How I have so far failed to create a fully accessible VLE

Northampton is transforming its learning and teaching in preparation for a move to a new campus as well as a changing demand from students. Part of this change process is ensuring our online VLE content is fully accessible to all students. We know Blackboard is compliant, but we also know much of the learning content within our VLE, as well as the layout and design choices made by tutors, present an institutional VLE which less inaccessible than it needs it to be. This workshop begins with the potted story of my Epic Failure to transform Northampton’s VLE into a 100% fully accessible online learning platform. Part tragedy, part comedy, part therapy. Many of my hitherto unacknowledged failures will be revealed in shockingly honest detail. Then, before the participants get too settled in their own sense of superiority, I will divide them into small groups to privately confess their own failures, and discuss what a fully accessible VLE looks like within their institutions. We will then share some of our non-successes and not feel so smug then, will we? I will share the genuine successes which lie behind some my failures. We will reflect on what we can learn from our flops and together we will explore and embrace the imaginative ways we can see Epic Failures for what they really are: Heroic Success. By the end of the session, participants will have learnt about the Accessible VLE experience at Northampton, been able to reflect on their own situation and begun to explore strategies for success. I will have had an hour of self pity in front of my peers. However, I was part of an ALT-C Team of the Year, so it’s only right that I mingle the sweet zing of success with the bitter tang of failure.