Dating back to the early use of the world wide web to produce websites, academic institutions provided space and access to servers to faculty. Naturally this early exploration of the space included a number of uses –personal spaces, spaces dedicated to research, community and academic teaching. The archive.org McMaster University archive goes back to 1997, however I know that website use for teaching purposes existed prior to 1997 and went back as far as 1994 (Cuneo et al, 2000). Outside of a brief resurgence of website use in 2010 (while the on-premises LMS solution Blackboard installation was besieged with technical issues) the decline has continued to the present day.

One challenge in providing proof of this decline is that there is no comprehensive way to catalog and decipher each department and faculty approaches to personal webhosting for academic faculty and no standard approach to naming and hosting. To this end, I did encounter a deep archive of links for the faculty of Humanities websites.

In a sampling of pages that I could find archived for the Languages and Linguistics department within the faculty of Humanities (out of the 26 courses listed) (Department of Modern Languages and Linguistics, 2001) – there were 4 courses with individual webpages, and a further 16 courses with course outlines linked from the page. Some of the courses with web presences beyond a course outline were last archived in 2005, however the last successful archiving of an actual active course was 2003. (Solo Testo, 2003). The later archives were of a redirect to the Faculty of Humanities homepage likely as a result of a restructuring of the website.

By 2004, as the proliferation of WebCT and First Class (known locally as Learn Link) at McMaster became more prevalent, use of websites for teaching started to decline. It makes some sense that this trend starts to appear at this point – historically the Learning Technologies Resource Centre (LTRC) began to support central LMS tools around this time, and nearly a decade after the technology started to be used at McMaster, there are likely to be some combination of the maturity of the tools and a convergence as commercial software begins to become commonplace at higher education institutions. At McMaster, while there was some standardization of tools provided by the university to faculty at no additional charge, there was also no mandate to use the centrally supported tools. In fact, the only mention of LMS like systems were Learn Link (First Class) and WebCT in the Central IT report for 2005 was a mention for both systems’ server requirements as part of the LTRC inventory (Barret, 2005, p.187) Alternatively, there was no mention of hosting websites as a service across any of the independent or central IT units at the time. Further to this idea, the archives I could find on the Wayback Machine for McMaster all seem to indicate websites were not to be used for teaching, rather it seems the commonplace use of websites were for communication. It is reasonable to say website hosting for the purposes of teaching was far less used than the central LMS’s during this first decade of the World Wide Web. If we look back at one of the first major commercial LMS, WebCT, it was designed initially by Murray Goldberg in the mid-90’s as a way to supplement his in-person lectures. (Chan, 2005) Most web-based LMS systems replicate the functionality of WebCT – certainly most of the ones used in higher education (Blackboard, D2L’s Brightspace, Canvas and Moodle) – and so a system of software based on the experiences and design of an instructor who was looking to improve grades in courses rooted in a lecture based approach has become the defacto location for teaching to happen in an online environment.

While websites as a course site was not a priority of the university, it is likely that the impetus for this displacement in teaching tools came from several different areas, in addition to the lack of support from the university, converging slowly in the mid-2000’s to the present day:

1. Instructors were increasingly becoming sessional and labour to build one’s own site is not compensated. The LMS is provided (although not necessarily the simplest for all).
2. Using an LMS is easier than managing your own website for teaching as much of the infrastructure is provided by someone else.
3. Some instructors who are interested in using the LMS for teaching were early adopters and acted as champions for the tool.
4. Instructors who moved from institutions who have mandated LMS use to McMaster, brought along that practice, expecting McMaster to also have mandated the use of the LMS.
5. Students who experienced LMS use in secondary school have now graduated into higher education and expected the use of an LMS to provide materials and activities.
6. Faculties and departments each have suggested over the years tool use based on their own experiences and desire to introduce efficiencies which the LMS can provide.
7. Educational institutions being interested in reducing paper in the name of sustainability.
8. Vendors of LMS products convinced institutions of the efficiency, redundancy, and security of the LMS.

While each of those individual claims, can be discussed at length, this transition has definitely re-entrenched the transmission model of teaching and learning. The LMS reinforces the transmission model by having a roles that allows certain members in the system more or less power to control other users. For instance, an instructor role could be designed to allow for posting of materials, whereas a student role could view those materials. In some LMS systems these are determined by the local system administrators (often with the help of the vendor) while others have these archetypes predefined. While a vendor might argue it is up to the institution to configure the system how they wish, the archetypal uses of the system are designed around fundamental assumptions of what an instructor might be. Very rarely are LMS structures built with features that promote constructive sense-making, and as such, they are often designed for behaviourist approaches to teaching. This is an example of what Woolgar (1990) might describe as configuring the user, especially when considering the history of the development of the LMS being from a limited perspective and for a limited purpose.

This shift from a more open website to a closed, more secure but also more deterministic LMS does not necessarily negatively impact teaching per se, it does make it more challenging to use a LMS with certain pedagogical approaches. For instance, if you are teaching in a constructivist manner, it is difficult to have people   If at every turn it is difficult and time-consuming to make the LMS do what you want to do pedagogically, and the education system is rewarding certain choices you make with your labour, it becomes even more challenging to teach in ways that might be more constructivist, so you might come to believe that it is impossible to teach in that way through the LMS. While it is true it is more difficult, and might make the LMS itself unusable, it might be impractical, or more time-consuming to teach in that way. In those scenarios, a stand-alone website would probably be a superior choice.

In our class readings, there is a similar issue with labour being reduced by choice being taken away by making the undesirable behaviour more costly for the worker to do. This was raised in Crawford (2021) with Amazon workers being restricted in unauthorized actions, one such example of unauthorized actions being too many breaks. (p. 53) By the design (and in many ways the usability) of the LMS rewarding efficiency and punishing inefficiency, there is a pervasive enforcement of “traditional” teaching methods. Individually designed and constructed websites have no preconceived notions of what teaching is, and in fact if the teacher is the designer of the site themselves, it can accurately reflect their pedagogy in as much as they can use HTML, CSS and Javascript to bring that reflection to life. While the course’s content is clearly about digital labour, one of the underlying currents of that module is about how digital labour is often not done by machines but by humans in often inhumane conditions. In much the same ways humans are doing the mechanical turk work or ghost work (Gray and Suri, 2019), the work being done to build courses in LMS systems are often not done by the instructor themselves, but by unseen labour. It might be offloaded to a teaching assistant, or an instructional designer or someone hired from outside the institution delivering the course to design a course virtually on-demand. Ghost work typically involves moving the production of labour to countries that have less labour costs than in western countries, this does happen in educational institutions where labour shifts from full-time, tenured and senior professors, to teaching assistants and lower paid members of the department or faculty.  In an institution it is entirely possible for some teachers to teach courses designed by someone else and built by yet another different person. While this undoubtedly happened with the people who were using websites to teach as well; getting a TA or instructional designer (or learning technologist) to build a website that the teacher could use to deliver content. Even in those cases, more design choices, more personalization would happen would require at least some input on those choices from the teacher and thus the system used to teach would also be closely designed by the teacher. With frequency, the labour for putting courses into the LMS have become the responsibility of teaching assistants. In 2021, McMaster and CUPE (the union for Teaching Assistants) agreed to paid training on various teaching related topics, including a module on the LMS use (An Introduction to Avenue to Learn). (McMaster University, 2021, p.2) While this labour previously might have gone uncompensated, and the teaching assistant may have had to learn this on their own or attend training, clearly the recognition from the university is that this activity is no longer in the realm of teachers alone.

Another aspect of LMS use is the ease of recycling course materials from semester-to-semester. While this is not a practice of all teachers using LMS’s, there are sessional instructors who are not compensated for the development of courses. If a fellow instructor or teacher chooses to share their content, and intellectual property, then the recipient is lucky. If the sessional instructor does not have access to content from a prior taught course, they are often designing the course as it goes, which does not provide an ideal learning experience. This is essentially a labour issue. As the university lowers the number of full-time and secure jobs to teaching faculty, it also creates a precarious market for labour, with faculty becoming sessional. If one can separate the course from the individual, and keep the course in a centrally maintained place, then that labour can be passed on without care for the individual who designed it. I am not saying that was the explicit goal of McMaster in instituting the LMS, but it is possible to separate the labour of creating a course with delivery of a course using an LMS, which makes it easier to retain beyond the employment of the developer.

            While the shift from open websites to a more closed LMS system also mirror the academic labour changes over the last two decades, in some ways both developments have been symbiotic – allowing for teaching to become more prescriptive, and the culture of teaching to be more limited.

References

Barret, D. (2005). University Technology Strategy. McMaster University. https://www.mcmaster.ca/cio/UTSMar05.pdf

Chan, L. (2005) WebCT Revolutionized E-Learning. UBC News. https://news.ubc.ca/2005/07/07/archive-ubcreports-2005-05jul07-webct/

Crawford, K. (2021). Atlas of AI. Yale University Press.

Gray, M. L. & Suri, S. (2019). Ghost work : How to stop silicon valley from building a new global underclass. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

McMaster University (2001). Department of Modern Languages and Linguistics @ McMaster University. Wayback Machine. https://web.archive.org/web/20010214022946/http://www.humanities.mcmaster.ca/~modlang/mlhome.htm

McMaster University (2003). Solo Testo. Wayback Machine. https://web.archive.org/web/20030928012724fw_/http://www.humanities.mcmaster.ca/~gargann/text.htm

McMaster University. (2021) McMaster University CUPE Local 3906, Unit 1 Mandatory Training Frequently Asked Questions. https://hr.mcmaster.ca/app/uploads/2021/08/Mosaic-TA-Training-Module-FAQs_FINAL.pdf

Woolgar, S. (1990) Configuring the user: The case of usability trials. The Sociological Review, 38(1, Suppl.), S58-S99.

Checking UDL and Accessibility: A Checklist for Educators.

Most countries have adopted disability legislation that requires legally compliant interventions at the organizational level, including businesses, services, and educators, to accommodate the broadest possible range of human experience (Doyle, 2020).  We are proposing a Universal Design for Learning (UDL) checklist tool intended to help adult educators in any context examine learning materials that they develop to address accessibility and neurodivergent users. 

This tool will function in a branching decision tree to help educators determine if their learning objects have the affordances they need to accommodate all learners. The decision points will be supported with an explanation of how to employ UDL principles for that criteria and a rationale for why it is essential to support that factor, including some examples of specific (dis)abilities the factor supports.

Intended Users

This tool is designed for educators (designers, teachers, trainers, consultants) who create learning materials (digital or physical) for adult learners.

Setting Adult Learners Up for Success

We aim to enable adult educators to create learning materials that accommodate all facets of UDL, so the educational experience can be inclusive and accommodating to all learners.

One in five people has a neuro-difference, such as dyslexia, ADHD, autism, or anxiety disorders (Doyle, 2020). According to Statistics Canada, in a 2017 study, 14% of Canadians aged 25 to 64 with disabilities reported having at least a university qualification, compared with 27% of those without disabilities (Statistics Canada, 2019). These disabilities included neurodevelopmental condition(s) (NDC), a mental health condition (MHC), or both. These are diagnosed conditions, so the number of undiagnosed people is likely far higher. Those adults with undiagnosed learning (dis)abilities have multiple barriers to learning in place and often must look for accommodations in the workplace or post-secondary education. In fact, 43% of employees with (dis)abilities (and neuro-differences) do not feel comfortable approaching their employer to ask for accommodation (Business Disability Forum, 2020). We want to create a tool that supports educators when creating learning materials for all learners, regardless of ability, and mitigating the need for after-the-fact learning accommodations.

There are increasing resources for UDL principles; however, educators need to learn how to apply them in an organized, straightforward manner to determine whether their learning object/module/course meets UDL guidelines.

“The UDL framework is grounded in three principles:

●      Multiple means of representation – using various methods to present information and provide a range of means to support.

●      Multiple means of action and expression – providing learners with alternative ways to act skilfully and demonstrate what they know.

●  Multiple means of engagement – tapping into learners’ interests by offering choices of content and tools; motivating learners by offering adjustable levels of challenge.” (TEAL Center Staff, n.d.)

Our checklist will help educators accommodate the three UDL principles. Other resources list what UDL considers but do not provide the depth or breadth required for someone to design learning materials with all the principles in mind. Given that UDL is a newer approach, many educators are unfamiliar with its benefits and drawbacks. There is a lack of resources that provide this sort of support and an easy-to-access and use tool that provides guidance and awareness on the full range of learner abilities, particularly those with unrealized and unacknowledged learning disabilities. This tool will be helpful for new instructional designers and educators to acclimate them to UDL principles.

Creating an Interactive Decision Tree

We believe Twine will allow us to create branches for different aspects of UDL, be accessible to all educators and be easy to use. If there is an overlap between resources or rationale, we can link to the same resources without having to create them twice. Twine allows for the inclusion of videos and links to web resources, which allows us to address the multimodal framing of UDL within our design.

Our tool configures its users by determining what can be checked. Our project group selects what is essential from a UDL lens to be incorporated into learning materials, focusing on adults with unacknowledged learning disabilities. We aim to provide educators and designers with an easy-to-use tool that helps all adult learners, regardless of barriers or learning abilities.

UDL Checklist Items

In our tool considerations, we would like to include factors such as:

●  What devices might learners be using and what are their technical capabilities?

●  Have you considered different (dis)ability needs?

●  By making it accessible for one group, are you making it less accessible for others?

●  Have you considered inclusivity (language, font style and size, colour palette, etc.)?

●  Does the approach have an alternative method of delivery?

●  Does it provide appropriate and sufficient cognitive support (organizing clues, background information, scaffolding)?

●  Does this approach comply with ACR standards? Are there additional provincial compliance requirements?

●  Does the mode of assessment consider necessities and fairness (time constraints, presentation method, learner option, authenticity, supporting resources)?

Using Inclusion to Necessitate Usability

This tool is a checklist. One of the limiting factors of checklists is that we will have to determine what is included in the list and how that list is sequenced. Woolgar (1996) would consider this an element of configuring the user. This limitation makes the tool more usable and less overwhelming for practitioners new to UDL principles. Gee (2005) states that we learn best when we understand how things fit into a larger meaningful whole.  By reducing the broad scope of UDL to more manageable subtopics, it becomes easier to digest and learn about the benefits of UDL. Chunks have long been proposed as a basic organizational unit for human memory (Laird et al., 1984). Chunking is an essential strategy for learning complex subjects. Laird et al. (1984) demonstrate that a practice mechanism based on chunking can speed up task performance and may be capable of leading to more exciting forms of learning than just simply improving the speed of acquisition.

The output of Twine creates accessible objects delivered on the web. It requires low bandwidth and does not require significant computer processing power to operate, allowing people to access this tool from a desktop or mobile device regardless of location or operating bandwidth.

Determining Usability and Success

Using the usability specifications (as defined by Issa and Isaiah, p. 34) we will examine performance measures such as the responsiveness of the completed site (is there a significant delay from clicking on an item?) and preference measures from a target audience focus group to examine whether this checklist tool improves their understanding of UDL. If time allowed, a longitudinal study could be conducted to see how the covered UDL principles were recalled one year after the user introduced the checklist.

  

References

Are Mental Health and Neurodevelopmental Conditions Barriers to Postsecondary Access? (2019, February 19). Retrieved October 9, 2022, from https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/11f0019m/11f0019m2019005-eng.htm

Business Disability Forum. (2020). The great big workplace adjustment survey: Exploring the experience and outcomes of workplace adjustments in 2019-20. Retrieved October 13, 2022, from https://businessdisabilityforum.org.uk/policy/the-great-big-workplace-adjustments-survey-2019-20/

Doyle, N. (2020). Neurodiversity at work: a biopsychosocial model and the impact on working adults. British Medical Bulletin. 135(1), 108-125. https://doi.org/10.1093/bmb/ldaa021

Gee, J. P. (2005). Learning by design: Good video games as learning machines. E-learning and Digital Media, 2(1), 5-16. https://doi.org/10.2304/elea.2005.2.1.5

Initiative, W. W. A. (n.d.). WCAG 2 Overview. Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI). Retrieved October 15, 2022, from https://www.w3.org/WAI/standards-guidelines/wcag/

Issa, T., & Isaias, P. (2015). Usability and Human Computer Interaction (HCI). Sustainable Design, 19–36. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-6753-2_2

Laird, J. E., Rosenbloom, P. S., & Newell, A. (1984, August). Towards Chunking as a General Learning Mechanism. In AAAI (pp. 188-192).

TEAL Center Staff (n.d.). TEAL Center Fact Sheet No. 2: Fact Sheet: Universal Design for Learning. LINCS. Retrieved from https://lincs.ed.gov/state-resources/federal-initiatives/teal/guide/udl 

Woolgar, S. (1990, May). Configuring the User: The Case of Usability Trials. The Sociological Review, 38(1_suppl), 58–99. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-954x.1990.tb03349.x

The project brief was to find a document and explore how it portrays indigenous and First Nations peoples – and while it might have been easy to pick something historical, where you would judge the historical figure outside of the time, I thought that I would take on something from my lifetime.

The document I chose: People of Native Ancestry, A Resource Guide for the Primary and Junior Divisions (students).

I chose this document for a few reasons. One key reason being that it is a document from my lifetime and I certainly would have experienced the suggestions of this document from 1975 in my early elementary schooling experience (I started kindergarten in 1978). I am curious to understand the thinking of how teachers would have been instructed to teach about indigenous peoples during the time, and how my experience and admittedly limited understanding of the local Six Nations people growing up might have been reflected in this document. I really do not recall any of the lessons, or even if they were delivered.

This document serves two purposes. One, to help teachers understand and teach people with Indigenous ancestry and two, to teach “[a]s all Ontario children grow in their knowledge of native peoples, both native and non-native people will benefit. Tolerance in a multi-cultural society is built upon active participation in the process of learning about cultures other than one’s own.” (p. 8).

In searching the document the following terms were used to describe indigenous people(s):

Indian	Indigenous	Aboriginal	First Nations	Native	Non-Native
6		1		94	11

Specific Nation Mentions:

Cree: 9

Mohawk: 6

Ojibwe: 10

Algonquin: 1

One strong theme that arose throughout the writing is the othering of indigenous peoples. They were to be recognized as distinct, but the text treats indigenous people as if there was little to no history between indigenous and white people (outside of the foreward by Chief Dan George of the Burrard Indian Reserve, and the Appendix A, which spans 2 and a half pages -with a paragraph of veritable whitewashing of residential schools, which likely some parents might have experienced). How can one attempt to integrate into a “multi-cultural” society without at least a deeper understanding of history, and the injustice of the history which had been happening for (at that time) hundreds of years, is in modern context, unthinkable.

One other theme, and it is probably a key thing to note, this being a government document, it has chosen to use Native rather than any other language. Indian came up as part of a historical quote, or in the context of naming an act of Parliament or group. In fact Native was the most common reference, and when other children were mentioned they were non-Native. The act of constantly comparing, as if non-Native children might not have their own complexities, histories, familial demands, and approaches to learning and authority. There was a subtle, but present, holding up of (ostensibly white male) children as ideal, and Native as other. In many ways, the othering that was done throughout the document, undermines the front-and-centering of indigenous children by acknowledging their indigenousness. It is definitely a subtle thing, but definitely present.