For my internship, I assisted a professor at Berkley City College with editing course materials to meet accessibility standards. I developed skills for evaluating materials for accessibility, operating file editing software, and using said software to edit html tags and content .
Logs
January 15: Today was my first day on my internship. My task was to start the online course I had been sent to learn about the basics of accessibility in online learning. I decided to tackle the content of the course on a schedule, trying to get through two modules of the course after school each Monday and Friday. Today, I was introduced to the concepts of accessibility and how they can be applied to online courses, along with some of the guidelines for accessibility I needed to meet in my work. I was a bit worried about meeting the hour requirements for my internship since I had to start later than other students because of the internship I picked, but after spending around two hours watching videos on accessible html tagging, I've lost that concern.
January 18: I worked on the next two modules for the accessibility course today. What I learned about today was formatting tables, color coding, and alternate text for accessibility. I understand the reasons I'll do the tasks I'm learning about, to make online classes accessible for differently abled people, but I do wonder about the specifics of the materials I'm going to receive to edit. I'm a little less than halfway through the course.
January 22: I did two more modules for the accessibility course. Some of these educational materials are pretty interesting! I watched a Star Trek themed video where Spock explained the benefits of universal design to me. Universal design is the idea that improvements to accessibility improve the experience for everyone, such as how curb cuts make sidewalks more accessible for both wheelchairs and strollers. There are only three modules left, so I'm going to try and get through them all on my next learning session.
January 25: I'm finally done with my accessibility course! I had to blast through the three remaining modules all at once, but now I'll move to the hands-on part of the internship. In a few days, the professor I'm working with should send me a copy of Adobe Acrobat so I can edit materials for online courses. I'm not entirely ready yet, however. I still need to familiarize myself with the functions of Acrobat, so I can do my job correctly. I know how to make online material accessible, but I still need to learn how to use this program to make materials accessible.
February 10: Turns out that using Acrobat was a lot trickier than I thought! It took me nearly half an hour just to figure out how to open the accessibility settings, not to mention how long it took to set the program up. It took me a while, but I'm confident that now that I've set up the accessibility tools and read some tutorials, I'll be able to apply the knowledge I learned in my online courses and edit course materials to meet accessibility standards. Now, I just have to wait to get my hands on some of those materials. I should get my first batch in a few days!
February 17: I've received my first set of files to edit. They're chapter scans from a textbook. The steps I need to take are to tag the entire document, add alternative text to any images or graphs, correctly tag any tables, and resolve any issues the accessibility checker Acrobat has spits out at me. It took me a lot of time, since I had to back track after a few mistakes, but at the end of the day I got three chapters to 100% accessibility. Like my accessibility course, I'm going to try to tackle these chapters in three segment chunks.
February 18: Today, I managed to avoid a lot of the pitfalls I trapped myself in when editing the first few chapters. It took significantly less time to edit the chapters for today. I read a little bit of the file, which was about social deviance, that caught my interest. I checked that they were 100% accessible, then emailed the edited files back to the professor. I think I'm starting to get the hang of things.
February 19: Not a lot to report today! I tackled my three files, and didn't encounter any unfamiliar errors or new tools I needed to use to make the document accessible. The chapter pdfs all have a lot of accessibility errors in common, so knowing the right steps to take speeds the process up quite a bit.
February 20: I was surprised how quickly I was able to get my files to 100% accessibility today. I was working like a well-oiled machine, loading pdfs into Acrobat and picking apart all the accessibility errors with mechanical precision. I only have six chapters left to do, so tomorrow I'm going to try to wipe them all out in one fell swoop.
February 22: It took the larger part of an evening, but I've gotten all of the chapters of the textbook to 100% accessibility! I sent all the edited files in to the professor, and I was told that I've done a good job of things. I'll be ready for whatever I need to edit next! I've learned a lot about file editing software during my internship, so maybe in the future I could apply that skill to other purposes?
January 15: Today was my first day on my internship. My task was to start the online course I had been sent to learn about the basics of accessibility in online learning. I decided to tackle the content of the course on a schedule, trying to get through two modules of the course after school each Monday and Friday. Today, I was introduced to the concepts of accessibility and how they can be applied to online courses, along with some of the guidelines for accessibility I needed to meet in my work. I was a bit worried about meeting the hour requirements for my internship since I had to start later than other students because of the internship I picked, but after spending around two hours watching videos on accessible html tagging, I've lost that concern.
January 18: I worked on the next two modules for the accessibility course today. What I learned about today was formatting tables, color coding, and alternate text for accessibility. I understand the reasons I'll do the tasks I'm learning about, to make online classes accessible for differently abled people, but I do wonder about the specifics of the materials I'm going to receive to edit. I'm a little less than halfway through the course.
January 22: I did two more modules for the accessibility course. Some of these educational materials are pretty interesting! I watched a Star Trek themed video where Spock explained the benefits of universal design to me. Universal design is the idea that improvements to accessibility improve the experience for everyone, such as how curb cuts make sidewalks more accessible for both wheelchairs and strollers. There are only three modules left, so I'm going to try and get through them all on my next learning session.
January 25: I'm finally done with my accessibility course! I had to blast through the three remaining modules all at once, but now I'll move to the hands-on part of the internship. In a few days, the professor I'm working with should send me a copy of Adobe Acrobat so I can edit materials for online courses. I'm not entirely ready yet, however. I still need to familiarize myself with the functions of Acrobat, so I can do my job correctly. I know how to make online material accessible, but I still need to learn how to use this program to make materials accessible.
February 10: Turns out that using Acrobat was a lot trickier than I thought! It took me nearly half an hour just to figure out how to open the accessibility settings, not to mention how long it took to set the program up. It took me a while, but I'm confident that now that I've set up the accessibility tools and read some tutorials, I'll be able to apply the knowledge I learned in my online courses and edit course materials to meet accessibility standards. Now, I just have to wait to get my hands on some of those materials. I should get my first batch in a few days!
February 17: I've received my first set of files to edit. They're chapter scans from a textbook. The steps I need to take are to tag the entire document, add alternative text to any images or graphs, correctly tag any tables, and resolve any issues the accessibility checker Acrobat has spits out at me. It took me a lot of time, since I had to back track after a few mistakes, but at the end of the day I got three chapters to 100% accessibility. Like my accessibility course, I'm going to try to tackle these chapters in three segment chunks.
February 18: Today, I managed to avoid a lot of the pitfalls I trapped myself in when editing the first few chapters. It took significantly less time to edit the chapters for today. I read a little bit of the file, which was about social deviance, that caught my interest. I checked that they were 100% accessible, then emailed the edited files back to the professor. I think I'm starting to get the hang of things.
February 19: Not a lot to report today! I tackled my three files, and didn't encounter any unfamiliar errors or new tools I needed to use to make the document accessible. The chapter pdfs all have a lot of accessibility errors in common, so knowing the right steps to take speeds the process up quite a bit.
February 20: I was surprised how quickly I was able to get my files to 100% accessibility today. I was working like a well-oiled machine, loading pdfs into Acrobat and picking apart all the accessibility errors with mechanical precision. I only have six chapters left to do, so tomorrow I'm going to try to wipe them all out in one fell swoop.
February 22: It took the larger part of an evening, but I've gotten all of the chapters of the textbook to 100% accessibility! I sent all the edited files in to the professor, and I was told that I've done a good job of things. I'll be ready for whatever I need to edit next! I've learned a lot about file editing software during my internship, so maybe in the future I could apply that skill to other purposes?
Closing Report
My internship demanded a lot of me, for me to quickly learn to meet criteria and deadlines, but I feel that it was a very rewarding experience that facilitated growth of valuable skills for me that I could bring to a future career. I've sharpened my senses to issues of accessibility, recognizing obstacles that might affect others and understanding the importance of universal accessibility. I've also learned how to operate file editing software, and have developed self-education skills for learning how to purposefully and effectively operate other digital programs. I had a rewarding experience editing courses for a subject that I hold interested in, and at the end of the day I did some good, creating more accessible courses for students to learn from.
My internship demanded a lot of me, for me to quickly learn to meet criteria and deadlines, but I feel that it was a very rewarding experience that facilitated growth of valuable skills for me that I could bring to a future career. I've sharpened my senses to issues of accessibility, recognizing obstacles that might affect others and understanding the importance of universal accessibility. I've also learned how to operate file editing software, and have developed self-education skills for learning how to purposefully and effectively operate other digital programs. I had a rewarding experience editing courses for a subject that I hold interested in, and at the end of the day I did some good, creating more accessible courses for students to learn from.