Hello All,
Right to education is universal. Education has
evolved from blackboard to keyboard. Elearning has broken the geographical
barriers and made it possible
for people to access knowledge with ease and
convenience.
Despite the benefits offered by Elearning, it is
not possible for students with special needs to access Elearning courses.
Students using assistive technologies
can with little ease access HTML based
elearning but are deprived of the rich learning experience provided by
technologies such as Flash. The common myth
that prevails is that 'Flash
cannot be made accessible' Its time that we over come this myth and change the
mind set to 'Flash can be made Accessible'
Net Systems Informatics & BarrierBreak
Technologies have taken the initiative to break this myth and have launched the
Beta version of "BarrierBreak Course
Authoring Tool (BCAT)". BCAT is designed
and developed to assist teachers/authors in creating accessible Flash based
Elearning courses. BCAT is an easy
to use tool with in-built keyboard and
screen reader support enabling students with disabilities to experience the
power of Elearning!
BCAT comprises of two main components, Course
Authoring Tool based on Moodle Learning Management System and Flash Architecture
to access the course contents. In addition, the teacher/author can add various
accessibility options to the course such as: Alternate Text, Captions, and
Transcripts.
Once the course is published, the contents are
generated in to XML and users can access the course using a Flash player. The
Flash course thus created provides
users with an "Accessibility Panel" to
meet their needs:
- Show/Hide Captions
- Audio Transcript
- Change Themes
- Small/Large Icons
- Show/Hide Labels
- Change Text Size
We invite users with disabilities,
teachers/authors, accessibility community at large to access BCAT and provide
their valuable feedback and suggestions
to make BCAT a tool for inclusive
education.
Once you sign up, you will receive an email
including further instructions. Along with the email, you will receive a ReadMe
file, documentation for creating
a course, documentation for using the course
and bug report file.
The Beta Test Run is open until 20th January 2009.
All suggestions are highly appreciated and will help us to make BCAT more
user-friendly and accessible
for all.
Thanks & Regards,
Net Systems Informatics & BarrierBreak
Technologies Team
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need to. This will preserve trees on our planet.