My Interest in Accessible and Affordable Education

Empathy

I believe that life's experiences give us empathy for others experiencing similar hardships. It was a struggle for me to afford my education. I've borrowed and paid back close to $76,000 in student loan principal. I know that students can work very hard to get into programs they never make it through because of living expenses and situations beyond their control. Funding for higher education has been steadily decreasing for decades in Ohio and other states. It is difficult for students to obtain enough financial aid, and work enough hours to make it through. I feel we should help others gain access to and complete their education. To quote a song I heard at the Open Textbook Network Summit, "we all do better, when we all do better."

I'm happy to be part of the effort at CSU to provide open learning resources for students and to have students create OER for the community. I've been able to assist faculty in building open resources and finding open resources. Why OER? It's one thing we can control as educators and administrators. I'm happy to have been part of the planning committee for OpenCon Cleveland at Cleveland State University.

Accessibility

Since the time I spent at OSU doing web design and development for the Department of Radiology, I've valued accessibility in online design. I was fortunate to have the time to work on a course and Pressbook on Best Practices in Accessible Online Design. The course is in Blackboard Learn and includes an introduction to accessibility covering definitions and laws to be aware of in education, Word accessibility, accessibility with Blackboard Learn's content editor, captioning, how to recognize if a PDF is accessible, and how to check web page accessibility. The content is in a Pressbook and is freely available online. Again, I feel that empathy plays a big role in inclusivity.