IMPACT Insights

August 2022

Upcoming Event: 360° Videos and Photos Part 1: What's Possible!
wide angle view of a science lab
Have you heard of 360° video and photos but are not sure what it is or how it might help your teaching? The world of 360° media is exciting, but can also be overwhelming. So join us for a short intro to basic concepts and a walkthrough of a few examples. We'll explore some spaces virtually with 360° photos and video, answer your questions, and talk about ideas.
In Part 2 we'll go deeper into the technology behind creating 360° video or photo projects. We'll explore gear, platforms, and how to plan your project.

Thursday, August 11, 2022
Noon-1:00 pm EDT
Zoom Link

ICYMI: Overview of Accesibility Accomodations and Assistive Technology
We held a late-July event with Chia-Ling Chiao from GW’s Disability Support Services (DSS). Chia-Ling provided an overview of how accommodations are provided to students and what kinds of accommodations are available. If you are interested in this topic, but missed the session, please email hsptech@gwu.edu for a link to the recording.

Enable Automated Captions in Zoom
A reminder that Zoom offers live automated captions for meetings and webinars. They are not perfect, often missing punctuation and mistaking some names. But they can also be very useful.

To enable automated captions for your Zoom account:
  1. Sign into the GW Zoom web portal
  2. In the navigation menu, click “Settings”
  3. Click “In Meeting (Advanced)”
  4. Toggle on Automated captions
After a meeting, these automated captions can be edited for sharing in a recording.
Zoom recording with PowerPoint presentation in the foreground, a webcam video of Laurie Lyons in the top right corner, and closed captions on the right side of the Zoom video player.

Make Your Assessments Accessible (Without Giving Away the Answers)
We’ve talked a lot about how to make your course materials accessible- from adding closed captions to videos, writing text descriptions for images, choosing high contrast color combinations, and more. But one question we get from faculty is, “how do I apply these principles to assessments?” For example, if students are meant to identify a white blood cell from a series of images, you wouldn’t want the alt text for the image to be “a white blood cell.” 

Thankfully, the Northwest Evaluation Association (NWEA) has shared a handy guide for writing image descriptions for assessments. The same principles would apply for written descriptions of audio clips, such as heart or lung sounds. 

NWEA Image Description Guidelines for Assessments Making assessment accessible for all students (pdf)

Remember that some disabilities are short-term, so we should always consider the diverse needs of all students, even if your profession generally requires certain essential functions. 
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