilled
insight. Taking the sprawling complexities of
educational technology and distilling them into
actionable, bite -sized information is a rare
skill. He manages to cut right through the academic
jargon, which is so refreshing. Totally. So our
mission for this deep dive is to take Ackerman's
insights and uncover how the legal mandate of
accessibility in schools has evolved. It's no
longer just about, you know, checking a bureaucratic
compliance box just to avoid a lawsuit. Right.
That's the old way of thinking. Exactly. It is
actually transformed into this secret underlying
engine that improves the digital learning experience
for absolutely everyone. OK, let's unpack this,
because the way we handle accessibility has fundamentally
shifted, right? Let's start with the history.
It has shifted massively, yeah. If we look back
to the baseline, we really have to start with
the Americans with Disabilities Act or the ADA,
which became law back in 1990. Right, 1990. Yeah.
And this is a foundational civil rights law in
the United States. Its core intention is to ensure
that all individuals, regardless of their disability
status, have equal access to public resources.
So when we translate that legal mandate into
the realm of education, it means that every single
material used in a class, textbooks, handouts,
media, whatever, it must be available to all
students. So in the physical classroom of the
1990s, that basically meant if a teacher handed
out a traditional printed textbook, the school
was legally obligated to provide a braille version
or an audio cassette version for a student who
needed it. Right, that was the baseline. But
think about the logistics of that 1990s model.
The burden of creating those accessible materials
largely fell on massive publishing companies.
Right, the textbook giants. Exactly. These giant
publishers had entire departments, workflows,
massive budgets dedicated entirely to producing
alternative versions of their resources. They
printed the standard textbook, then stamped out
the Braille textbook, formatted the large print
textbook. It was just part of the pipeline. Yeah,
it was a known, highly managed variable in their
commercial production cycle. Flash forward to
today, and the landscape of education has changed.
Drastically. I mean, we aren't just handing out
identical textbooks anymore. Not at all. Teachers
are constantly creating their own custom digital
materials. They're throwing together slide decks
on a Sunday afternoon, recording instructional
videos, building custom web portals, formatting
digital quizzes. And that is where the dynamic
completely inverts. When teachers become the
primary creators of instructional materials,
they simultaneously inherit the legal and ethical
responsibility of making sure those materials
are accessible. Which is huge. It is. The burden
moves practically overnight from a multi -million
dollar publishing corporation directly onto the
shoulders of the individual educator. It makes
me think of building a house. Those massive publishers,
they're like commercial contractors building
a skyscraper. They have architects, legal teams,
and compliance officers ensuring every single
inch is built strictly to code. Right. They know
the regulations inside and out. Exactly. But
individual teachers. They're like DIYers building
home extensions on the weekends. They are passionate,
they're working incredibly hard, but they are
doing it in their spare time, often late at night.
How on earth does a weekend DIYer know if their
custom -built digital materials are actually,
you know, up to code? That is the core tension
Ackerman points out. A teacher might design a
highly engaging, visually stunning digital lesson,
but if a student using a screen reading software
can't access it, that lesson is fundamentally
broken. Right. It's the invisible city again.
Yes. And teachers, for all their deep expertise
in pedagogy and child development, they are rarely
trained as digital accessibility compliance officers.
They need a standardized blueprint. Which brings
us to the manual. Because if you have thousands
of DIY teachers trying to build equitable digital
extensions, they need a rule book. And that rule
book arrived in a major way in June 2018. It
did. That is when the World Wide Web Consortium,
which is the international community, that basically
develops web standards. Usually we just call
it the W3C. Right, the W3C. Yeah. They adopted
the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version
2 .1. We usually just abbreviate it to WCAG 2
.1. This became the absolute gold standard. It
specifies the exact characteristics that digital
media must possess to be considered truly accessible.
So Ackerman breaks this down into four mandatory...
characteristics or pillars. And I want to walk
through how a teacher actually applies these
because, let's be honest, reading a web standard
manual sounds about as fun as reading a stereo
instruction booklet. Oh, it is extremely dry
material. Right. So let's say I'm a teacher and
I upload a graphic showing the water cycle. The
first WSAG pillar says my material must be perceivable.
I assume that just means making sure the image
isn't blurry. Well, no. It's actually much deeper
than visual clarity. Perceivable means that the
information must be presentable to users in ways
they can actively perceive through multiple sensory
channels. OK. It cannot be invisible to all of
their senses. In the case of your water cycle
graphic, a student who is blind and using a screen
reader cannot perceive those pixels on the screen.
The image essentially doesn't exist for them.
OK. So how do I fix that? I mean, I can't verbally
describe every single image to the student during
class. You build the description into the code
of the document itself. You use something called
alternative text or alt text. When you upload
that image, you attach a hidden written description
to it. Like a tag. Exactly. Now, the how is really
important here. Bad alt text is just leaving
the file name, like, you know, IMG4092 .jpg.
Oh, and the screen reader would just read that
out. A screen reader will literally read that
out loud. IMG underscore four zero nine two dot
JPG, which tells the student absolutely nothing.
Right, that's useless. Good alt text translates
the visual data into verbal data. So for your
graphic it would say a diagram showing the water
cycle, evaporation from the ocean, condensation
into clouds, and precipitation as rain. Wow,
okay. So when the screen reader hits that image
code, it reads your description aloud, and suddenly
that visual information is transformed into an
audible format. The image becomes perceivable.
That makes so much sense. You're giving the computer
the script it needs to translate for the student.
The same would go for video. Right? If I upload
a video lecture, I have to add closed captions
because the deaf student needs the audio translated
into a visual format they can perceive. Precisely.
You're providing multiple sensory avenues to
the exact same information. OK, so I've added
my alt text to the water cycle and I've captioned
my video. The student can perceive it. But the
second pillar says the material must be operable.
If they can already see or hear it, what does
operable actually mean? Operability is all about
how the user interacts with the digital environment.
The most common hurdle here involves navigation.
Think about how you typically scroll through
a web page or click a link. Just grab my mouse
and click it. Right. But using a mouse requires
a very specific type of fine motor control and
hand -eye coordination. Many individuals with
motor disabilities rely entirely on a keyboard
to navigate a computer. Just the keyboard. Just
the keyboard. Using the Tab key to jump between
links, the Enter key to select, the arrow keys
to scroll. if you design a custom digital quiz
that requires a student to drag and drop answers
using a mouse, and you haven't coded a way to
do that using just the keyboard. Oh, you've completely
locked them out? You've completely locked that
student out. They can perceive the quiz, but
they cannot operate it. Oh, wow. I wouldn't have
even thought of that. If the software doesn't
recognize a tab keystroke, the student is just
stuck staring at a quiz they can't take. Hmm.
And Ackerman also mentioned something under this
pillar about flashing displays. Yes, this is
a critical safety mechanism. Content must not
be designed in a way that is known to cause seizures
or physical reactions. Right. Rapid strobing
effects or certain high contrast animations can
trigger photosensitive epilepsy. Operability
isn't just about being able to click a button.
It is about ensuring the digital environment
is physically safe to interact with. Which brings
us to the third pillar. Yeah. Let's say the student
can perceive my quiz and they can safely operate
it using their keyboard. The third requirement
is that the material must be understandable.
This feels a bit, I don't know, redundant. If
it's perceivable and operable, isn't it inherently
understandable? Not necessarily. Think of it
this way. Perceivable and operable deal with
sensory and physical access. Understandable deals
with cognitive access. It is about the logic
of the user interface. Okay, give me an example.
If your student is tabbing through that digital
quiz using their keyboard, the order their cursor
moves should be logical. It should go from question
one to answer A, B, C, then to question two.
If the focus jumps randomly from question one
down to the footer of the page, then back up
to question four. That would be incredibly confusing.
Exactly. The operation isn't understandable.
Oh, I see. It's about predictability. It's also
about clear communication when things go wrong.
If a student makes an error on a digital form,
the error message needs to explicitly explain
what went wrong and how to fix it. Just flashing
a generic red X isn't understandable. Yeah, that's
just frustrating. And the navigation of a class
website should be consistent. You don't want
the main menu on the left side on Monday and
then hidden in a drop -down menu on the right
side on Tuesday. Keep it logical. Keep the cognitive
load low. I'm with you. But now we hit the fourth
pillar, and I have to be honest, I need to push
back on this one. Let's hear it. The fourth pillar
is that materials must be robust. Ackerman notes
this means materials must be compatible both
forward and backward in time. That is the standard,
yes. But technology changes at an absolutely
lightning speed. Telling a busy teacher that
the digital worksheet they're scrambling to finish
on a Tuesday night needs to be compatible forward
and backward in time sounds completely unreasonable.
It does sound like a lot. I mean, I remember
trying to code my MySpace page back in 2006,
and if I put one bracket in the wrong place,
the whole page got fire. How is an algebra teacher
supposed to future -proof their lesson against
whatever operating system Apple is going to release
in 2030? What's fascinating here is that the
requirement for robustness isn't actually asking
teachers to be fortune tellers or master programmers.
It is asking them to rely on clean, standard
coding practices rather than chasing the newest,
flashiest technological gimmick. OK, but how
does standard code survive time better than new
tech? Because assistive technologies like screen
readers or specialized braille keyboards are
often incredibly complex and highly customized
for the user. Students in schools simply cannot
afford to upgrade these expensive devices every
time a software company releases a minor update.
Oh, that makes sense. The hardware's a bottleneck.
Right. If a teacher builds a document using standard
HTML text and basic heading structures, which
have been around for decades, it will be robust.
A screen reader from five years ago can parse
that standard code perfectly, and a screen reader
five years in the future will still be able to
parse it because it's the foundational language
of the web. Ah. But if the teacher decides to
use some proprietary, highly animated, flash
-in -the -pan widget they found on a random education
blog. That's where the material breaks. If that
fancy widget only works on the absolute newest
version of one specific web browser, it violates
the robust pillar. Because as soon as that browser
updates, or if the student is using an older
assistive device, the code shatters. So it's
about simplicity, really? Yes. Robustness simply
means maximizing compatibility. by sticking to
the basics. Without that unshakable foundation,
educational equity is entirely at the mercy of
the next random software update. Yeah, it completely
flips my perspective. It's not about anticipating
the future. It's about building a foundation
so solid that it doesn't matter when the wind
changes. Exactly. But let's take a step back,
ensuring that every single digital material is
perceivable with alt text, operable via keyboard,
understandable in its layout, and robustly coded.
That is a massive checklist, especially when
traditionally we think of this effort as being
for a relatively small subset of students who
have documented disabilities. It sounds like
a monumental heavy lift for a niche outcome,
but this is the exact moment where the narrative
around accessibility transforms. Here's where
it gets really interesting. because Ackerman
points out a massive unexpected payoff to all
this work. While these WCAG standards were originally
engineered to provide access for those with specific
disabilities, educators are finding that resources
meeting these standards actually improve the
learning experience for all students, universally.
It is a phenomenon that physical accessibility
advocates have known about for decades, and seeing
it map perfectly onto digital education is just
incredible. It's the curb -cut effect. For anyone
unfamiliar, the curb -cut effect comes from physical
urban planning. Back in the day, sidewalks just
dropped off sharply into the street at an intersection.
Right, a literal step down. Yeah. Disability
advocates fought incredibly hard for curb cuts.
Those little ramps carved into the corner of
the sidewalk, specifically so individuals in
wheelchairs could cross the street independently.
It was a targeted intervention for a specific
group. But once those physical curb cuts were
installed, society realized something unexpected.
Right. Everyone started using them. Parents pushing
heavy strollers didn't have to lift them over
the curb. Travelers dragging rolling luggage
could glide right into the crosswalk. Delivery
workers with hand trucks, kids on skateboards,
a design mandate intended for wheelchairs, ended
up making the physical environment smoother and
more efficient for the entire population. And
that exact same dynamic occurs in the digital
classroom. Let's look at those WKCAGA pillars
again, but this time through the lens of the
digital curb cut. Take closed captions on a video.
The ADA mandates them so a student who is deaf
can perceive the content. But who else uses closed
captions? Oh, a student trying to watch a lecture
in a noisy cafeteria who forgot their headphones.
Or... a student whose first language isn't English,
who heavily benefits from reading the words while
hearing them spoken to reinforce their comprehension.
Exactly. Or consider the requirement for structured
digital text and clear navigation cues, the understandable
and robust pillars, originally designed so screen
readers could logically parse the code of a document.
But who else benefits from a cleanly formatted
document with clear, predictable headings instead
of a giant wall of text? A student who's just
exhausted. You know, running on coffee, studying
at two in the morning on a tiny phone screen.
They don't have the mental energy to hunt through
a chaotic layout. The clear structure lowers
the cognitive load for them too. That is the
ultimate mechanism at play here. Cognitive load.
When you design for the margins, for the extreme
use cases, you inherently remove friction from
the core experience. Wow, that's a great way
to put it. And when you remove digital friction,
the mental energy that a student was wasting
just trying to access or navigate the material
can be redirected toward actually understanding
the concept. It transforms accessibility from
a burden of compliance into a literal strategy
for excellence. But even knowing that this curb
cut effect benefits everyone, we are still asking
our DIY weekend warrior teachers to write alt
text, test keyboard operability, and audit their
code for robustness. It's a lot to ask. That
is a massive amount of technical overhead for
someone whose primary job is teaching eighth
grade history. They cannot be expected to manage
this technical audit alone. Nor should they be.
And this is where critical, often overlooked
group steps into the spotlight. Ackerman explicitly
calls out the vital role of school IT professionals
in this ecosystem. I'm so glad he brought this
up, because I think people often view school
IT departments purely as the folks who unblock
the jammed printer or, you know, reset the Wi
-Fi router when it goes down. Right. It is a
very real - perception of their role. But Ackerman
argues that IT professionals must be the proactive
infrastructure supporting teachers in this endeavor.
If teachers are the DIY builders, IT professionals
are the building inspectors providing the specialized
tools. So what does that look like mechanically?
How does an IT department audit thousands of
documents created by hundreds of teachers? It
starts by configuring the technical environment
so that accessibility is the default setting,
rather than an afterthought. For instance, most
modern productivity suites, like Microsoft Office
or Google Workspace, they have automated accessibility
checkers built right in. Oh, really? Yeah. They
work a lot like a spell checker, but for code.
As a teacher types, the software scans the document
and flags if an image is missing alt text or
if the color contrast of a font is too low to
be readable. Like a little red squiggly line.
Exactly. The IT department's job is to deploy
these tools domain -wide, ensure they are activated,
and train the teachers on what those warnings
mean. So it's about empowering the teacher with
automated feedback right at the point of creation.
Yes, but IT also carries a broader auditing responsibility.
They use specialized software that acts almost
like a search engine spider. This software crawls
the school's internal network, scanning learning
management systems and public websites, generating
reports on compliance failures. Oh, wow. Yeah,
they can instantly see, okay, 40 % of the videos
uploaded this semester lack closed captions.
They are the ultimate quality assurance team.
If we connect this to the bigger picture, the
IT department is really acting as the crucial
bridge here. Think about the span of that bridge.
On one side, you have a foundational civil rights
law from 1990, the ADA. In the middle, you have
a highly technical set of international web standards
from 2018 WCAG G2 .1. And on the far side, you
have the daily, messy, fast -paced reality of
a teacher trying to deliver a lesson to 30 distracted
kids on a Wednesday morning. translators. They
take the heavy legal mandate and the dense technical
code, and they build the invisible infrastructure
that allows the teacher to actually deliver equitable
education. Without IT running those domain -wide
scans and setting up the automated checkers,
the law is just words on a page, and the standard
is just a theoretical ideal. They make the invisible
infrastructure visible and functional. So let's
bring this all together. We started with the
isolated city and we've walked through how digital
accessibility in education has evolved into this
intricate shared ecosystem. You have civil rights
laws setting the moral baseline. You have international
web guidelines providing the technical manual.
You have teachers doing the hard work of building
the daily learning materials. And you have I
.T. professionals acting as the backbone, ensuring
the whole system holds together. It's a profound.
shift in how we view the responsibility of digital
creation. So what does this all mean for you?
Even if you aren't a teacher or a school IT director,
this applies to your life right now. Whether
you are drafting a corporate memo to your team,
designing a basic landing page for your small
business, or just sending a highly complex email
outlining a project plan, you are a digital creator.
We all are, really. We are. And if you apply
these four pillars, making sure your content
is perceivable with descriptive text. operable
without bizarre constraints, understandable with
logical flow, and robust enough to work cleanly
across devices, you will make your communication
infinitely more effective for whoever receives
it. You are building digital curb cuts in your
own daily life. And that leads to a fascinating
implication about the future of how we interact
with information. We have spent this time talking
about how accessible design makes information
clearer and more robust for human minds, but
consider what else relies entirely on clear,
structured, digital data to learn and operate.
Artificial intelligence. Artificial intelligence.
Large language models and web crawlers read the
internet in a way that is remarkably similar
to how a screen reader operates. They don't have
human eyes, they parse code, structure, and text
descriptions. Wow, I never thought of that. This
raises an important question for you to ponder.
As we integrate AI deeper into our daily lives,
could strictly following human accessibility
standards like WCAG 2 .1 soon become the baseline
requirement simply to ensure your content is
visible to AI systems. We might soon find that
designing for digital equity is also the ultimate
strategy for digital survival in the AI age.
That is an incredible thought to leave on. Designing
for the margins might end up being the key to
communicating with machines of the future. Thank
you for joining us on this deep dive. Next time
you encounter a blank digital wall, we hope you
remember the power of the invisible infrastructure.
Until next time.