EP-102: Dr. Nicole L'Etoile - Making Online Content Accessible for All
On today’s episode, we are joined by Dr. Nicole L’Etoile! Nicole is a business owner, LMS specialist, and an instructional designer, who is passionate about accessibility. We just so happened to record this episode on Global Accessibility Awareness Day! In this episode, we discuss about what accessibility means, tools to help designers, strategies for working with stakeholders, success stories, where AI fits into accessibility, and more!
👉 Key Takeaways:
Online content should be accessible for all people, regardless of their impairments or disabilities.
Common challenges in online learning accessibility include cognitive overload and color contrast issues.
Tools like the Wave tool, Arc Toolkit, and Grackle can help with accessibility checks.
Address pushback by leading by example, creating a plan, and emphasizing the importance of inclusivity.
Gradually implementing accessibility improvements can save time and money in the long run. Having conversations about accessibility and taking an inward look at design practices is crucial for creating accessible online courses.
Generative AI tools can help with tasks like generating alt text and image descriptions, but manual checks and edits are still necessary.
The future of accessibility in online learning may involve AI embedded in learning management systems to provide real-time feedback and guidance.
A combination of manual and automatic checks is recommended to ensure accessibility in course design.
Continued learning and staying up-to-date with new tools and technologies is important for improving accessibility in online learning.
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Transcript:
00:00:00:01 - 00:00:24:07
Luke Hobson
Hello learning nerds and welcome on in to the nerdiest podcast you're going to hear today. Dr. Luke here and today we are talking all about accessibility be at the timing of this podcast recording. It just so happens to be Global Accessibility Awareness Day and certainly when it comes to learning experiences, accessibility is an essential detail that we should absolutely be paying attention to.
00:00:24:12 - 00:00:50:01
Luke Hobson
And it just so happens that I have a friend who specializes in thinking about accessibility and online learning experiences, and that is who you're going to be hearing from. Today, we are going to be joined by Dr. Nicole L'Etoile. She has been working inside of this space for quite some time. And I really want her to be able to come on this show and to share more about how to make our online learning experiences accessible for all people.
00:00:50:06 - 00:01:07:22
Luke Hobson
Nicole is actually a recent graduate over at Instructional Design Institute, and a part of the Instructional Design Institute's program is that the students have to be able to create their own type of course at the end of everything. And she chose to be able to make a course about how to make content accessible, especially within the online space.
00:01:08:03 - 00:01:27:12
Luke Hobson
And as I was going through this course, I was looking at it, I was like, This is amazing. I want you to come on the podcast and talk more about this because certainly she has many different types of tips and strategies that you're going to be hearing about inside of this episode. So we're going to be hearing more from tools, from resources, even going back to the basics of defining accessibility.
00:01:27:12 - 00:01:45:05
Luke Hobson
And what do we really mean? How can we go above and beyond to make our accessible types of learning experiences really for all people? And also to talk about the challenges with accessibility? So we bring this up and certainly I have worked with some subject matter experts before in the past, and they kind of push back against me with accessibility.
00:01:45:05 - 00:02:08:08
Luke Hobson
And I was like, That's kind of weird. So we talk about this to be able to figure out different types of ways and strategies to get around these types of barriers if you also happen to be facing them inside of the workplace. So today is all about designing, learning experiences for all people. And of course, be sure to go down below inside of a show notes folks, because this episode, this is a show notes episode for sure.
00:02:08:08 - 00:02:27:16
Luke Hobson
Lots of resources, lots of tools. Nicole also has made her course that she created into a public version of this course. For all my lyrics, variances and making them accessible for all people. So that course is actually going to be launching soon as well. So be sure to go down below inside of a show notes and check out everything.
00:02:27:16 - 00:02:35:14
Luke Hobson
But with all of that being said, I'm not going to waste any more time. Here is the one and the only Dr. Nicole Atwal. Nicole, welcome to the podcast.
00:02:35:19 - 00:02:38:11
Nicole L'Etoile
Hi, Luke. Thanks for having me. I'm really excited to be here.
00:02:38:21 - 00:02:47:11
Luke Hobson
Of course. Happy to have you, Nicole. For the folks at home who don't know who you are, could you please introduce yourself? Tell us a little bit more about who you are and what is it that you do?
00:02:47:21 - 00:03:06:19
Nicole L'Etoile
Absolutely. My name is Nicole L'Etoile. I am a white female, a late forties. I have brown hair with some blondish highlights. It's pulled back right now in a ponytail. And I'm in my home office with my headset and my new podcast microphone. And I'm ready to to talk.
00:03:07:10 - 00:03:29:04
Luke Hobson
Of course. Of course. Now, Nicole, you are here on a very special day, which is somehow happens to magically align from when we scheduled this podcast, which it happens to be Global Accessibility Awareness Day. And wouldn't you know it, we are talking about how to make online content accessible all for all people. So once again, I didn't plan that.
00:03:29:17 - 00:03:42:21
Nicole L'Etoile
That was amazing. And when this was plan, I thought, wow, he is just and he was so cool about you were just so cool about it because you're like, Let's do it Thursday. And it's like, he must know. He must know it is. So yeah, he just really worked out.
00:03:43:04 - 00:03:46:05
Luke Hobson
But he doesn't got very lucky.
00:03:46:05 - 00:03:47:01
Nicole L'Etoile
It worked out what.
00:03:47:01 - 00:04:07:09
Luke Hobson
Happened that the stars align with this podcast episode. But from knowing you, Nicole, because now I have known you for over the last year, you're a recent graduate over at Instructional Design Institute. You also created a fantastic course project that really was all about today's theme. We're talking about accessibility and being able to educate all folks as far as this goes.
00:04:07:09 - 00:04:17:09
Luke Hobson
So clearly you're very passionate about this area and I'm kind of curious about where does your passion come from? How were you introduced to accessibility, especially inside of the online learning space?
00:04:17:12 - 00:04:35:13
Nicole L'Etoile
Yeah, well, thanks for the question. And I'm just going to back up and give a little bit to context about my role and my background and then lead into that question. So I'm in my 23rd year career, all within the K through 12 space. If you were to ask me what my title was, I would say professional assessment, specialist learning development specialist.
00:04:35:13 - 00:05:01:20
Nicole L'Etoile
I don't know. These days. I think there's so many things that I could call myself founder of my Little Education LLC, an LMA specialists. But really, you know, I started out I'm a technology and business educator who went up the ranks and became a school principal and a consultant and did some PD. And I you know, I think what happened was I kept thinking, what is next for me?
00:05:01:20 - 00:05:23:06
Nicole L'Etoile
Where am I going? And I ended up deciding to to really focus back on how do I put all this together. I'm a teacher. I'm a school leader. But I love technology. I love creating courses. And so I took a role as an L.A. administrator, instructional designer. And I think when you asked the question of when did this become a passion, it became a passion.
00:05:23:06 - 00:05:46:17
Nicole L'Etoile
When it became my my every day work. And I took on this role. And one of the key responsibilities of the job was that I had to do what we call an admin review for a course. So every course designer, every instructional designer on the team would create the course. And I would either provide support along the way or I would receive the course at the end.
00:05:47:04 - 00:06:18:23
Nicole L'Etoile
And I'd have to put it through a rigorous admin course review and say whether it could go live or not and it would end up being a back and forth between me and the designer or the subject matter expert and their designer, because sometimes there were three of us working on that course and I what was happening was as I was getting more confident and comfortable and learning about accessibility, because that was a key part of that review was I started to realize that we were not meeting standards, that we were not doing a great job.
00:06:19:14 - 00:06:44:14
Nicole L'Etoile
So I really immersed myself in it and as if to me in my personality, it's if you know, to better, right? So once we know now we need to do better and I also saw that as coming from education. We provide education and professional development to other educators so that they could support their students and we should be the gold star.
00:06:44:14 - 00:06:50:21
Nicole L'Etoile
We should be the model, because if we're not doing that, how can we ask others to do it?
00:06:51:21 - 00:06:58:12
Luke Hobson
Exactly. And I'm sure you made so many friends by calling them out, saying that things are not accessible and they just loved your comments.
00:06:58:22 - 00:07:09:15
Nicole L'Etoile
Oh, yes. I wasn't saying a couple of times I was referred to as the Accessibility Police. We had a copyright police and we also had Accessibility Police. So sorry about that. Oh, yeah.
00:07:09:15 - 00:07:26:08
Luke Hobson
Loved it. Like you're sorry, but you're not, you know, like you kind of should be definitely doing this, you know that and yeah. But so because I've been before too, so I'm like, Oh, I know that, I know all too well. So it's always a good time to try to be able to do those things. But as you were saying, extremely important, essential, crucial.
00:07:26:08 - 00:07:48:21
Luke Hobson
We should be obviously doing all these things. So before and I kept on saying all of these things, but I want to break that down for a second, because what we're thinking about from accessibility, I know that as soon as we say that word, folks are immediately thinking about a couple of different things. As far as for what exactly are we talking about, what we're saying, we're trying to be able to make a online learning experience accessible.
00:07:48:21 - 00:08:00:12
Luke Hobson
So I love to dive into that and to get more like of a clearer definition and perception about when you hear the word accessibility, what comes to mind as far as for what's inside of that space?
00:08:00:23 - 00:08:36:07
Nicole L'Etoile
Yeah. So when talking about accessibility in the context of online learning, referring to design or delivery of education experiences in a way to ensure that all learners, regardless of their physical impairments or cognitive breakdown, the different disabilities but impairments and disabilities that they can fully participate in, engage with the content. And then it goes broader than that. You know, can everyone access the content beyond visual impairments or cognitive impairments and disabilities?
00:08:36:07 - 00:09:03:18
Nicole L'Etoile
And so we're talking about content accessibility, ensuring the materials are accessible. We're talking about the platform is the LMS. Now, can we navigate it? Is the learning management system itself, is it accessible or are we making sure that communication within our courses is is clear? Do we have assessments and activities that are adopting, you know, principles? And so I think it means a lot of things.
00:09:03:18 - 00:09:22:16
Nicole L'Etoile
I think we start with the checklist, we start with the WCAG standards and saying or re meeting the standards or within compliance and then I don't know about you, but I don't like when anyone gets left out. I especially feel that when we're designing experiences, it's, it's our job, it's our responsibility to make sure that we include all people, all learners.
00:09:22:22 - 00:09:32:08
Nicole L'Etoile
And so regardless of an impairment or disability, is this content accessible to everyone that wants to participate?
00:09:32:18 - 00:09:39:00
Luke Hobson
Yeah, of course. Of course. And yes, we shouldn't be leaving people out, especially in education. Right. All the places. Let's not have this be.
00:09:39:01 - 00:09:40:12
Nicole L'Etoile
Education for.
00:09:40:12 - 00:10:02:06
Luke Hobson
Thinking about leaving people out for everything. So that is a excellent definition and very textbook, very impressive that you're able to say that. So when thinking about with this, I would love to actually start with a success story because I know that we are talking about from accessibility as far as for like being accessibility police and some people I know can have like, oh, there's that person who's always going to flag me down.
00:10:02:06 - 00:10:19:09
Luke Hobson
But however there's like for superpowers as far as for having your learning experiences accessible for all, because now they serve all people. So to me that's like a massive win to be able to go into that direction. So I'd love to hear an example about a time where you saw an opportunity to be able to take something to make it more accessible.
00:10:19:09 - 00:10:22:04
Luke Hobson
And in turn, that actually made the project like ten times better.
00:10:22:12 - 00:10:23:12
Nicole L'Etoile
Yeah, this Story.
00:10:23:17 - 00:10:46:14
Nicole L'Etoile
Idea, of course. Yeah. And there were a few that came to mind as you're asking the question, and there's real concrete examples and then there's some, some more of the emotion, the personal side to it. I think if we're looking at a concrete example, you know, how to see those accessibility overlays nowadays that are on sites that you see the little accessibility icon in there everywhere.
00:10:46:14 - 00:11:16:08
Nicole L'Etoile
And we are the organization that I was at was using it on our Moodle alums and quickly come to realize that that's not the way to go. Because for those who are using screen readers and assistive technologies and have certain disabilities and a parent's day, that overlay actually makes it worse. So the overlays themselves can prevent screen readers from reading certain things.
00:11:16:08 - 00:11:42:10
Nicole L'Etoile
It can mask, it becomes about, you know, CYA as opposed to is it really making it accessible. And so we a project that I was on and we led, we decided to do what we call an accessibility review. So it was putting together a team of five people who take our courses and ask them to review a course from accessibility lens.
00:11:42:21 - 00:12:12:15
Nicole L'Etoile
We had somebody on there with a visual impairment, hearing impairment motor so could how they could use the keyboard and so had different lenses to go through courses and then provide some feedback. And that was truly one of those experiences where again, it was just great to go through it and provide this opportunity, but to hear from the participant who said Thank you, thank you one for thinking of us, thank you for making the effort and it'll never be perfect.
00:12:12:15 - 00:12:23:21
Nicole L'Etoile
And we know that. But we just want to appreciate and feel and we feel seen and thank you. So I would say that that went a long way and a project that I'm proud of it.
00:12:24:01 - 00:12:39:00
Luke Hobson
Absolutely. Why would you not want to be able to get feedback directly from the users who are going to be experiencing this? And to give you that and I know, but that's some standard practices for corporate organizations. Or I was just like that so brilliant to be able to do, especially like for products of apps and everything of a sort.
00:12:39:00 - 00:12:54:06
Luke Hobson
But that's just a part of our standards to be able to say that if every person is going to be downloading this app, we need to go right to the source, have them actually test it, and to give us feedback to say, Are we on track? Or maybe not so much, and we got to figure things out. So that is a brilliant idea to be able to do.
00:12:54:21 - 00:13:12:09
Nicole L'Etoile
Yeah. Yeah, I think I would just it just seems so natural, right? So you want to get feedback on any learning experience mostly that you're writing. So I think what was happening is an admin review of the course. It's, it's, I don't necessarily use a screen reader, I can test it with a screen reader and I use certain ones to do that with.
00:13:12:09 - 00:13:22:01
Nicole L'Etoile
But I'm not really getting the learner experience fully. So in order to do that, I need to hear from someone who is going to experience this in that way.
00:13:23:06 - 00:13:43:14
Luke Hobson
So your your post, your message reminds me too about one post that I saw because you and I are both very active on LinkedIn using this thing like, you know, on a daily basis. One of the things that I didn't think about when you post inside of LinkedIn is the way, but you have the spacing in between the different types of sentences.
00:13:43:19 - 00:14:05:10
Luke Hobson
So you know, the ones that usually go viral, which is like line and then like enter here's another line, you know, like, how's it is? It just goes forever and ever and ever. And I was following and friend of a show, Bela Gaytán and she made a post about how she has mobility issues and she was like, When you do that, I am scrolling for an eternity to be able to read this post.
00:14:05:10 - 00:14:20:13
Luke Hobson
It's not optimal to be able to do it in this way for folks like myself. And I was like, I had no idea. And I immediately as soon as she said that, I was just like, I will not do that now. Make sure it's spaced accordingly so that that way people can follow along. And it's not like a tremendous eyesore.
00:14:20:18 - 00:14:36:12
Nicole L'Etoile
Yeah. Yeah. And the same thing with like in a course or within document. So a lot of times you'll see documents embedded into courses and they're not necessarily using the headings structure. And it's the same. It's almost asking someone to open up the document, be like it doesn't matter to me what you want to read in this document or not.
00:14:36:19 - 00:15:10:00
Nicole L'Etoile
You're just going to have to scroll through this entire thing. And I'm not going to provide you any context, labels or headings to stop you and say, this is important. You might want to read this part. So it's the similar experience. You don't know until you're in that position of like, Oh, this is really difficult for me. And I always say accessibility is it when there is no there is no barrier to the learning, but also when someone doesn't have to ask or bring it to your attention that that to me is a true perfect goldstar of accessibility that someone can access and be part of a learning experience without having to even think about
00:15:10:00 - 00:15:11:03
Nicole L'Etoile
their disability.
00:15:12:05 - 00:15:38:00
Luke Hobson
Now, it's an absolute win. So let's talk about a few types of typical challenges in regards to you were mentioning about how you reviewed courses and you would try to be able to see about what people did and trying to be able to flagged them and things of this nature. For the folks listening at home, who are the educators, the designers, what are some of the common types of challenges in regards to what you would see, especially within the online learning space and thinking about it from an accessibility lens?
00:15:38:17 - 00:16:03:07
Nicole L'Etoile
Yeah, I think the first thing that comes to mind is cognitive overload. So if we're talking about, you know, neurodivergent and we're thinking about people that just, you know, just thinking about the content coming into all overwhelmingly I, I reviewed one course once and it was, you know, all the bells and whistles and this particular designer just loved to try every H5 P that they could and every it was like a goal of theirs.
00:16:03:07 - 00:16:23:10
Nicole L'Etoile
Every week I'm going to insert this new interactive tool because it's fun for me to play and learn and put it in. And I, I think what experiencing that cognitive overload of wanting to do too much, when sometimes it could be a simple text document that could get, you know, a simple text document or activity assignment that you can accomplish a deeper learning experience.
00:16:23:19 - 00:16:54:12
Nicole L'Etoile
So I would say cognitive overload when it comes to two courses is something that I've experienced often color contrast, believe it or not, is still, although basic color contrast is often. I love my web aim color contrast checker tool to check those things but yeah if you you'll see that and you know we know the basics there is no alternative text and still see that often close captions end a transcript audio transcripts as is the requirement.
00:16:54:20 - 00:17:08:13
Nicole L'Etoile
Sometimes you only see one or the other or none. So yeah, I think I think still those basic ones are what I see the most and cognitive overload is the one that comes to mind right now.
00:17:09:03 - 00:17:31:13
Luke Hobson
When you mentioned about that too, I'm not sure if you saw there was a there was a series about the New York Jets on YouTube, and they were showing about the coaches going up to the front of the room and giving their PowerPoint presentations and like breaking down the different types of plays. Well, the Jets have an instructional designer on the show, and he took a picture of that and he was just like, I promise I did not do this.
00:17:32:02 - 00:17:33:05
Nicole L'Etoile
But that's great.
00:17:33:12 - 00:17:44:14
Luke Hobson
Yeah. And, and especially to when thinking about with a different color combinations for those who are colorblind and have those impairments. And is this like why are you making things like red and green? Like what?
00:17:45:02 - 00:18:09:01
Nicole L'Etoile
Why? Yeah, you know, I get you want to make this highlight and make it bright and yellow, but it's not really the best way to get the message across. I think sometimes you still still see folks relying too much on color for conveying important information. You know, if I put something in red, but I don't put important or notice here or attention, you know, use some language and text.
00:18:09:01 - 00:18:13:12
Nicole L'Etoile
They don't know that it's important just by color alone. Right?
00:18:13:18 - 00:18:30:07
Luke Hobson
Right. Yeah, makes sense. So you mentioned actually a couple of tools in that last answer. And that's actually where I wanted to go next is to hear more. Since you are so fantastic inside of a space, what are some tools you can share with us in regards to things that we should just always have them in the background?
00:18:30:09 - 00:18:34:04
Luke Hobson
I'll wait that hand to be able to make sure that we're running them for our learning experiences.
00:18:34:10 - 00:18:57:06
Nicole L'Etoile
Yeah, I like that. You know, I try to try to put my two hats on of being that LMS administrator hat and then the instructional designer hat and knowing that they're slightly sometimes different roles. But you know, the more you know, it was like a that was an NBC thing, the more you know. And every time I you know, rain last I did see that I was in my late forties doing it.
00:18:57:07 - 00:19:18:15
Nicole L'Etoile
Yeah. So that that's dating myself so yeah I think whatever I start with the, the what is it low you know kind of low effort, high impact and newer accessibility checkers built in to your tools are a great place to start. Most have them if you're using an element, you have them in all of the ones I've seen so far.
00:19:18:23 - 00:19:43:17
Nicole L'Etoile
Canvas, Brightspace, Moodle, the ones inside Canva have them to. If you're using Canva or even then, then each engage is the other one that people use for for diagrams and images. So anyway, so using your built in tools, I use way the wave tool that's popular, it's free and you can get that on the web aim dot org website and the wave tool.
00:19:43:17 - 00:20:05:11
Nicole L'Etoile
I keep that up and I run them in after I design a course. I currently right now I'm designing something and I did, I built it out and I put out all the modules and then I ran my wave tool after just I try not to look too much at everything. Start with the, the contract is the sorry the critical items and then I go from more critical to significant and look at the alerts.
00:20:06:15 - 00:20:33:18
Nicole L'Etoile
So wave tools run the ARC tool kit is free. The ARC tool kit is something that you can go if you're if you're a little bit more savvy and familiar with, call code and you're not uncomfortable getting into the developer tools. So it runs on your browser and then you go into your more tools, developer tools, and you can go from there and it'll, it'll pull up and it does a little bit more checker of structure and headings.
00:20:34:01 - 00:21:02:23
Nicole L'Etoile
It's one that I use often, of course, if you're using Grackle for docs and slides, if you bet a lot of presentation content, I always refer to Grackle free extension, so those would be the ones that I would suggest for everyday use. And then even when before I go live, I run my own, I have a mac, so I run the voiceover to make sure that or free screen reader every day I check that as well.
00:21:02:23 - 00:21:25:19
Nicole L'Etoile
I think sometimes that's that's over goes a little bit above and beyond. But if you're if you're willing and I would say it's always worth going within designing from the start where you keep it in mind from the very beginning. If you're going to write out the text, put it in Microsoft Word, use the heading system, use crackle, check it first, then put it into the the platform.
00:21:26:08 - 00:21:43:09
Nicole L'Etoile
And but if you don't have the time for that and you're building out and you're okay with doing these checks before it goes live, then those are the tools I recommend to just give it a give it a look over said it. It'll never be perfect it's just tough to the more more you know.
00:21:44:09 - 00:22:02:16
Luke Hobson
I mean you absolutely just share some tools I have not heard of before. So like, it's obviously we're going to keep on learning more as we keep on, which is the whole point of this conversation and the podcast. Keep on sharing your insights and knowledge and being able to figure out about what folks who are actually really inside of this space or what are they currently doing, what are they using and everything of the sort.
00:22:02:23 - 00:22:22:19
Luke Hobson
When you do so, you rattle off a ton of these different types of awesome different forms of products. If you are currently working with a semi, I'm trying to envision myself as an ID and I'm going through a type of a course and I'm working for Smear Professor, whoever it is, and then being able to say, okay, I just did all of my checks, I'm going through things.
00:22:22:19 - 00:22:39:17
Luke Hobson
There's actually a few different types of areas of opportunities here, but I want to be able to work on to reshift of focus and whatnot. And I know from past experience as well that if I try to make a whole bunch of recommendations, I might get pushed back. It's going to take too long look, it's going to cost too much time.
00:22:39:17 - 00:23:01:09
Luke Hobson
It's going to do blah, blah, blah. And of course, I'm like, that doesn't matter. It needs to be done this way. How have you handled pushback as far as for those types of common things, whether it's going to be from cost or from timing or from deadlines, deliverables, whatever it is, how do you handle pushback while trying to make sure that you are going in the right direction from that design type of angle and perspective?
00:23:02:00 - 00:23:19:10
Nicole L'Etoile
Yeah, that's a really great question and something that I lived through quite some time and you know, when I was working on a team and it was my full time job, it was it was actually more challenging than it is now as a consultant where I go in and do audit because people have asked me to come in and and they want me to tell them and they want to make those changes.
00:23:19:10 - 00:23:56:06
Nicole L'Etoile
So it's slightly it feels a little bit different in how it's kind of my approach to it, whether you want the low effort, high impact, or if we're going all in or, you know, where can we start? And I always say an extra bit of effort contributes to to a long way. And so if it just means that I have to find a few of these to share and get started and win over the trust of like we're doing this for, for everyone, I think there's, there's definitely some empathy that needs to be a conversation around that.
00:23:57:19 - 00:24:14:00
Nicole L'Etoile
Like I started out saying earlier that we don't want to leave people out and how would you know? How do you feel when if you can't experience that learning or you couldn't access that learning? So sometimes there is some those deep conversations around empathy and trying to put the mirror on the other person and say, you know, try to think about how that might feel.
00:24:15:05 - 00:24:39:05
Nicole L'Etoile
So so every bit of effort, I can tell you about a project that, again, in kind of this reactive stage of coming on in the role and there is almost 45 courses that were built and you've got designers who've been building them for years and then come to find out that to their knowledge they had some basic understanding or what they thought was a good they thought they had a solid foundation.
00:24:39:05 - 00:25:02:21
Nicole L'Etoile
Right? So the basics we talk about alt text, close captions, and then realizing that, ooh, that's just scratching the surface and so do I. Now go back and fix all these. There's a little bit of panic, a little bit of time, and effort and money, but you make a commitment as a team that this this is the right thing to do, make that commitment and then a plan.
00:25:02:21 - 00:25:22:14
Nicole L'Etoile
And I always support the plan. So if I'm going to introduce something new to you or say, hey, I think that this is this could be fix and this is why and I'm going to support it. I'm going to do it maybe for you to start I'm going to gradually release it to show you how maybe we build it in where this doesn't show up at the admin review.
00:25:22:18 - 00:25:40:16
Nicole L'Etoile
It's part of the course design course that we give people before they can design a course, things like that. And so yeah, I think it just takes a lot of intention and effort upfront, but it's going to save us time and money in the end and in the long run, if we are thinking about these things before we begin and while we're doing it.
00:25:41:15 - 00:25:57:00
Luke Hobson
I love you're also leading by example too. You said that you're going to be showing them first, which there's a lot of times that I found that people just simply don't know. They they think they're doing things right. And then you show additional ways. And as you said, you're like, I didn't know we could do that. It's like, yeah, we can.
00:25:57:03 - 00:26:23:00
Luke Hobson
And of course, like I said, too, there's always more and more that keeps on coming. About for things that I didn't realize as a possibility. And now all of a sudden we have this new way of doing something. Is this like, Oh, here we go. Here's our new standard for going forwards for things. And the the one example that I think about too, and for some people who have like written to the show before to say that like this is because this is a real life example of people saying that like my school is a problem, they're not paying attention to this.
00:26:23:00 - 00:26:40:01
Luke Hobson
And as an instructional designer, they're like, I know we need to be. So how do I get them to, you know, think about those things? And you can, of course, relate it back to like, well, if you're teaching in person and you have a person who is literally in need and cannot participate because you are literally excluding them, like you wouldn't do that.
00:26:40:08 - 00:27:00:17
Luke Hobson
This is in person because you can see them right in front of you and being like that's, you know, you wouldn't do that. And now we're in the online space and you can't see the folks. So therefore it doesn't have like that much of that form of a urgency because you're behind a virtual screen now and it's like, no, no, it's it's so just support this word.
00:27:00:17 - 00:27:02:21
Luke Hobson
We're delivering it in a different way now.
00:27:02:22 - 00:27:03:23
Nicole L'Etoile
Yeah. Yeah.
00:27:04:00 - 00:27:05:07
Luke Hobson
So you're like trying to play like.
00:27:05:07 - 00:27:29:22
Nicole L'Etoile
Yeah, I mean, I've, I've had conversations with certain designers or as in subject matter experts and there's this feeling of like, well, it's a facilitated course and I'll know if they have a disability, they'll tell me and I will or that, or they'll, they'll have a certain need that maybe not a disability, but a preference, a learning. They'll tell me and I'll just and it's like, no, that's not how it works.
00:27:30:04 - 00:28:05:04
Nicole L'Etoile
Like, well, I'm so, so yeah, I think, I think just having these conversations is the step is a first step to to really take an inward look to, you know, how are we doing this? I spent this. This is something I spent 2 hours yesterday. I am working on a module and I realize I made a lot of videos and and after, you know, you plan it out and I was like, oh, this is going to be like an hour worth of you putting out the audio transcripts, making sure that the link is proper, making sure that that when you click that link, that it doesn't open to a new window because that's also something
00:28:05:04 - 00:28:24:00
Nicole L'Etoile
that, you know, people don't realize that for accessibility purposes, it's great for every learner, but not necessarily for screen reader users. So you've got to balance that out a bit. But yeah, I spent hours putting out the transcript and I was like thinking, okay, next module, maybe we'll do, maybe there's a better way or I don't need to do as much video.
00:28:24:00 - 00:28:31:03
Nicole L'Etoile
Or if it is video, then you have to spend the time to do the transcript. So yeah, walk the walk and model. But what, what we want people to do.
00:28:31:14 - 00:28:45:14
Luke Hobson
Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And there's some that I'm finding too from a transcript perspective that have just come so far because I use Adobe Premiere for editing my videos and there is of course a transcript and closed captioning feature and everything and it's, it's pretty darn good.
00:28:45:18 - 00:28:45:23
Nicole L'Etoile
Yeah.
00:28:46:09 - 00:29:01:02
Luke Hobson
I think about before where it was offline, I was like, oh that's there. But now it's, it's so much better. And yes, there are some words, especially an instructional design plan that we say for acronyms and such, where that's just like it when there are pickups. Me Impossible.
00:29:01:12 - 00:29:22:04
Nicole L'Etoile
Yeah, yeah, yeah. For the most part it's pretty good. Yeah. So yeah, it's a good place to start. And then editing, you know, I rely a lot on my close captions and for a go into YouTube maybe, but then I, I go beyond the auto sync. Now I'll go in and edit and make sure that things are correct, that I do my best.
00:29:22:04 - 00:29:46:13
Nicole L'Etoile
And I have to say like you'll miss some and but start, start looking at it, making sure time to time that you're getting, getting these accurate. The the newest tool synthesis I know we've talked a little bit on that about people it's hit LinkedIn and chatting about it a bit synthesize like well I'll download the subtitles and they're great they're wonderful so I don't need to auto single upload them right to YouTube and and everything.
00:29:46:13 - 00:29:52:23
Nicole L'Etoile
It looks it looks great. So yeah the tools are come a long way and so they had.
00:29:52:23 - 00:30:12:13
Luke Hobson
Yeah they have. So if I am going to be what Sam creating a course today and I want to make sure of it I'm being as thorough as possible. You've talked about a couple of different strategies and tools and whatnot, but if I'm trying to be able to go through with everything, what would you recommend just for like the introductory steps, just to make sure that I'm doing everything properly?
00:30:12:13 - 00:30:18:19
Luke Hobson
As far as for designing an online learning experience, what should I make sure I am definitely following to make sure I'm going down the right path?
00:30:19:06 - 00:30:44:15
Nicole L'Etoile
Yeah. So, you know, a checklist is a great place to start. I mean, there's so many out there, you can find them all. I have one of my websites free download. There's that there's web aim has great one there just Google or ask chatty betty she'll make you want to or he I say she because mine has a woman's voice on the chat for for oh I gave her a female voice.
00:30:44:16 - 00:31:01:09
Nicole L'Etoile
Oh yeah. I actually I'm going to get I'm going to go in a sidebar for a second because I used it and I extra I go, do you have a name? And she says, No, do you want me to have a name? And I said, okay, let's give you a name. And then I asked it. I said, Well, do you have what do you look like?
00:31:01:09 - 00:31:11:22
Nicole L'Etoile
Because what do you want me to look like? Can you describe what you'd like me to look like? So, yeah. So that's my. I don't even know what they told you. I was going to go on a tangent. Where did I go off? My daughter.
00:31:11:23 - 00:31:20:11
Luke Hobson
Is fine. But you're right, though, if you're saying that you can ask, which I've done before. I've asked you to give me the ten steps to make sure that my courses are accessible.
00:31:20:14 - 00:31:43:22
Nicole L'Etoile
Yeah, yeah. So a checklist. Exactly. So start there. Because what happens is sometimes there's an item on the checklist that I didn't and then you go further, right? You look into it a little bit further. So whether, you know, most people talk about heading structures, well, there's also certain structures to tables. If you put a table in your course or on a document, there is a very specific structure to how I label those headings and the columns and the rows.
00:31:43:22 - 00:32:14:02
Nicole L'Etoile
And so I might just see on the checklist, you know, make sure your tables are formatted correctly. Well, what does that mean? And so I'll go to Web AME and I'll dig a little deeper or I'll go to another source and dig a little deeper. So yeah, I'd start, start there. I would say from there, try one of the tools, the free tool wave graphical and just run it and see what it shows you and yeah, and send me message on LinkedIn.
00:32:14:03 - 00:32:16:06
Nicole L'Etoile
I'll do a demo for you.
00:32:16:06 - 00:32:20:17
Luke Hobson
Yeah, that's going to be the best. All right. Well, you talked about generative AI and of course, I can't just overlook that.
00:32:20:19 - 00:32:21:22
Nicole L'Etoile
I guess my.
00:32:21:22 - 00:32:39:15
Luke Hobson
Life is now I at this moment in time and developing like three new courses on AI, something just like life is for me at the moment. I have to know, what have you been experimenting with in regards to generative AI and the accessibility space? What have you tried seeing done? What? Just love to hear what you've been up to.
00:32:40:00 - 00:32:57:02
Nicole L'Etoile
Okay, yeah. So first there's, as we know, so many new things that are happening that I can't keep track and it can't keep up. I mean, Google just released something yesterday. I'm going to write it down because I was like, what is it called, Ash? Astra, Am I saying it right where?
00:32:57:02 - 00:32:58:13
Luke Hobson
I don't even know what that is.
00:32:58:18 - 00:33:18:05
Nicole L'Etoile
So this tool is for your it'll be your eyes and your your it's going to be so out of your eye tracker. Yeah. So that's one. Is that Astra now we're going to have to like start looking things up because there is, there were three that were introduced yesterday that I've pinned that I need to learn more about that I wrote down.
00:33:19:00 - 00:33:36:21
Nicole L'Etoile
But then the other I tracker that I saw demoed and I was like, okay, so that is amazing. But I see so chatty Betty for all of them now it's free. There's the there is an accessibility. I don't even know what what do you call these when you can make your own check on this, you choose your explorer chat.
00:33:36:21 - 00:33:58:06
Nicole L'Etoile
Yep. So it's a custom feature. And so I have one called accessibility Ally. Ally. And so that one is been great. And I will put, I'll put code in there and I'll say can you clean my code up like so one of the things that I look for is, you know, I don't, I don't want to have any extra tags that don't need to be there.
00:33:58:07 - 00:34:22:20
Nicole L'Etoile
I don't want to create any extra pick up a blank heading, pick up a blank paragraph tag. So I will run something through there and clean up my my code and then bring it back over. So that's a really amazing I didn't have that access before in the tool, of course. Yeah, I get to go on, I have to like think about all the ones that I I've been.
00:34:23:08 - 00:34:23:15
Luke Hobson
Using.
00:34:23:22 - 00:34:24:15
Nicole L'Etoile
So many why.
00:34:24:15 - 00:34:41:00
Luke Hobson
I'm asking and also as I'm looking at this, more of a left hand side now I'm not sure if Astra is the eye tracker. I think that's the the new like Google lens, if you will, like using the video and being like, what is this on my desk? And this is like, those are markers, whatever. I think it's that one.
00:34:41:00 - 00:34:45:03
Luke Hobson
So no one quotas where we're learning real time timestamps.
00:34:45:03 - 00:34:50:06
Nicole L'Etoile
It came out less than 24 hours ago and I was like, I think I need to pay attention to this. What is this?
00:34:50:17 - 00:35:10:10
Luke Hobson
Yeah, it's definitely an interesting part, but there's so like you, I also did the, the your udl pal one as far as from like an accessibility perspective to be able to help me from that goes. And there's also some things too. Well, is this like something you would just assume you could do? But then you try it out and you're like, Oh wow, that actually worked.
00:35:10:16 - 00:35:32:12
Luke Hobson
So for instance, if I have a bunch of photos and I want to be able to get for the all text or for tags or for whatever it is, image, description, and I can easily take it and be able to say generate images for me for what this is, and it does it beautifully. I was like, Oh yeah, that, yeah, something like, like a massive chart as far as for like there's a lot of information here.
00:35:32:12 - 00:35:36:10
Luke Hobson
I'm like, how can I actually summarize this? And it can like, you know, send it on over and is.
00:35:36:15 - 00:35:37:06
Nicole L'Etoile
Absolutely.
00:35:37:14 - 00:35:41:18
Luke Hobson
Yeah like oh yeah that would obviously I should done that before and I yeah.
00:35:42:00 - 00:36:03:08
Nicole L'Etoile
You know and if you go and if you go beyond the Alt text, so sometimes as those documents or when we want to avoid any image with text on it, if it's especially if we can't do alt texts or if we're going to do a better job describing that image ChatGPT can give you a really nice description that you can embed right into the page itself of.
00:36:03:14 - 00:36:20:03
Nicole L'Etoile
So if I have a chart or a data table or something, I'm trying to describe that I can't fit in 125 characters. I'm going to be able to use that to generate a little bit more descriptive text around it for the content of the page. And so I actually turn to that a little bit more than I do.
00:36:20:03 - 00:36:42:20
Nicole L'Etoile
All text now is I just I try to use General AI to give me and say, okay, this is what I'm describing, this is what I want to put out there. And then that that does help. And so I would mentioned also if you're creating scripts that it could be helpful to create the script and then also look at like so if I what if I did, I do, I need audio description.
00:36:42:23 - 00:37:05:19
Nicole L'Etoile
So sometimes you'll have a video. I see this a lot and I'm never going to call anybody out on LinkedIn or call anybody out anywhere. But if you put out unless you unless you're on my team, then you're putting a life course. I may call you. So there is if your video has no audio, nobody talking, maybe there's music playing.
00:37:05:19 - 00:37:25:09
Nicole L'Etoile
But I always think of think of the Star Wars intro. I wish I could play it for you. Right? So the Star Wars intro and you hear dun dun today and then things start scrolling. If you look at on YouTube, there's no closed captions because nobody talks right. But there's no audio description to tell the person that there is a black sky with stars, right?
00:37:25:09 - 00:37:53:22
Nicole L'Etoile
So we call those audio descriptions and you can you check them on your Netflix? We have them available sometimes on Netflix. You know, sometimes you're like, Oh, how did the narrator get on Turner? I'll turn that off. And so the setting for the narration comes on. And so I notice sometimes in videos that if we post things that don't have voices that you want to provide some type of audio or description to what is being said or the images on the screen.
00:37:54:00 - 00:37:54:20
Nicole L'Etoile
So yeah.
00:37:54:20 - 00:38:13:17
Luke Hobson
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Yeah, that's an excellent example by the way, because there is a lot of text, but that Star Wars introduction that this goes on for forever. So that is that's a great point. It also reminds me too that I read something a while back, which now I do for all of my YouTube shorts.
00:38:13:17 - 00:38:34:19
Luke Hobson
Is that because of the way that people are now absorbing content and different types of ways, Gen Z and some millennials as well, and I'm a later millennial, but still a millennial is that we do not use YouTube shorts, Instagram reels, anything like that. We're sound. We watch things in silence. And I don't know if it's I don't know why.
00:38:34:19 - 00:38:51:03
Luke Hobson
I know for me, it's kind of more like a polite thing if I'm on the train and I'm bored and I'm just like scrolling, I'm not going to have this thing blaring with sound, obviously. So in order for me to actually enjoy the content you need to have the captions that are in the middle of the phone or else I'm not.
00:38:51:03 - 00:39:09:19
Luke Hobson
I'm just going to literally go to the next thing and to find one that actually does have the words are being said right there. And I saw something along the lines about how it's know I'm not alone in this that right now, the way that people are consuming content on their phones, that is now like a requirement or else people will just not watch, period.
00:39:09:21 - 00:39:22:17
Luke Hobson
So it's now shifted to, of course, the whole point about things from accessibility as well too, that it's not just going to be enjoyed by like one individual. If you do something for one person, it can literally benefit all people.
00:39:22:18 - 00:39:23:16
Nicole L'Etoile
Yes, I.
00:39:23:16 - 00:39:43:11
Luke Hobson
Just the whole point, you know, talking about UDL and everything else like no, everyone can enjoy this. And you wouldn't think that years ago as far as we're saying that like closed captioning is required on YouTube but it's like no, like you you have to have that or else it's just going to miss everything. Yeah. Just so interesting to see how like, that's how technology has shifted into what we do now.
00:39:43:14 - 00:40:06:23
Nicole L'Etoile
Yeah, yeah I mean if we're talking about creating courses where you are giving multiple ways of people to read, so whether you can read it, you can listen to it. I think whether we have a visual impairment, a physical disability hearing impairment, it doesn't necessarily have to be. It just might be that this is how we take in content or have preferences or that we learn now and providing different ways.
00:40:06:23 - 00:40:21:11
Nicole L'Etoile
So, okay, this is another example. This is where I told you I'm going to go on tangents and just start talking about one thing and go random. But like so if I have someone who's taking a course with me and she has a newborn and she's like, I don't know if I can sit and be part of all of the content.
00:40:21:11 - 00:40:38:06
Nicole L'Etoile
And it's like, Well, I'm going to make sure that I'm going to create more audio content for you and not just for you. Right? But for, but for those who might need audio content because that's what fits their lifestyle and that's what's going to fit and give them access that has nothing to do necessarily, just an impairment or disability.
00:40:38:06 - 00:40:58:04
Nicole L'Etoile
It's just life, right? So I think thinking about it that way to is important when we think about accessibility. Yeah. Then I always make sure that when I do my stories because everybody loves my Instagram stories, if you don't follow me on Instagram, it's all about running. By the way, is that I always make sure there's captions in there that my stories that I'm talking that just in case.
00:40:58:04 - 00:40:58:22
Nicole L'Etoile
Yeah, yeah.
00:40:59:04 - 00:41:20:04
Luke Hobson
Yeah. I mean, I also think too about how for folks who listen to this show and English is not their first language, but transcript is easier for them to be able to not just read, but then to also like, make sure that what we are saying like aligns with everything. So I've heard from plenty of folks who listen to the show where they're like, Yeah, if you don't have a transcript, like it's not going to hit home for me.
00:41:20:05 - 00:41:22:14
Luke Hobson
Like, Yep, noted.
00:41:22:14 - 00:41:24:09
Nicole L'Etoile
Good feedback, great feedback.
00:41:24:15 - 00:41:46:02
Luke Hobson
Oh, oh yeah. The, the amount of things that I have learned as far as her from an accessibility perspective by just posting stuff on the Internet has taught me so much. And sometimes I'm like, I'm horrifically embarrassed where I'm like, I never thought of that. I was like, Thank you for sharing. But the point is that like, you share with me, so now I know not to do that for now, I got to do something else in the future to be able to say that right.
00:41:46:02 - 00:42:09:16
Luke Hobson
I need to think about X especially. So zoom doing webinars and things of that nature. Not everyone can participate if you put them inside of breakout rooms. So we start to be able to say when we're hosting large webinars that if you feel more comfortable and if it is better for you to be inside of our main room and we do not put you into a breakout room, that is perfectly fine.
00:42:09:16 - 00:42:25:01
Luke Hobson
Don't go to the breakout room. Communicate with us inside of a chat and we'll go that way because not everyone can communicate verbally. So that was something I learned about from a webinar and someone gave me feedback they wrote in afterwards to be able to say like, Hey, Luke, is that why I like I would really prefer to be in the breakout room.
00:42:25:01 - 00:42:32:05
Luke Hobson
I can only chat with the chat text field and that is going to help me in like noted. Yeah, I will say that from now on.
00:42:32:05 - 00:42:33:10
Nicole L'Etoile
Yeah. Yeah, I do.
00:42:33:14 - 00:42:35:13
Luke Hobson
That for years and I still.
00:42:35:21 - 00:42:53:14
Nicole L'Etoile
Yeah. People don't always don't know, I mean they don't know what they don't know. And I think that if sharing that along the way and giving those tips is how we learn, that's how, how we know. And, and I, oh, like I'll never, ever you'll never hear me say I'm an accessibility expert. You'll never I'll never put it on my, my page.
00:42:53:14 - 00:43:13:13
Nicole L'Etoile
I'll never say it because it just it's I don't know how you could I mean, be an expert in that without because it's definitely something that can be changing and growing and learning. I don't know, maybe that's just my hang up. Hang up on being an expert in anything is that you just you don't know what you don't know.
00:43:13:19 - 00:43:30:01
Nicole L'Etoile
And as we have these conversations on global accessibility Awareness Day of all days, we can dig in and and find more it to unpeel on that just so much more to unpeel always always.
00:43:30:03 - 00:43:36:00
Luke Hobson
Yeah. I've never call myself an instructional design expert. To your expert point, the expert word is weird to me. I'm like.
00:43:36:00 - 00:43:36:02
Nicole L'Etoile
Yeah.
00:43:36:16 - 00:43:46:20
Luke Hobson
I know a thing or two but like expert? But anyway, item recall. What is the future of accessibility like? What do we where are we going? But what's going to be the next thing?
00:43:47:11 - 00:44:21:00
Nicole L'Etoile
Oh, I don't know. I wish I could look at my crystal ball. Your crystal ball, crystal. And so, you know, when just having the release of what Google shared yesterday with the tool, the AI, what is it called, the oh my gosh, I don't know what these things are called anymore. I, I keep thinking about the courses that we're creating right now on the learning management systems and that they're still somewhat static in a way.
00:44:21:00 - 00:44:41:17
Nicole L'Etoile
Right? So we do our best. We take you on these journeys, we create stories and give you scenarios and videos and create ways that people can reflect and provide peer reviews. And we do our best to make it as accessible as possible. And then I think about the new technology and I go, Ooh, where is that? In these courses?
00:44:42:07 - 00:45:08:09
Nicole L'Etoile
And when they get to these courses, I don't know what that looks like and I don't know if I like, then what are the new rules? Are the new standards for for those who need them because of their because of a disability or impairment or just because that is best practice and I don't know and I would love to get my hands on some of these new tools so that I can play, but also who has access to them.
00:45:08:09 - 00:45:11:14
Nicole L'Etoile
So if I put them in a course, am I creating another barrier? I don't know.
00:45:12:17 - 00:45:28:09
Luke Hobson
So yeah, I can tell you what I hope for from our perspective, because I'm going to use hope because. As you just said, you've mentioned a few different types of tools. I really don't know what they are, so I'm going to have to buy from the Astra. And if I'm saying that right, you know, because just hearing about that from today.
00:45:28:15 - 00:45:46:21
Luke Hobson
But what I would love to be able to hope for is that inside of a learning management system, as you're building everything, you know how you always get that either like save or save and publish before. Like you get like a module that goes like student facing live or whatever like that. I would love for something to be able to actually do that.
00:45:46:21 - 00:46:13:09
Luke Hobson
If you do save and if you publish, then it runs that check with I embed inside of the elements to be like, here's what we found. Yeah, know, I want you to realize I'm going to be like, perfect. Like, fix it, give me updates. How do I deal with this? Like to be able to make sure that you're properly following this and not just from like get calling you out on what has caught has not something, but also to then to be able to like give you a guide about how to actually do it.
00:46:13:12 - 00:46:16:03
Luke Hobson
So not just to say this is missing, it's just like.
00:46:16:10 - 00:46:37:17
Nicole L'Etoile
Wow, yeah, most of the tools that that I mentioned do give the remediation, right? So they give this to give the solution, they give the fix. And so I think it becomes a combination of manual and automatic. So it will automatically find the era. It'll make some suggestion there are third parties that you can pay that will fix these for you.
00:46:37:17 - 00:46:58:09
Nicole L'Etoile
There are ones Moodle uses. I think Moodle and they might have been with someone else now, but Brookfield's is one that I'm familiar with or ally is another. And these are the built ones that they will fix them. There are remediations that will do that for you. I tend to be more manual and old school. I suppose than, than that.
00:46:58:09 - 00:47:18:06
Nicole L'Etoile
But they also do recommend that you do a little bit of both. So some of these exist. You've got me, I'm a little bit more curious to see which other ones are out there that a designer could use on their own without having to even go through the LMS or because those are can get costly when you embed them into the platform.
00:47:18:06 - 00:47:32:20
Nicole L'Etoile
And no, I'm not as an instruction designer going to go and go pay for that too to run it by myself. But I imagine, yeah, that's that's where we're headed. That would be that's interesting because.
00:47:33:01 - 00:47:53:08
Luke Hobson
Right now every learning management system but I've been following too of course, everyone is talking about generative. I shouldn't say alums messes, everyone's talking about AI. Right? And it's just like, well, if we're talking about AI and healthy, awesome, great things they can do to me, the superpower of AI is accessibility where I'm like, Yeah, here's all this awesome new stuff that we can do that like it makes it easier to be able to do this to design for all people.
00:47:53:08 - 00:48:06:19
Luke Hobson
So if you embedded into the learning management system and then make it even easier for people to actually find it to make the changes manual override, as you were saying, because I know sometimes you get something like an image description and you're like, oh, no, that's way.
00:48:07:08 - 00:48:09:05
Nicole L'Etoile
Yeah, no, thank you. That's, that's not right.
00:48:09:11 - 00:48:26:03
Luke Hobson
So definitely have that, that ability to be able to do so. But that would be incredible because there's so many who are a team of one and they're doing the best they can. But you know, you talked about timing before, but sometimes it's again, just like take a long time to thoroughly, properly go through like every tiny little thing.
00:48:26:03 - 00:48:29:20
Luke Hobson
And if it was already like there, then just I don't know, I hope that's where we go.
00:48:30:03 - 00:48:36:11
Nicole L'Etoile
Yeah, that would be fantastic. Can we make one? Do we have the skills? Who's where's the team? Can we find the team to create one.
00:48:36:22 - 00:48:41:23
Luke Hobson
Go, go five. It's team. I mean we've got we can I bring enough smart people in our network.
00:48:42:00 - 00:48:42:20
Nicole L'Etoile
Yeah, we.
00:48:42:20 - 00:48:46:10
Luke Hobson
Could, we could figure out how to be able to actually make this a wide no one thing.
00:48:46:14 - 00:48:47:02
Nicole L'Etoile
For sure.
00:48:47:10 - 00:49:05:02
Luke Hobson
Whatever. We'll put a pin in that and to go back to there, Nicole, it's been awesome. It's been a great conversation. I have learned a ton. I'm sure the audience has also learned plenty of things as well too. Where can they go to learn more about you? What you're up to? You also have a fantastic new course about accessibility as well.
00:49:05:02 - 00:49:06:12
Luke Hobson
Like share with us everything.
00:49:07:01 - 00:49:31:01
Nicole L'Etoile
Yeah. So I'm on LinkedIn and it's it's Nicole. Nicole and my last name is L'Etoile. If you notice L'Etoile in French Means Star. So that's why I am L'Etoile Education. Star Education. You can also go to my LLC business page if you'd like and check out more, but you can find the course. As soon as you go to my LinkedIn page, click on my website and go to my courses.
00:49:31:05 - 00:49:51:10
Nicole L'Etoile
I would say that's probably the fastest way do that and then that'll take you to the course. And the course is hosted right now on Maven, and we've talked a little bit about this, but I'm hosting on Maven, but it is a canvas course and so it'll be all things accessibility, what we talked about today around the standards, but also more around designing for best practices.
00:49:52:09 - 00:50:17:11
Nicole L'Etoile
So Definitely going to have to talk about UDL for sure, but we're going to focus in on as you're designing your course from the beginning, from the start, how to intentionally think about accessibility key so that when your course goes live, we've, we've done we've done a good job. So I hope you join me. We start September 23rd, of course, as a as a former educator and school principal, I was thinking I'm going to give everybody the summer off.
00:50:17:11 - 00:50:34:07
Nicole L'Etoile
Let's not let's not even try to start soon. I also just thought it'd be a great time in the fall to to kick it off. So we start September 23rd and if you are interested, you can just contact me. I'd love to meet you and talk to you if you want more information, but yeah, that's where that's where the courses.
00:50:34:15 - 00:50:47:02
Luke Hobson
It's also possible I will of course include all the links inside of the show notes below for folks to be able to find this in the course to connect with you about with everything we talked about, but for now, everything but. Nicole, thank you so much once again for being on here. I really appreciate your time.
00:50:47:11 - 00:50:59:11
Nicole L'Etoile
Thank you for having me. It's been a pleasure. And I really enjoyed your your course and my course would not exist without yours. So I need to share with you for that. It's much, much appreciated and it's been a pleasure. So thank you.
00:50:59:13 - 00:51:16:12
Luke Hobson
Well, folks, I hope you enjoyed that episode of Be sure to reach out to Nicole and just give her a big thank you for coming on to here, sharing her words of wisdom. I learned quite a bit from this conversation, too, which is absolutely awesome. And of course, I'm sure that you learned a thing or two along the way.
00:51:16:17 - 00:51:42:05
Luke Hobson
Once again, her course is going to be launching soon, so go down below inside of a show notes if you want to learn more about accessibility from her perspective and all the things that she shared with us today. As I mentioned early on inside of this episode, she is actually a recent graduate of IDI Instructional Design Institute. And if you are looking to learn more about designing, learning experiences essentially from A to Z, that is our seven week long course and that is going to be starting up again.
00:51:42:05 - 00:52:07:07
Luke Hobson
The next cohort starts on July 15th, so only a couple of months away and we'll be diving on into there. Be sure when your application today and I cannot wait to see you inside of a class. But hey folks, that is really all we have for you today. Do the typical things, please, that I always say as far as for subscribing rating reviewing this show all of those things your words for everything really do help out with the growth of this show.
00:52:07:11 - 00:52:17:19
Luke Hobson
And once again, I appreciate you and especially for dedicating your time for everything with this show. That's all I have for you today, Stay nerdy out there. Talk to you next time.
