Sherry Fest has been incredible, and now it’s time for the ultimate closing ceremony! Just like the dazzling fireworks marking the festival’s conclusion, Accessibility Checkers are your final, explosive step toward making sure your course materials leave a brilliant, lasting impression on every student.
Module 5: Accessibility Checkers focuses on using automated tools to quickly spot potential snags in your documents—like a technician ensuring all the pyrotechnics are safely secured—and finishing the job manually to ensure the presentation is truly flawless.
Illuminating the Final Review
Accessibility checkers are excellent for illuminating areas in your document that might be problematic for people with disabilities or anyone using assistive technology. They give you a quick, automated assessment of basic compliance criteria.
However, remember this critical final checkpoint:
- Automated Limitations: Checkers are not a substitute for human judgment. They are limited in what they can accurately evaluate and may present false positives or, crucially, fail to report certain issues.
- The Manual Inspection: To ensure your document, website, or application is fully accessible—a perfect grand finale—manual testing must also be performed. This might include:
- Reviewing your content for clear structure and flow.
- Testing with a keyboard only to check navigation ease.
- Using a screen reader to experience your materials as others will.
Master the Principles, Outshine the Tool
Checkers are a great way to start learning the basic accessibility criteria to look for in your materials, helping to train your eye in how to create better documents from the start. As you use them, pay close attention to the errors brought to your attention and how to fix them. You’ll soon apply those principles automatically to your next document. Before you know it, you’ll be smarter than the checker!
Your Final Objective
Your goal is to complete the entire Module 5 and successfully pass the Accessibility Checkers Knowledge Check quiz. We encourage you to run a checker on one of your existing documents, review the suggestions, and perform a quick manual verification yourself!
To stay on track with the challenge, please complete Module 5 by Sunday, December 7th. All Knowledge Check quizzes for Modules 1-5 must be completed to earn a free lunch from Ed Tech & CIE and to be entered into the drawing for the NMC hoodie.
You may have noticed that there is a 6th Module in the course: Math & STEM. Module 6 is completely optional. It contains some great information, but it isn’t applicable to all faculty or courses, so please only complete Module 6 if you want to.
If you encounter any snags or need assistance with this final module, use the “Questions” discussion at the top of the course.
Let’s cap off this challenge with a powerful, accessible conclusion—it’s time for the grand finale!