Accessibility Themes for Moodle: Advancing Personalisation and Inclusion

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Accessibility Themes for Moodle Advancing
Personalisation and Inclusion?
ILT Champions National Conference 18th April
2008

• Tony DelahuntyCollege of North West London

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Moodle
Accessibility Themes for Moodle

• Open-source learning platform or VLE
• Widespread use in UK FE and ACL ( gt 50 of
  Colleges in England Wales 2007)
• College of North West London single platform
  VLE and student intranet since 2005-06
• Embedded use in all curriculum areas (3600 active
  users)

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Moodle (CNWL Online)
Accessibility Themes for Moodle
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Accessibility in Moodle
Accessibility Themes for Moodle

• W3C Web Content Accessibility guidelines Moodle
  has good level of compliance (?)
• Screenreader access optimised, reportedly good
• Clarity and simplicity of language (?)

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Personalisation
Accessibility Themes for Moodle

• Important sector target (or buzz word?)
• DfES White Paper (2006). Five Year Strategy for
  Children and Learners (2004)
• "The central characteristic of such a new system
  will be personalisation - so that the system fits
  to the individual rather than the individual
  having to fit to the system.

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Moodle Themes
Accessibility Themes for Moodle

• Popular way of customising Moodle look feel
• Mainly used by institutions/ designers
• Can be course- or user- specific
• Relatively easy to create/adapt

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Moodle Themes (example 1)
Accessibility Themes for Moodle
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Moodle Themes (example 2)
Accessibility Themes for Moodle
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Themes for Personalisation
Accessibility Themes for Moodle

• Moodle themes - retained as a user-setting
  wherever accessed
• Techdis toolbar simple and useful tool
  implemented a range of Accessibility settings
  pale/pastel colour combinations, high contrast,
  font changes
• Techdis toolbar limitations
• page- and machine-specific
• needs installation
• Internet Explorer only

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Moodle Accessibility Themes
Accessibility Themes for Moodle

• Themes replicate a selection of the Techdis
  Toolbar settings as Moodle user preferences
• Pale_Cream
• Pale_Green
• Pale_Cyan
• HC_Black_Yellow (High Contrast)
• HC_Blue_White (High Contrast)
• HC_Black_White (High Contrast)
• cnwl_LARGE_FONT
• Themes are developed for, and tested on, Moodle
  version 1.8 but are presumed to be compatible
  with other versions.

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Moodle Accessibility ThemesPale_Green
Accessibility Themes for Moodle
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Moodle Accessibility ThemesHC_Black_Yellow
Accessibility Themes for Moodle
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Moodle Accessibility Themescnwl_LARGE_FONT
Accessibility Themes for Moodle
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Creating Themes (Developer)
Accessibility Themes for Moodle

• Laborious.?
• Hand-coding of .css style sheets
• Moodle poorly documented trial and error
• circa 1 week for basic implementation

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Setting Themes (User)
Accessibility Themes for Moodle

• Quick and easy. ?
• Moodle user settings - easy to set and change
• Quick, visible effect
• We added a Screen Video Demo (WINK) and added a
  prominent My Profile link to Moodle front page

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Downloading Themes (Institution)
Accessibility Themes for Moodle

• Not too tough? (for your Moodle administrator)
• Whole range of themes available from moodle.org
• CNWL Accessibility themes from Themes area in
  moodle.org or at http//tinyurl.com/2wehjn
• Copy to server, (customise), enable user themes.

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Themes released and publicised
Accessibility Themes for Moodle

• Nov 2007 released on CNWL Online
• Nov 2007 publicised to staff, and to UKs ILT
  Champions community, and on moodle.org
• Jan 2008 announcement and guidance for students
  on CNWL Online front page

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Take-up and Evaluation (1)
Accessibility Themes for Moodle

• Within College Now 4 of students have own
  theme, perhaps 2 are accessibility-themes. Most
  popular High Contrast themes (and metal!)
• Awaiting qualitative feedback as to use.

Number of users who have activated personalised
settings
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Take-up and Evaluation (2)
Accessibility Themes for Moodle

• Within sector 131 unique visitors to download
  site from outside College domain within first two
  months.
• (Not yet clear exactly how many themes
  downloaded, or if specific themes preferred).
• Sparse but positive comments on moodle.org

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Evaluation (3)
Accessibility Themes for Moodle

• We plan to canvass direct feedback from student
  users..
• Clear need for better way of evaluating,
  comparing to other interventions
• Feedback and comments very welcome forums on
  moodle.org, feedbacks on our Download page

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Accessibility Themes for Moodle Advancing
Personalisation and Inclusion?
ILT Champions National Conference 18th April
2008

• Tony Delahunty
• tony.delahunty_at_cnwl.ac.uk 020 8208 5200
• CNWL Online (Moodle) www.cnwl.ac.uk/vle
• ILT _at_ CNWL Blog iltatcnwl.wordpress.com
• Download Moodle Themes http//tinyurl.com/2wehjn