Workshop 2: Author & Build Accessible Materials

This 1-hour workshop is designed for faculty, staff, and students who are ready to dive into hands-on, experiential learning. Move beyond theory and join an active creation workshop where you will apply accessibility techniques immediately to your own work. Our goal is to empower you to build accessible-first content from the ground up, ensuring your materials are clear, navigable, and usable for all learners.

Following a brief overview of strategies for Microsoft Office, Google Workspace, and Blackboard, participants will spend time during the session working on their own material and building accessibility. You will identify one of accessibility topics to practice, author it to your content, and gain proactive design and immediate application to build accessible digital content in the future.

The "Practice" Challenge

To maximize this experience, please come prepared with one specific piece of content (such as a syllabus, slide deck, handout, or reading guide) that you want to transform. By reviewing the recommended resources beforehand, you’ll arrive ready to make the most of this live, facilitators-supported creation time, leaving the session with a digital content that is inclusive and ready for use.

Topics will include the following to guide your own accessible creation:

• Structure: Mastering titles, subtitles, and logical headings.
• Visuals: Adding descriptive Alt Text, accessible fonts/colors, video captions.
• Content Design: Identifying plain language, cognitive load reduction, and clear instructions
• Data: Building tables and writing descriptive links that screen readers can navigate.
• Links & Media: Creating descriptive hyperlinks, captions, and when to use Docs vs. PDFs

Prepare in Advance

To make the most of your hands-on time, we recommend reviewing these accessible-first resources before the session:

• MS Office Training Video or presentation
• Google Workspace Training Video or presentation
• Rethinking PDFs - The Accessibility Shortcut You Need recording or presentation. Both are available from the Kirwan Center's Digital Accessibility Training & Professional Development site. 

This session will be facilitated by Dr. Mariann Hawken, Director, Instructional Technology and Ada Crutchfield, Instructional Design Specialist. Open to all faculty and instructional staff.

RSVP

To RSVP for this workshop, click "Sign Up" in the myUMBC event and be sure to add it to your calendar! Registered participants will receive a calendar invitation from the event host at least one week before the event.

A minimum 5 registrations are needed for this session to proceed as scheduled. The session will be recorded if 5 or more people attend and the link will be distributed to everyone who registered.

JOINING THE SESSION

This workshop will take place in a Google Meet virtual conference room. Enter the workshop up to 15 minutes before the start time. Visit the myUMBC Event post and select the "Join Online Event" button to join the Google Meet session.

Prior to the Event

1. For the best viewing experience, we recommend using Chrome, Brave, or Firefox, preferably the most recent updates to those browsers. Closing any unnecessary browser tabs will help conserve your bandwidth. 
   
   

2. If this is your first time joining one of our webinars, please review the requirements to use Google Meet. Learn how to connect your audio & video,change/blur your background, and use reactions. You can also review the accessibility support including live captions.