I was delighted to be able to contribute a session on inclusive practice earlier this week to the 2012-13 Teach @ Dundee event. My aim was to raise awareness of the importance and value of using learning technology and digital resources to enhance inclusivity and quality of learning experiences, and present some key principles of inclusive digital resource design and use.
Teach @ Dundee is a new initiative organised by the Library and Learning Centre, and aimed at providing teaching staff who have recently joined the University with exactly the sort of useful information that new teaching staff need to know (or need to know that they need to know!).
The Teach @ Dundee schedule covers a whole range of topics, including a history of the University, practical sessions on gathering and responding to student feedback, and operating the audio visual equipment in teaching rooms, and introductions to the roles and activities of different central services such as Student Services and the Academic Achievement Teaching Unit. It seemed exactly the sort of session I would like to have attended a couple of years ago, so thanks to David Walker, Monica Matthews and Lorraine Walsh for their efforts in setting up and running the initiative.
My slides on digital inclusive practice in teaching and learning are available on Slideshare and embedded in this post. One thing I didn’t emphasise, but will do here, is my belief in the importance of inclusive digital practice as part of general digital literacy skills I believe that we should be teaching all students. While we might teach more advanced concepts of accessibility and inclusive design in the School of Computing, by encouraging our staff to demonstrate and recognise good practice in digital inclusion, I hope these skills can be seamlessly transferred to all our students, regardless of the subject they’re studying.
