Accessibility issues - social & cultural

Issues:

• Familiarity and comfort-level with technology
• Feeling isolated from teachers and peers
• Non-English-speaking background (NESB) learners
• Cultural hegemony in online educational material

Solutions:

• Provision of support in the form of tutorial material and a range of one-on-one support options (phone, online, email)
• Provide directed discussion and chat forums for learner/instructor/moderator interaction, where learners may take their own time to read and respond to posted messages
• Design text content with clarity and minimise idiomatic language use to maximise accessibility for NESB learners
• Include developers of appropriate cultural background when developing courseware for delivery to specific cultural group
• Be prepared to redesign courseware for delivery to cultures other than that in which it was developed