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Accessible Multimedia PowerPoint Presentations For Online Coursework

Accessible PowerPoint Presentations

Accessible Multimedia PowerPoint Presentations For Online Coursework

Scott McAfee, DSP&S High Tech Center/Access Coordinator at College of the Canyons, shares his experience helping faculty make distance learning through PowerPoint more accessible.

As an employee of a California Community College, I am always seeking out new, easy, affordable, and timely methods of creating accessible media. This has become a challenge as the new frontier of education begins to grow and become more popular. I am, of course, referring to Online/Distance education, or the method of teaching online coursework over the internet. This is a vastly growing medium that has rapidly been making progress in the college system. With the seemingly endless stream of software that faculty and staff use to create media for students, it’s a challenge for any College to keep up the pace of training their faculty and staff on how to make such media accessible and in some cases, if it is even possible to create accessible media with certain types of software being used.
Case in point, a faculty member recently showed me a Microsoft PowerPoint Slideshow collection he had created for an online Hotel Management course. The collection consisted of over 30 slide shows, all varying in length but generally at least 15 minutes long, some going up to 45 minutes. The slide show’s all had the same basic format; each slide contained an image, some text, and the faculty member’s voice over, teaching the material. It had taken this professor month’s to create his course, and after looking through a few of the slide shows, I knew what everybody else who works with section 508 issues knows: PowerPoint is not accessible. In order for these presentations to be placed online for students, it must meet section 508 requirements. With PowerPoint, there is no option to add captions. To top that off, the professor did not repeat everything presented on the screen, so if you could not read the text, you were not receiving equal treatment or opportunity to understand the content.

Faced with this dilemma, I considered my options. First, the Professor would have to edit his voice-over and repeat every line of text on the screen. This, however, would be very time consuming as you must extract the sound files from PowerPoint to edit, and besides the time it would take, this was a bit beyond the technical skills of the average faculty member. The professor would also have to go through each and every slide to identify where he did not repeat the on screen text, extract the audio, edit it, and import the sound file back into PowerPoint. Once this was accomplished, I could send each file out to a captioning company. The problem with that option was time and money. After combing over each slide, extracting the sound file, editing the sound file, re-inserting the sound file in the correct slides, shipping off the material to a captioning company and waiting for them to return it, a lot of extra time and money is added on to the completion of the final product, time and money that could be dedicated to serving our students.

Deciding that I wanted to try to make this accessible myself, I decided to go back to the basics. I created the following method for faculty members to follow for creating accessible PowerPoint presentations. It is fairly simple, extremely cost effective, and produces quality accessible media without the need to purchase expensive programs or costly captioning fees.

Step 1
The first step in this process is to script the PowerPoint presentation. Initially, the above professor hooked a microphone to his belt, and recorded himself teaching the class while showing the PowerPoint presentation he created. When he was finished with the class, he would transfer the sound recording onto the PowerPoint presentation. While initially that sounded like a great idea, there were major problems when this was put into practice. As occurs when speaking naturally, the professor’s voice over was riddled with “um’s” and “ah’s”, which became quite noticeable when listening to it online. That’s not a violation of section 508, but it definitely speaks to the quality of the file if those “um’s and “ah’s” exist or not. It might also be noted here that were I to ship presentation off to get captioned, every single “um” and “ah” would appear in the captioning. That level of quality is not acceptable in most cases.

Another problem was the inability to hear student questions, answers, or commentary. The professor would ask a question, and it would be heard clearly, but then there would be silence for 10 seconds. You would next hear the professor saying “Yes”, and another 10 seconds of silence. Finally, the professor would say “Good job”. It took a while for me to realize that the professor had asked his class a question, and they were answering him and each other. The microphone simply did not pick up the students voices. While doing all of this, the professor failed to repeat everything on the slide, but rather taught his class as he usually would; going off on tangents, walking around the room, and shuffling papers. Normal activities if you have ever taught a class, but very confusing and distracting when relying on audio to convey information you need.
Scripting your presentation eliminates all of these problems. It not only ensures you will repeat everything on the screen, but it will sound much smoother, eliminate the “um’s” and “ah’s”, and help you locate where you wish to edit should the information change later on down the road (more on this later). This text based script will also be used later to add to the accessibility of the course.
Step 2
Create the presentation. Creating the presentation is important, because any images you add that require descriptions need to be added into your script. For example, if your class is on mining and you are displaying a picture of a specific mining tool, you need to describe that tool as it appears on the screen. This description needs to be included in the script. Also, number each slide and include those numbers in your script.

Step 3
Step 3 is simply recording the script. While your college or university should invest in a quality microphone, you can use a standard “cheapo” Microsoft microphone plugged into the back of your computer. There are a host of free sound recoding programs on the internet, but I used Windows standard Sound Recorder for this. It is recommended that if your college has a recording booth, you use that. I just sat down in my office, closed the door, and began recording on my computer. I made many mistakes while recording, but it was simple to rewind back to the place I stumbled on and repeat the line. Save each sound file as it relates to its individual slide. If you have a PowerPoint presentation that contains 22 slides, you should have 22 individual recordings. At the beginning of each recording should be your voice indicating the slide number.

Step 4
Create relevant questions and answers in text format. Remembering that this course will eventually be displayed online, why not take the time to make it the most comprehensive course you can? This method entails creating a text based questions/answers section, where the professor scripts out questions and answers they have received over the years of teaching their course. These questions/answers are displayed in a Q&A section of the course, where students can browse. As professors teach this online course, they can add to their Q&A database as new questions flow in. Because it is in text format, it can be added onto the webpage for everyone to read. This not only adds a massive resource for students, but it is a massive resource for faculty. If a database is maintained on the most common questions asked, students no longer have to e-mail a professor and wait, sometimes days, to receive a response to questions that are already posted on the course website. Professors can also edit this data base to reflect changes over time. Of course the greatest benefit of all, it’s completely text based which makes it easy to edit and if placed properly, totally accessible.

After these 4 steps, you should have 3 separate files: Your script for the PowerPoint presentation and scripted Q&A, a PowerPoint presentation, and your audio recordings of the script. You now have the ingredients for accessible PowerPoint presentations. The PowerPoint presentation by itself is not accessible. But because an exact text duplicate of the presentation, as well as an audio version, is located on the course website, students have the choice of viewing the presentation with all three elements combined (standard PowerPoint presentation), or by whatever methods best suits their disability. A blind student can use screen reading software to read the text, or listen to the audio files. A student who is deaf can read the text and view the presentation. A student with a learning disability can upload the text into specially designed software and manipulate it to suit their purposes. Or, students can transfer the sound files onto their portable media devices and listen to their course while on a long drive, at work while on break, or while going for a run. The applications and uses of creating an online PowerPoint presentation with this method are wide, and not only benefiting students with disabilities. Furthermore, Faculty members now have total control over the content of their course. It’s the same simple process to go in and edit or update the information, eliminating the need for faculty to redesign their courses every semester when then current information may have become outdated.

This entire process is very simple for non-technical faculty and staff to understand, it’s totally inexpensive, and it meets Section 508 standards without compromising quality of education. It provides benefits to Faculty, students with disabilities, and students who want to listen to a class on their portable media device while working out at the gym. While there may be options in the form of third party software or services to fulfill the section 508 requirements of PowerPoint presentations, this method can be utilized when time and expense are a factor, or for people who just enjoy creating their own media without the need for third party assistance.

Author Contact Information

Scott McAfee
DSP&S High Tech Center/Access Coordinator
College of the Canyons
26455 Rockwell Canyon Rd
Santa Clarita, CA 91355
scott.mcafee@canyons.edu
Phone:(661) 362-3356
Fax: (661) 362-5716

Accessible Multimedia PowerPoint Presentations For Online Coursework Scott McAfee, DSP&S High Tech Center/Access Coordinator at College of the Canyons, shares his experience helping faculty make distance learning through PowerPoint more accessible.
As an employee of a California Community College, I am always seeking out new, easy, affordable, and timely methods of creating accessible media. This has become a challenge as the new frontier of education begins to grow and become more popular. I am, of course, referring to Online/Distance education, or the method of teaching online coursework over the internet. This is a vastly growing medium that has rapidly been making progress in the college system. With the seemingly endless stream of software that faculty and staff use to create media for students, it’s a challenge for any College to keep up the pace of training their faculty and staff on how to make such media accessible and in some cases, if it is even possible to create accessible media with certain types of software being used. Case in point, a faculty member recently showed me a Microsoft PowerPoint Slideshow collection he had created for an online Hotel Management course. The collection consisted of over 30 slide shows, all varying in length but generally at least 15 minutes long, some going up to 45 minutes. The slide show’s all had the same basic format; each slide contained an image, some text, and the faculty member’s voice over, teaching the material. It had taken this professor month’s to create his course, and after looking through a few of the slide shows, I knew what everybody else who works with section 508 issues knows: PowerPoint is not accessible. In order for these presentations to be placed online for students, it must meet section 508 requirements. With PowerPoint, there is no option to add captions. To top that off, the professor did not repeat everything presented on the screen, so if you could not read the text, you were not receiving equal treatment or opportunity to understand the content. Faced with this dilemma, I considered my options. First, the Professor would have to edit his voice-over and repeat every line of text on the screen. This, however, would be very time consuming as you must extract the sound files from PowerPoint to edit, and besides the time it would take, this was a bit beyond the technical skills of the average faculty member. The professor would also have to go through each and every slide to identify where he did not repeat the on screen text, extract the audio, edit it, and import the sound file back into PowerPoint. Once this was accomplished, I could send each file out to a captioning company. The problem with that option was time and money. After combing over each slide, extracting the sound file, editing the sound file, re-inserting the sound file in the correct slides, shipping off the material to a captioning company and waiting for them to return it, a lot of extra time and money is added on to the completion of the final product, time and money that could be dedicated to serving our students. Deciding that I wanted to try to make this accessible myself, I decided to go back to the basics. I created the following method for faculty members to follow for creating accessible PowerPoint presentations. It is fairly simple, extremely cost effective, and produces quality accessible media without the need to purchase expensive programs or costly captioning fees. Step 1 The first step in this process is to script the PowerPoint presentation. Initially, the above professor hooked a microphone to his belt, and recorded himself teaching the class while showing the PowerPoint presentation he created. When he was finished with the class, he would transfer the sound recording onto the PowerPoint presentation. While initially that sounded like a great idea, there were major problems when this was put into practice. As occurs when speaking naturally, the professor’s voice over was riddled with “um’s” and “ah’s”, which became quite noticeable when listening to it online. That’s not a violation of section 508, but it definitely speaks to the quality of the file if those “um’s and “ah’s” exist or not. It might also be noted here that were I to ship presentation off to get captioned, every single “um” and “ah” would appear in the captioning. That level of quality is not acceptable in most cases. Another problem was the inability to hear student questions, answers, or commentary. The professor would ask a question, and it would be heard clearly, but then there would be silence for 10 seconds. You would next hear the professor saying “Yes”, and another 10 seconds of silence. Finally, the professor would say “Good job”. It took a while for me to realize that the professor had asked his class a question, and they were answering him and each other. The microphone simply did not pick up the students voices. While doing all of this, the professor failed to repeat everything on the slide, but rather taught his class as he usually would; going off on tangents, walking around the room, and shuffling papers. Normal activities if you have ever taught a class, but very confusing and distracting when relying on audio to convey information you need.			Scripting your presentation eliminates all of these problems. It not only ensures you will repeat everything on the screen, but it will sound much smoother, eliminate the “um’s” and “ah’s”, and help you locate where you wish to edit should the information change later on down the road (more on this later). This text based script will also be used later to add to the accessibility of the course. Step 2 Create the presentation. Creating the presentation is important, because any images you add that require descriptions need to be added into your script. For example, if your class is on mining and you are displaying a picture of a specific mining tool, you need to describe that tool as it appears on the screen. This description needs to be included in the script. Also, number each slide and include those numbers in your script. Step 3 Step 3 is simply recording the script. While your college or university should invest in a quality microphone, you can use a standard “cheapo” Microsoft microphone plugged into the back of your computer. There are a host of free sound recoding programs on the internet, but I used Windows standard Sound Recorder for this. It is recommended that if your college has a recording booth, you use that. I just sat down in my office, closed the door, and began recording on my computer. I made many mistakes while recording, but it was simple to rewind back to the place I stumbled on and repeat the line. Save each sound file as it relates to its individual slide. If you have a PowerPoint presentation that contains 22 slides, you should have 22 individual recordings. At the beginning of each recording should be your voice indicating the slide number. Step 4 Create relevant questions and answers in text format. Remembering that this course will eventually be displayed online, why not take the time to make it the most comprehensive course you can? This method entails creating a text based questions/answers section, where the professor scripts out questions and answers they have received over the years of teaching their course. These questions/answers are displayed in a Q&A section of the course, where students can browse. As professors teach this online course, they can add to their Q&A database as new questions flow in. Because it is in text format, it can be added onto the webpage for everyone to read. This not only adds a massive resource for students, but it is a massive resource for faculty. If a database is maintained on the most common questions asked, students no longer have to e-mail a professor and wait, sometimes days, to receive a response to questions that are already posted on the course website. Professors can also edit this data base to reflect changes over time. Of course the greatest benefit of all, it’s completely text based which makes it easy to edit and if placed properly, totally accessible. After these 4 steps, you should have 3 separate files: Your script for the PowerPoint presentation and scripted Q&A, a PowerPoint presentation, and your audio recordings of the script. You now have the ingredients for accessible PowerPoint presentations. The PowerPoint presentation by itself is not accessible. But because an exact text duplicate of the presentation, as well as an audio version, is located on the course website, students have the choice of viewing the presentation with all three elements combined (standard PowerPoint presentation), or by whatever methods best suits their disability. A blind student can use screen reading software to read the text, or listen to the audio files. A student who is deaf can read the text and view the presentation. A student with a learning disability can upload the text into specially designed software and manipulate it to suit their purposes. Or, students can transfer the sound files onto their portable media devices and listen to their course while on a long drive, at work while on break, or while going for a run. The applications and uses of creating an online PowerPoint presentation with this method are wide, and not only benefiting students with disabilities. Furthermore, Faculty members now have total control over the content of their course. It’s the same simple process to go in and edit or update the information, eliminating the need for faculty to redesign their courses every semester when then current information may have become outdated. This entire process is very simple for non-technical faculty and staff to understand, it’s totally inexpensive, and it meets Section 508 standards without compromising quality of education. It provides benefits to Faculty, students with disabilities, and students who want to listen to a class on their portable media device while working out at the gym. While there may be options in the form of third party software or services to fulfill the section 508 requirements of PowerPoint presentations, this method can be utilized when time and expense are a factor, or for people who just enjoy creating their own media without the need for third party assistance.



Author Contact Information Scott McAfee DSP&S High Tech Center/Access Coordinator College of the Canyons 26455 Rockwell Canyon Rd Santa Clarita, CA 91355 scott.mcafee@canyons.edu Phone:(661) 362-3356 Fax: (661) 362-5716