Postcards from an Alternate Reality: Using Play to Rethink “Business As Usual”

Presented at HighEdWeb 2021 and PSEWeb, online (View Slides)

It took a pandemic for us to realize what we could do online, to make accommodations even in departments where working from home was once “out of the question”. But it only took an extra feature in video conference applications to give us permission to be playful while also accommodating a need for us some privacy.

Why does it take a pandemic for us to rethink how we do business and how we accommodate the people we serve? And what can we do to subtly encourage others to explore all possibilities? Learn what silly backgrounds and shenanigans taught me about using play to challenge assumptions and to empower others.

a11y-media-player An accessible video player interface that “plays nice” with Sites

Presented at Penn State’s Learning Design Summer Camp, online (View Slides)

a11y-media-player is a video player that combines the accessibility features of ABLE player, a modern user interface, and the tools we have available to us as Penn Staters. In this session, you’ll learn about the player, learn what makes it so accessible, and learn how to use it and the rest of our components library with your videos.

Old School HTML with Modern Web Components

Presented at PSEWeb 2021 and HighEdWeb 2020, online (View Slides)

Every generation the classics make a comeback. Frameworks are what all of the cool kids have been doing these last few years, but as of January all modern browsers support web components. It’s time for HTML to make a comeback. Web components are about to rock your world whether you’re a web developer or a user of the web. In this session you’ll learn what web components are, why your institution should use them, why dynamic imports allow them to load faster than any framework, and how anyone, ANYONE can use them with just a little bit of HTML knowledge.

Special Cases: Launching a Web Project When Everyone Has Baggage

Presented at HighEdWeb 2019, Milwaukee, WI (View Slides)

In higher education, we’re surrounded by experts with highly specialized knowledge. It only makes sense then, that we’re handling so many “special cases”: special features, special user interfaces, special content types, special websites. And just like an overbooked flight, nobody wants to be the person to give up their baggage to get a project off the ground. Let’s talk about why we have special cases, what problems special cases can cause, and what we can do about them.

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Bringing Everyone to the Table: An Open-Source Table-Editor Web Component

Presented at HighEdWeb 2019, Milwaukee, WI (View Slides)

“I love how my CMS lets users create accessible, responsive tables!” said no one, ever.

No matter how many things a WYSIWYG editor or an author interface gets right, we still don’t have a UI that helps novices create accessible tables… until now. This session will highlight the pain points of creating tables on the web, how I created the table-editor web component, and how you can use this open source project.