Celebrating Global Accessibility Day--Let's Do This Every Day!

We're lucky in California to have a wonderful resource, Jonn Paris-Salb. He is the Education Administrator at the Clearinghouse for Specialized Media and Translations. Today Jonn sent out a wonderful link to a website celebrating Global Accessibility Awareness Day (GAAD). There's lots of great information on the website, but look particularly at the link, 'how to experience digital accessibility first-hand.' My favorite idea is listed right near the top, "Go Mouseless for an Hour." I constantly 'encourage' teachers in my program to use keyboard shortcuts (some of the teachers would say, 'badger'), Putting away the mouse/leaving the trackpad untouched would be great ways to practice those shortcuts. Start with something simple like quitting a program (Command-Q on the Mac, Alt-F4 in Windows), switching between programs (Command-tab on a Mac, Alt-tab in Windows), or printing (Command-p on a Mac, Control-p in Windows). If you learn those quickly, try some more--I have them scattered throughout my blog, and you can find tons more by Googling "Keyboard Shortcuts." You'll be surprised how much time you can save not reaching for that mouse/using that trackpad. 

One thing I've learned in my job working with accessible technology for people with visual impairments: the more I learn, the more I realize I have to learn. I'm looking forward to making it a weekly routine to check the Global Accessibility website for more suggestions of ways I can better support, encourage, and get the word out there that the Web and technology should be accessible to all. 

Gotta go ... I need to learn more about NVDA!