Skip to Main Content

Accessibility Toolkit for Open Educational Resources (OER): Interactive Activities [New 2024]

Accessibility guide for creating OER

Features of accessible interactive activities

Provide extra hints. Providing additional information and descriptions gives context to content. For example, furnishing more details when describing images will help learners answer the exercise questions; when adapting exercises, adding the details of the image description should also be considered.

Provide a consistent layout. The layout of all exercises needs to be consistent. For example, all questions should be on one side of the screen and all possible answers on the other side.

Give step-by-step instructions. When possible, exercises should be broken into single steps and should present a single piece of supporting material, such as a single question and the corresponding required answer. This contributes to preventing students from being overwhelmed by both information and interactive choices.

Give context for activities. When possible, context for an activity should be provided by linking to the textbook concepts both before and after the activity and by showing images that support the purpose of the activity.

 Use a variety of exercises. Students should be able to demonstrate their understanding of content in different ways. For example, only allowing students to conduct sorting activities may exclude many students who are blind or have low vision, while listening activities may exclude students who are deaf or hard of hearing. Diverse options are ideal and allow different styles of learners to participate.

- Constantopedos, Elias (July 05, 2019) Accessible Interactive Activity Templates. UNICEF for every child https://www.accessibletextbooksforall.org/stories/accessible-interactive-activity-templates

Think UDL for learning. Have alternatives. Flashcards = table with definitions. Timeline = table with dates.

 - Lori Catallozzi , Paula Michniewicz and Quill West (2017, May 10) OER Vetting: Cultural Relevance, Accessibility, & Licensing. CCCOER (Community College Consortium for OER) https://www.slideshare.net/UnaDaly/oer-vetting-cultural-relevance-accessibiilty-licensing