alert – Accessibility in Learning Environments and Related Technologies

Student 11 Dr Barbara Newland, Juliette Pavey and Victoria Boyd

Disability: ME (Chronic Fatigue Syndrome) Subject: Economics E-tivity: Online quizzes Summary Student 11 is a full-time Economics student who is a very confident computer user and rates her competence in using the VLE as good. She accesses the VLE daily and feels that it makes face-to-face delivery of her classes more effective. Student 11 also believes that as a result of her VLE use she now takes fewer notes in lectures. Student 11 appreciates having lecture notes in advance in order that she can prepare for lectures and keep organized notes. Handwriting is also kept to a minimum, which helps when she is experiencing periods of fatigue.

n learning

If they have the notes on the VLE before hand and you've got a print out of them then you know where they're heading in the lecture. If you've got nothing in front of you and

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they don't use slides very well then you don't really know the structure of the lecture and the headings they're talking under and things, and it's a lot more difficult to structure yo r notes and know what they’re on about.

n the VLE It helps to have detailed, well organised slides…and several in advance, so I know that if I can't attend a lecture then I can sit in my room and go through the slides and read the

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relevant text and I've not missed out on too much. And when I'm in the lectures I can concentrate on understanding…particularly when there's a lot of diagrams, I can understand what the diagram's explaining, rather than trying to draw the thing while I'm in the lecture. That's really helpful, especially with my ME.

n e-tivities I find it really hard to concentrate, so in some ways it has been easier to have the online

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tests because you can kind of do it later or, you know, when it's quiet you can just sit a d do it on your own.

n disability

I've had a lot of extra things to sort out unfortunately with my ME like exam concessions and everything so I'm constantly having to email people and chase things up which I

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wouldn't have had to do if I'd not had ME, which is annoying cos obviously I haven't gothe extra energy to be doing the extra things.

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