UBC has started classes online which prompted the Accessibility Collective to ask the question: is it accessible? In a panel discussion, they chat with Bowen Tang, Jessie Blair and Catherine Siegler about it and how the pandemic has changed the way they work. Accessibility Collective member, Nicole Le, also chats with University students, Alexandria McGarva and Dianne Cervantes about how it has affected them and more.
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Accessibility. Disability, mental health. ADHD and ADD. And many, many more topics we explore and cover. But where?[In unison]: On CiTR's All Access Pass!A unique and collectively run show on equity, inclusion, and creating awareness for people of all abilities in BC and around the world ... every other Wednesday afternoon from 3:00 to 4:00. If you want more info or want to get involved, please find us on Facebook or send us an e-mail at ac*********************@**tr.ca.
MONICA [HOST]: Hello, everyone, my name is Monica, and you're listening to Season 5's All Access pass, the summer edition on CiTR 101.9 FM. I hope everyone is doing well. From our homes and on Skype I am joined by my Accessibility Collective team-mates, Gura and Nicole. And this is our show topic for today: How are online classes accessible for the disability community or are they? This is our discussion topic, because many schools in general, including UBC, are moving classes online for at least the first semester due to the pandemic. Nicole, can you please tell us more about Dianne and Alexandria, and when did the online classes first start.
NICOLE [INTERVIEWER]: Hi, Monica, thank you, and hello, everybody. Nice to be back. So I will start off with I was a university student for about eight to nine years, and every time September rolled around, I would dub the Green Day song: When September ends for when September comes, in my head, and I would just kind of get prepared for the arduous term coming up. But this time, though, there are thousands of students across the province that will be returning back to another new era of classroom learning as COVID- has definitely taken our lives for now, and in some way or another, everybody is affected. But for students, they've been affected for six months now, since schools in the province had shut down. They had shut down in-person classrooms, that being in the second week of March. It feels like a long time ago when that happened, and yet everyone still faces a lot of uncertainties, but what about people with disabilities? So I don't know about you, but there are some people who have witnessed how other people with disabilities who were quite drastically and almost catastrophically affected, and not just in Canada, but across the globe when it came to accessible learning. People of all sorts of learning needs were thrown into online classes and found themselves not only struggling with the same technical and privacy issues that many of us as teachers and parents, business persons were dealing with, but people with diverse abilities, like hearing loss and autism found themselves straining to understand, to make out the sounds that were coming from the laptop. I mean people with visual -- who relied on visual cues, like facial and body cues or lip-reading found themselves staring at a screen and struggling to understand their classmates and class context that were, you know super important for their education. And you know, similarly there were people who relied mostly on sign language, for example, or real-time captioning in classrooms, found themselves having to suddenly force themselves to use auto-generated captioning in a pinch, that sometimes happened. Or often they wouldn't even get real-time sign language interpreting. So these are just a snippet of some of the struggles that people with diverse abilities happened to find themselves since COVID- has shut down in-person classes. So now that summer has ended, and, you know, a lot of students probably took the time off, the teachers have likely taken the time to reflect on the new teaching era and has scrambled to kind of prepare for what we do and don't know what this upcoming term will look like. Some people have in the meantime taken to media, and accessibility centres to voice their needs, in anticipation of the upcoming fall term, the...term of the... So I went to go talk to -- I haven't been a student for a while. This is a very new era. So I went to talk to students, Alexandria and Dianne that Monica mentioned, to gather kind of what they're feeling and what they're anticipating as well about the upcoming class. So I first have -- so the first student we have here is Alexandria. She is a student in Health Information Science at the University of Victoria. She is hard of hearing and has a cochlear implant, and to make things a little bit more complicated, she has unfortunately sustained a concussion, which made her studies a little bit more difficult. So we reached out to her to hear what she had to say about her past experience and her feelings about online classes. So prior to COVID-, Alexandria, you were taking your classes in person with the help of transcribers, and then over the summer you were experiencing a different kind of class format due to COVID-, and then you came across captions. Could you tell our listeners all about this and what you mean by "craptions"?
ALEXANDRIA McGARVA [STUDENT]: Yeah, so contraption "craptions" is captioning autogenerated by the video software. It's often riddled with errors, and this can be in the form of words being replaced with other words that don't necessarily sound the same or even just missing altogether. And these sorts of autogenerated captions are affected by accents, background noise and speech impediments. And the reality is most people do not have...autogenerated captions will get correctly the first time. Yeah, so when you rely on it, it's not great. And then the last thing with craptions is you spend more time deciphering what I'm hearing versus reading so I can figure out what was actually said, and that means that it takes away from me learning the content that is being taught in the lecture.
NICOLE [INTERVIEWER]: And this coming fall term, what are you anticipating?
ALEXANDRIA McGARVA [STUDENT]: Feeling a lot apprehension, anticipating a lot of barriers. ...switching learning platforms, so, like, this summer, courses were basically troubleshooting, I guess, troubleshooting how to adjust the accommodations to online... So now we're switching to a new learning platform, so using different platform, using different software and everything. Very interesting. The other thing is, like, for my summer courses, all my lectures were prerecorded. I got used to it. I figured out how to accommodate myself...situation, and then with the fall courses, they're all going to be live classes, so you're still attending the class, it's just by Zoom, which will be easier to follow along the transcription because the class is live, so the transcriptions are live. So it's talking at the same time so you're not trying to figure out where the script fits into the video. So I know...thesis which I think...is using, which is an online high school, and what I'm kind of anticipating is my professors using YouTube, because "sides" is using YouTube so show their videos, and those have autogenerated captions on them. So in YouTube you can edit the captions so that they're correct. So that is an opportunity to allow the transcribers to fix the captions, so it is correct as they're watching, not me trying to match up two documents. So, yeah, that is an anticipated issue and possible solutions. Fingers crossed.
MONICA [HOST]: We reached her in Victoria over...
NICOLE [INTERVIEWER]: And definitely didn't have a conversation without a little bit of mishearing as a person who also has hearing loss. But thank you again, Alexandria, for joining us. Next up I have another student, and her name is Dianne Cervantes. Dianne is another individual, a great individual who strives to give back to her community. She is working on completing her education. And in her story I really had no words to describe it. I think she really just needs to tell it herself, and I think you need to have a listen. Here it is.
DIANNE CERVANTES [STUDENT]: First, I wanted to thank Nicole for inviting me to the radio show, and it's really important for me to share my experience having no accessibility at school. I am trying to pursue my nursing dream and be an RN as knowing as a Registered nurse. I am currently working on prerequisites for nursing programs, for now. This fall I'm taking courses for nursing school: Anatomy and physiology and English. I am the first deaf student in prenursing school for adult school. In the classroom I had an American Sign Language interpreter showing up for English class sometimes, But I wish I had ASL interpreters show for classes every day. I had to rely on my microphone and rely on my hearing... It was so hard for me to stare and read the teacher's lips every day. It was painful to experience this because I have not got used to depending on hearing all the time. It is not one-on-one learning material. I tend not to rely on reading lips or hearing; in fact, there is some misunderstanding. I only had to sit down and nod, pretend to listen to what I've learned. Despite not raising my hands, I still had to stay quiet because there are no interpreters. When you have ASL interpreters, it is easier for me to see the pictures in my head automatically. Online classes are good to have. It has everything. It helps rewind to learn lessons before classes start. There is live on-video teaching, and automated closed captions, but for closed-captioning, these are not always accurate. It is okay for me to chat with my teachers if I need some help or clarification. It is easy for me to type and click "send". I wish there is an interpreter on the small screen for deaf access. Unfortunately, this is why I asked the teacher to hand me the lessons for the next day, so it would help me to prepare a review. One thing about the U-Pass thing. They should allow students to make choices whether if they want to keep it or not. It is up to students' choices to make. Some of them don't need it because they have a car to drive to school. What is the point of having a U-Pass if they offered online delivery, especially with this pandemic, they stay home and go to online class without having a U-Pass. So these things don't add up and make no sense. I refuse to waste my money. I decide to withdraw that application for one course that requires for nursing school.
NICOLE [INTERVIEWER]: That was Dianne Cervantes on the upcoming school year. She was born with cerebral palsy in the Philippines. When she completed her high school education in Chicago, and then she moved to Canada with her family. So she's deaf and as she said she prefers sign language, but today she stepped out of her comfort zone to use her voice, and spoken language to tell us her story. So thank you, Dianne for doing that. I know that was a lot of work for you on your part. She continues, you know, today to fight for her education so that it is accessible, so she can follow her passion in becoming a registered nurse, and, Dianne, as a fellow nurse, you know, I'm cheering you on, and I wish you all the best. I'm sure myself and others are quite deeply touched by your story. So thank you very much for sharing that. As well, Alexandria thank you as well for sharing your story, and I'm sure you trying to put together your class content quite quickly and adapting to all the different platforms on top of a concussion has been so difficult. So you two belong with all the other students out there, with diverse abilities are dealing with a lot, and which is why we're here today to talk about accessible learning.
MONICA [HOST]: Thank you, Nicole, for your report on -- and Dianne and Alexandria -- thank you for your stories and thoughts. I know I learned a lot from listening to you. Now, we're switching gears to our panel discussion on the pros and cons of online classes, specifically looking at responses from students with disabilities, we have three panelists here with us. So can you all please introduce yourselves and tell us a little bit about yourself. Let's start with Jessie.
JESSIE BLAIR [PANELIST]: Well, thank you, Monica. I'm Jessie Blair, and I'm an entrepreneur, and undergraduate student at UBC. My major is sociology and I'm doing a minor in creative writing. I have a learning disability that makes it difficult for me to read and comprehend material, and of course doing math as well. I also have mobility issues and some hearing loss.
MONICA [HOST]: Okay, thank you, Jessie. And our next panelist is Bowen.
BOWEN TANG [PANELIST]: Hello, there. Thank you for having me. My name is Bowen, and I am a teacher for the deaf and hard of hearing. I also have a hearing loss myself with a profound level of hearing loss. So I wear cochlear implants and a hearing-aid. In my spare time outside of teaching, I do a lot of work in advocating in the deaf and hard of hearing community, particularly recently on the international level as my role as the president of the International Federation of Hard-of-Hearing Young People.
MONICA [HOST]: Thank you, Bowen. And last but certainly not least, Catherine?
CATHERINE SIEGLER [PANELIST]: I'm your typical person, quiet in the courtroom, in the past quiet in the courtroom with a little machine in front of me. I started training at Langara, and then at BCIT, and for years I worked as a court reporter. What was initially really exciting work turned to boredom and very long hours, if not writing, then preparing certified transcripts. Then one day I was contacted by a person with hearing loss. Would I caption the CHHA, which is the Canadian Hard of Hearing AGM. Would I? From that first emotionally charged experience, I knew I had found my passion. I formed Accurate Realtime Inc., the only BC company solely dedicated to providing instant (otherwise known as real-time) speech-to-text for people with hearing loss in any situation, whether court, hospital, school, or church. We originally all graduated from an accredited school as certified court reporters writing at words per minute with at least 96% accuracy. My company provides captioning to postsecondary students as well as individuals and corporations, government, agencies, and etc.
MONICA [HOST]: Thank you, Catherine. And the next question will be asked by Nicole.
NICOLE [INTERVIEWER]: Thank you, guys, for introducing, welcome to CiTR. Let's go into detail about what got you interested in what you're currently doing. Jessie, would you like to go first?
JESSIE BLAIR [PANELIST]: Yeah, thank you, Nicole. I like working with people. I have credentials and experience as a social service worker, and sociology complements that learning because it helps me understand group dynamics at a deeper level, and I'm taking creative writing just because it's fun and I enjoy writing. Yeah.
NICOLE [INTERVIEWER]: Bowen, how about you?
BOWEN TANG [PANELIST]: Well, I knew that I wanted to be a teacher right from when I was very young, partly because my dad was a teacher himself. So since school I only have one path in mind, and that was to become a teacher, and now it's pretty straightforward to me. And in high school I decided that -- well, first I encountered someone, a teacher for the deaf and hard of hearing who also happened to have a hearing loss, so she gave me the inspiration to consider going specifically into the deaf education, because I wanted to give back to the community, sharing the experiences that I had and the support I received from the professionals that I worked with so I could transfer the skills that I learned to the next generation of young people focussing on self-advocacy and building the confidence to accept who they are and be able to...the society in a field that they are passionate about, and just to let them know there's a lot of possibilities out there waiting for them. And the other piece about how I got involved with the international organization is because I love to travel, and it just so happened that I met a group of international hard-of-hearing young people from different parts of the world, and I realized that not every place has the same level of support for hard-of-hearing people. So then that's how I got involved and try to understand more about the differences in other parts of the world, and do my best to share information and resources so that no matter where we live on this planet, we should have the same level of access to education, to employment, and in any areas of our lives.
NICOLE [INTERVIEWER]: An honour to have you here today, Bowen. Catherine, your story has been so interesting, and I am always so glad that you're helpful in our community. Tell us, I don't know, what got you interested in exactly what you're doing now?
CATHERINE SIEGLER [PANELIST]: I was in court reporting for years, but I got really bored with it. And when I was, I heard that there was -- Cicero who was a great Roman orator had devised a shorthand system that kept up with the spoken word, and I was fascinated by that, so I enrolled in school, and I was in the first year of shorthand, and I met a Hansard writer from Ottawa, and she said, "No, no, forget about that, the new technology is a machine shorthand." So then I studied that, and I am really, really happy that I diverted from court reporting to captioning, and so anyway, I could go on at great length, but I won't because I've already taken up too much time.
GURA [INTERVIEWER]: All right, thank you very much, Catherine. Just to move on to the next question, this is a two-part question, and the question asks (a) what are your thoughts on what is currently happening around us and around the world, and (b), personally how has the pandemic affected you and the work you do. Let's start with Bowen first, if that's okay?
BOWEN TANG [PANELIST]: Well, without a doubt, is a very interesting year. It's almost like we're living in a movie right now, you know, with so many unexpected things happening, not just with COVID-, but all the recent events that happen. Every month there's always something new. So, you know, it can be easy to feel frustrated and particularly helpless and with the rapid change in our life-styles. Staying at home is definitely tough for me personally because I love to move around and especially when I mentioned earlier I love to travel. So technically the planet earth has grounded me from not being able to go anywhere that I usually would. But on the positive side I think that it really does give us the opportunity to reflect on how we live our lives, and there's some positive things in the work how it showcases the problems that we have been ignoring, and it really forces us to pay attention to these problems. And in the case of accessibility, as you know when we moved on to online learning, we're really looking at how not just people with hearing loss affected by this, but even typical-hearing people have trouble navigating the online learning platform. So I think in the end, you know, we all come out better and stronger, and we will learn a lot from this year. On a professional level, obviously it was quite an adjustment for me to move to an online model for teaching, but thankfully, you know, my students are very tec savvy probably because they're younger than me, and it didn't take too long to set up the online format of teaching. And I used to teach one-on-one, so it was just me and the student. So it wasn't a challenge to do the communication with the student. But it does require more creativity on my end to come up with the new activities, learning about different apps and online programs to engage the students to continue working on their learning goals that we have in the education plan. And of course sitting in front of a screen for six hours a day can be tough, and it can take a personal toll physically. But, again, I'm taking it in strides, and I think as human beings we're very resilient to all the changes. So let's stay positive.
GURA [INTERVIEWER]: Fantastic answer. Catherine, would you like to go next?
CATHERINE SIEGLER [PANELIST]: For this question I was thinking more globally, I was thinking that we're becoming more insular than we were before, because we're forced to it. And as social animals, I think humans need to interact, and this new way of being I think is driving wedges between people and cultures and nations, really. Our priorities have been forced to shift. I think people feel a sense of loss and fear for the future. I have to remind myself that we're all feeling this, and am so grateful that we can function as normally as we can, in spite of the many physical constraints and inconveniences into the unknown future. That's it for that one, kind of depressing, sorry.
GURA [INTERVIEWER]: There's definitely some kind of solace in the unified suffering that we're all going through. I can totally relate to that. How about you, Jessie?
JESSIE BLAIR [PANELIST]: Hi, Gura.
GURA [INTERVIEWER]: Hello?
JESSIE BLAIR [PANELIST]: Well, I'm concerned about politics in the States and COVID, and because we're trading partners and we're so close geographically, but we experience the fallout from anything that will happen there, and that's what my concern is. But right now I think I have -- for myself, I'm just keeping in mind that I need to stay vigilant and to protect our health care and social programs, and that Canada needs to be diverse and inclusive for everybody. Professionally, in my business I conduct a lot of interviews online, and I'm able to do that, and even do interviews in the States online now. If it weren't for being able to access interviews online, I wouldn't be able to interview people down there, because of COVID. I wouldn't be able to travel there. So that's my two cents' worth.
GURA [INTERVIEWER]: Thank you so much. I'll pass it on to Monica.
MONICA [HOST]: Okay, thank you, Gura. So we the Accessibility Collective have mentioned that it is difficult to manage, get motivated or concentrate doing work or classes online. Has this affected you as well or the people that you work with? So this time let's start with Catherine.
CATHERINE SIEGLER [PANELIST]: I was thinking we have been offering remote online work for quite a few years now, so this isn't really new for us. So it wasn't so shocking from one day to the next to stay home and offer the service online. But except we have to do now familiarize ourselves with umpteen webinar platforms, and it's almost on a daily basis we have to learn new ones. And not only that, we have to train our captioners, because we have several people working with us. And then they might have different court reporting software as well. I have not yet had much feedback from our students, though, but -- the students who use our services, but what I have heard is that they are -- they and corporate clients -- are concerned that they will not be able to participate fully. So I feel it sent them into a bit of a panic. Learning new software on top of the other demands of a stressful life, we now have to provide a lot more rehearsal opportunities for them, the professors and for our corporate clients. A lot of e-mails back and forth. So that takes up a lot more time than it ever did before. In a nutshell, though, online CART service or communication access is not as financially rewarding as on-site service. I feel in the remote setting I provide better service, though, which I don't know if the students feel this way, but I can hear the instructors equally well, because they all use head-sets, they don't wander around the classroom, and I don't have to contend with extraneous classroom noise -- unless somebody forgets to mute --. I have access to all students' names, so I can insert them in the transcripts that our students with hearing loss will see, and our students can read each other's questions in the chat area, and I can also see the slides more easily. For some reason instructors seem more cooperative with getting captioners with the materials we need. As far as challenges, online classes are delivered in diverse ways. Some instructors elect to prerecord classes, some have a smattering of videos throughout their classes, with or without captions. The autogenerated captions can be really poor, resulting in misinformation and/or frustration. So our students with hearing loss shouldn't have to work harder than a normal-hearing person. As a result, our students now want the captions embedded into videos rather than us providing a separate transcript. So this is a new service we now offer. The resultant video text is 100% verbatim and much easier for the student to use. However, it's been challenging finding a price that compensates the captioner as it takes us three times longer to prepare a video to embed the captions. So if a video is 15 minutes long, it takes 45 minutes for us to actually get the captions in. And then processing it and making sure it's private, because videos have a copyright on them, and we have to ensure the privacy and that we follow all the protocols. That's it for this one.
MONICA [HOST]: All right, thank you, Catherine. I had no idea that it was so difficult to manage all of this. And I definitely think that you're right, people who are -- need captions or are hard of hearing definitely shouldn't have to work harder than any regular student that is not. So Bowen, what are your thoughts on this?
BOWEN TANG [PANELIST]: Well, I completely agree with Catherine about how there's just so many different ways of doing online learning, and when the -- in the early days of the pandemic, everybody was in a panic mode, so all we were thinking at that point was trying to triage the current semester, because they were already halfway through the semester, and now they have to try to figure out how to do the change while keeping up with the curriculum of whatever courses that they're taking. So there was not a lot of opportunity for people to really sit down and think about how to provide this information, the content of the course in an accessible way. Now, fast forward to a couple of months later. You know, we've learned from the experiences in the early days, and we've had the time now over the summer to think about what worked, what didn't work. So now moving forward to the fall, I think that there is no reason why there cannot be a plan be put in place to make sure that whatever styles that the professor use, we will be able to provide the option of giving the students access. It all comes down to communication, communication is very important between the professor, the service providers, and the students themselves to figure out what works best for everyone. And the last thing I'm going to add is in one of our recommendations from the global report on COVID- impact of -- on people with -- on hard of hearing people is that we emphasize automatic captioning do not replace live captioner because there is just a lot of inaccuracy in the software that if the student needs the information for educational purposes or even a workplace meeting, live captioners is what we need to ensure 100% access, whereas automatic captioning is only used as the last resort in the event that for whatever reason live captioners are not available to provide the service. That's what I have to add to that.
MONICA [HOST]: Great answer. Jessie?
JESSIE BLAIR [PANELIST]: Okay, so I've taken some online classes, and they seem to do well for me because they're are videos of the lectures, and usually there's a transcript, but if there's not a transcript, then I can just bring up the lecture and go over the most important points, but, like, for me, it means going over that several times. It's so much easier when I have the transcript, and I can follow along the transcript, when somebody's giving a lecture because that's part of my disability. And when I attend the classes in person, there's of course usually a note-taker in class that does that all for me. So it's for me it's motivation to attend online classes is no different than attending in person. I just have to schedule the time to do homework and attend classes if I want to do well in that course. But I encourage people to reach out to their instructors or TAs and accessibility workers if they're experiencing difficulty getting motivated and learning online.
MONICA [HOST]: Thank you, Jessie. And Gura is going to come in with the next question.
GURA [INTERVIEWER]: Hi, yes, so my next question, question 5 is a question specific to you, Catherine. The question is, Catherine, has there been a shortage of transcribers pre-coved, and if there is an increase in transcribers or demands for transcription, and if so, how has your company adjusted?
CATHERINE SIEGLER [PANELIST]: That's a great question, and it's a perennial question in my field of work. Yes, there has always been a chronic shortage of skilled CART captioners, even pre-COVID. For that matter there has been a shortage of certified court reporters and captioners for broadcast captioning, for many years. I believe the shortage is because our work is as a silent participant in any event, no one knows what we do. For a two-year training program, the drop-out rate in training is 80% or more. Then to become a great shorthand writer takes many more years, and the equipment purchase and maintenance and software licence is very expensive, something like $10,000 to start, not to mention the cost of schooling. It's high-stress work where one is always striving for perfection in sometimes less than optimal environments. As well, generally court reporters prefer litigation work to the challenging of mastering the many academic disciplines with their specialized vocabularies. So I hope I've answered your question, we're chronically short, and I've even taken to training people myself, but to get to be really good, by the time you retire, then you're starting to get really good at it.
NICOLE [INTERVIEWER]: Wow, Catherine, I'm so appreciative of you being a transcriber and staying with the hard-of-hearing community and offering help, because wow, [chuckling]. Bowen, I have a specific question for you. You being a teacher with regard to the demand for online classes, did you see a demand for sign language interpreters on your hand, transcribers on your end, and if so, what do you have to say about that. And you also have that point of view from the global perspective, you've done some work, and you still do. What can you say about that?
BOWEN TANG [PANELIST]: Well, you know, very interesting observation that I made about how in a way online classes have made it easier for us to access the service providers, particularly for those of us who live in rural areas, let's say Prince George, for example. So before, it was very difficult to get the service providers, sign language interpreters or captionists, because there's nobody in the area that are able to come on campus to be -- to provide the service. And so now looking at the online platform, it's so much easier to recruit service providers, regardless of where they live, as long as they have a solid connection, I mean their WiFi connection, and I think it just provides more flexibility in providing the services, so we could find a captionist from anywhere in BC, Alberta, Ontario, and have that person joining our online class and provide the services. So I think that's a really positive aspect of coming out of this is there's more options for us to access those services. I would say that it all comes down to figuring out the technology and making sure that there's clear communication between all parties that I believe, I strongly believe, that for any hard-of-hearing person or deaf as well, if they are to take a class, there is no reason why they should not have access to either a sign language interpreter or a captionist.
NICOLE [INTERVIEWER]: I'm learning so much from you, Jessie and Catherine, from all aspects of this, and I'm so surprised how the online experience has changed and how people have adapted. I know and maybe some of us do not know, but here in BC as we were moving past the summer into the fall term, the government wasn't sure if we were going to have classes in person or online, and Bowen, I know you work with younger students who are kindergarten, some of them grade . But as many of you probably don't know, teachers don't work during the summer, they're not paid to do any kind of work, but you might prepare as teachers in some way, but you're just not paid. So you also, you know, as a hard-of-hearing person, you can think about these anticipations, so that helps. But as a teacher, how do you think that prepares teachers in general into supplying accessible friendly education of all ages?
BOWEN TANG [PANELIST]: Well first of all I'd like to say that because the whole COVID- situation is fluctuating, so I understand that, you know, the ministry of education and the Ministry of Health are not able to make a quick decision. It requires continual monitoring in order to make a well-informed decision. Well, I will say, though, is teachers do definitely need more time to ensure that the classrooms are set up in a safe way, and especially for those learners with special needs, because it's not just about thinking of the physical distancing and washing your hands and hand sanitizing. I think what is forgotten is about the time needed to plan for communication accessibility. So regardless of whether the learner is hearing or hard-of-hearing or any other diverse abilities. When the teachers and peers wear masks that already impedes communication because it changes the acoustic signal regardless of any kind of mask that you wear, whether it is a medical mask, a cloth mask, a window mask. Communication is not going to be the way it used to be. So I feel that as a teacher, we need that time to think through all the possible scenarios, not just in the physical environment, but also the acoustic environment so that we can start the year out right. So at my school I am fortunate that...two days that all teachers have to plan in the classroom, we have the gradual entry where we can slowly get these students accustomed to the new environment where they only have to come in for an hour-and-a-half for the first two days, and then half day in the next week, and then full day the following week. So that gives us time to look at how the students respond to the new environment, and make the necessary adjustments. So I always keep bringing it back to the point of communication, because that is really what will make everything successful and provide a very smooth learning experience, minimizing the level of frustration where a lot of us are feeling as we think about going back to school.
NICOLE [INTERVIEWER]: Thank you, Bowen, very insightful. Jessie, this question is for you. What are your thoughts on this? Do you think there are less or even more resources, lack of education when it comes to online versus in-person classes with respect to COVID?
JESSIE BLAIR [PANELIST]: Well, I would say probably the biggest lack of resources, the real-time social interaction and connection with other people, because that would be our best resource. So there are technical supplements such as recorded lectures, but if you have a question about something in that lecture, you're unable to ask the instructor in that moment, and so you need to follow-up with an e-mail to the instructor or the TAs and wait for their written response, and that doesn't always work for somebody with my disability, because sometimes if I don't understand a concept, I can't build on that learning, I have to understand what I'm actually trying -- what the concept is before I can go on from there.
MONICA [HOST]: All right. So our next question is a two-parter. So part (a) is what is something that you find challenging about online classes that you think is important for professors or fellow students who are not hard of hearing or have a disability, what they need to understand, and part (b) I think specifically for Bowen, what can you say about students with disabilities who might need to learn some social skills, like kindergarten students or, you know, as everyone else we need to work on group projects. What would your role be to be able to do in meeting those needs of classes who are all online. So let's start with Jessie.
JESSIE BLAIR [PANELIST]: There needs to be a way to talk to the instructor or the TAs directly so that you can clear up any misconceptions about what you're trying to learn. Like, that would be my biggest -- I would need to learn more. And my suggestion would be maybe video calls with captioning, or, you know, like, kind of having that more real-time conversation so that you can ask follow-up questions and clear up any kind of misconception, rather than waiting and responding to written e-mails.
MONICA [HOST]: And Bowen, do you have any thoughts?
BOWEN TANG [PANELIST]: Well, rather than speaking about the professors, because I think the professors generally will be cooperative when they are given the right information. What I'd like to say is to the students who are taking the class, is to ask the student who utilizes the services whether it is a captionist or a sign language, I think that what students tend to do is take those services for granted, and they expect the service provider to do most of the work in -- working with the professors to figure out the whole system of providing access. I think it's important to remember that we are working in partnership. It is between the student, the service provider and the teacher to work -- to talk about how they can work --
NICOLE [INTERVIEWER]: I think we're just getting some phone calls here. I just wanted to say, you know, how Bowen has been doing in this interview is as a person with hearing loss is speaking up for himself and saying hey, it helps if you have a video here, it helps if you turn off your mike if you're not speaking, and I love that message. I think to the students, you know, you have a role as well to speak up for yourself. It's very two-way. I just wanted to add that in there. Thank you.
BOWEN TANG [PANELIST]: Yes, so I think that's pretty much what I wanted to emphasize is that students need to step up to be advocates for themselves to make sure that they are getting what they need, because ultimately it is still learning; right? Nobody's really going to do your learning for you, so it's up to you to work with the people who are there to help you and make it -- and set yourself up for success.
MONICA [HOST]: I think that is a great message that any student should take initiative in their own learning. Gura, can you take it away?
GURA [INTERVIEWER]: Absolutely. Those are some very insightful answers. Onto question 8. The question is how have you been handling the transition to online teaching and learning? We kind of touched a little bit on that, but I'd love to hear you thoughts again on that. Let's start with you, Bowen?
BOWEN TANG [PANELIST]: I think at this point I've got a pretty good handle -- actually I'm not doing any online teaching at this moment because I'll be back in the classroom. So what I would say to those out there who are doing online learning is to have patience. That's the best way for you to handle the transition. Trust that eventually things will work out, because everybody's doing the best, and as Dr. Henry says, be kind to each other. So that's all you really need to be able to handle that transition to online learning.
GURA [INTERVIEWER]: Excellent. How about you, Catherine?
CATHERINE SIEGLER [PANELIST]: Well, I was just thinking that I'm not doing the teaching, and the transition has been quite smooth for captioners because in my company, we've been doing online captioning for many years.
GURA [INTERVIEWER]: Absolutely. Jessie, do you have any comments to add?
JESSIE BLAIR [PANELIST]: Well, I'm okay with the transition, and I ask for help when I need it. So I'm doing okay with the transition?
GURA [INTERVIEWER]: That's fantastic to hear. And I'd I like to pass it on to Nicole?
NICOLE: I definitely wanted to refer back to one of the students, Dianne, who as she mentioned really needs to have that visual, have the material prepared beforehand, she needs to have an sign language interpreter. And so a lot of adaptation to teaching materials. Myself as a nursing student back way -- way -- a long time ago, is I sometimes needed to have material prepared beforehand as well. You know, the class was quite context-heavy. Sometimes if it's hard to understand, we had to take statistics, so it was hard to kind of hard understand the equation, yet they would turn around and write on the board and then they wouldn't know what they're saying in terms of their reasoning, so I'm not good at math. So what would you say about having to adapt teaching material for online format and delivery, and do you think that would actually increase awareness for accommodations for people with disabilities? It sounds like, but what do you think? I'm going to start with Jessie for this one?
JESSIE BLAIR [PANELIST]: I think it will increase awareness for a lot of people, but some people -- like if you're another student, you may or may not be paying attention to it, you know, but I think for most people it will increase awareness.
NICOLE [INTERVIEWER]: What about your math classes, Jessie? Have you had difficulty with that? With your spatial awareness?
JESSIE BLAIR [PANELIST]: In the past I have. I'm not taking any math classes currently. I do have statistics coming up, and I'm not looking forward to that, that's just life for most students, I think, statistics.
NICOLE [INTERVIEWER]: Got you. Thank you. Catherine, any guess do you think it would increase awareness?
CATHERINE SIEGLER [PANELIST]: No, no, I'll pass on this because it's really for Bowen and Jessie.
NICOLE [INTERVIEWER]: All right, Bowen?
BOWEN TANG [PANELIST]: Well, as we talk about how there's a lot of videos content being generated for online classes, so I think it definitely will create awareness where people need to consider the for captions for these videos. And when this whole online class is over, and we are moving back to in-person classes, it will really, you know, be -- all the experiences that we have now for online learning will be at the back of our minds as we move on to the in-person learning, and it will -- I'm confident that there's an opportunity for us to really look at the problems that we've ignored for so long, and positive things moving forward.
NICOLE [INTERVIEWER]: Good point, Bowen. To close a message from each of you to all relevant parties with regard to accessible learning, students, parents, employers, educators, interpreters, government parties, in regards to making education more accessible, in your opinion what can they do during these difficult and unprecedented COVID times? I'll go with Jessie?
JESSIE BLAIR [PANELIST]: Well, I would say encourage the students to reach out to the instructors, their support workers, their TAs. If they're experiencing difficulty with motivation and learning for instructs I would say to consider making the video calls available to students with disabilities so that there's some real-time interaction and follow-up questions and rather than going back and forth with the messaging, because some people have that reading disability that makes messaging frustrating. And employers, instructors, caseworkers, family members, friends, just please be patient with us. We learn definitely.
NICOLE [INTERVIEWER]: Thank you, Jessie. Bowen, what message would you have?
BOWEN TANG [PANELIST]: Communication, communication, communication. I cannot emphasize enough how important it is to communicate with each other. The students need to speak up when things are not going their way. It is your learning that is at stake here. So if something is not working out for you, speak up, and let the instructors and service providers know. Make sure that you do this in a reasonable amount of time where it will give them the opportunity to make the adjustments to make the learning experience better for you. Don't wait until the last minute. And I agree with Jessie about just being patient, and this applies to everybody involved in your learning process, just be patient with each other, be open with each other, be honest and transparent with each other.
NICOLE [INTERVIEWER]: And Catherine?
CATHERINE SIEGLER [PANELIST]: Yeah, I have a little bit more to say about this. I agree with Bowen and Jessie, and I think that as far as everyone having communication access pre-and post-COVID, just ask for what you need from the institutions' accessibility centre, the instructors, the employer. I know with young students, they're self-conscious, and they may find it difficult to do that, but I encourage it. I always have and I always will. And it's better to ask for more than what you think you need than to discover too late that you've wasted time trying to sort out communication access, and you miss out on participation. The fact is that a person with hearing loss, unless you have a monitor like captioning, you really don't know what you missed or misheard. So don't settle for: Good enough, or I'll get by, or it's too much trouble. I suspect future meetings will be much more blended, so invest energy into being familiar with the basics of the webinar software you're using, observe online etiquette, including being punctual, and expect high standards, everyone can avail themselves of captioning by the click of the closed captioning, CC button. That's all I have to say about that.
NICOLE [INTERVIEWER]: Well said. All great messages.
MONICA [HOST]: All right, so that wraps our panel discussion on accessibility and online classes. Special thanks to Jessie Blair, Catherine Siegler, and Bowen Tang for sharing their thoughts and taking the time to talk with us.
NICOLE [INTERVIEWER]: So I actually have a question. So I've been a student, as you know for many, many years, and it was really hard to transition into postsecondary school because like many of you said, students have to speak up, they have to advocate for themselves, and I guess on top of that I was also discriminated a couple of times for my disability. And also, like, when you're a young adult or a kid, you want to blend in; right? You don't want to stick out like a sore thumb. But, again, you see me and I have hearing aids, and oh, you're a young person. So I guess my question, actually, maybe to Monica because Monica is the only one who doesn't have a disability here, but I kind of have a curiosity. I always have to ask for my accommodations to be met, like Catherine and Bowen and Jessie were mentioning. I have to ask, like, "Oh, can I sit in front seat?" Or, "Can you use my listening device so I can hear you?" And sometimes people are apprehensive about that because they're worried that I might record them, like what is this strange device, or I might have someone like Catherine sitting in the room, like typing what everybody's saying, and I've always kind of -- I mean I had to do this; right?, I want to be a nurse, I want to be so-and-so, I need to advocate for my own learning, but I always felt like it's been kind of a hassle. And I kind of felt bad, like maybe people think I'm taking time away from their learning, or, you know, I'm slowing the class down with the discussion, or I'm just in the way what I want to put closed captioning on the video, and some people don't know that I'm the hard-of-hearing person in the class, and they might said -- I've heard them say it, like, that it gets in the way of seeing the video. So, I don't know, my question is, like, are we really disrupting your learning? Like, I would feel bad about that, but, you know, that was my question.
MONICA [HOST]: You know, personally I feel like most people who don't require accommodations for class, like special seating or transcribers or captions like you mentioned have no idea or never consciously thought about what kind of difficulties that certain students who need them go through to try, and they have to advocate for themselves and their needs. So for myself as well, prior to joining the Accessibility Collective, I never actually worked with people who are hard-of-hearing, on a project or initiative before.
So things that you, Nicole have brought up, like turning on the camera during meetings to see who is talking or using captions, I just never consciously thought about it before. I don't think it's a hassle, it's just a new way of doing things; right? So for most people, things like this are probably unfamiliar to them, so we definitely need to increase awareness through initiatives like Alexa...so that everyone can better understand what these accommodations are, and even get to know each other and their diverse abilities better, to decrease and get rid of any distinct stigma. Because I feel like to be discriminated against for something that, you know, you can't even control, it's just such a shame. And I definitely condemn all kinds of behaviour like that. So -- and I've worked with most of you for over half a year now, and because of this experience, I can say that at no point did I ever feel that an accommodation was a hassle to work with; right?, just a new way of doing things.
Another point, I don't believe advocating for yourself and your needs should count as disrupting the learning of other classmates. Personally, I would only consider something as disrupting the learning if it causes the professor to not be able to lecture properly, like interrupting the class without a reasonable cause. I'm sure we've all had group members in group projects who have ghosted the group up until the very last minute, and that is definitely a disruption. So I think everyone would agree that other things I mentioned would not be counted as a disruption. For example, giving up a seat at the front of the class to someone who openly communicates that they need it I don't think is a disruption.
And lastly, I think advocating for your needs isn't something that anyone should feel ashamed or embarrassed about, because these are accommodations are necessary to give you the same learning opportunities as students without accommodations. And from the perspective of someone who doesn't need accommodations, I wouldn't feel comfortable acting for, like, giving someone I don't know a seat at the front unprompted, because I would personally never want to assume that someone can't do something or is unable to do something. So as an example, I was part of a collaboration event for Vision Health last year. And a speaker, who is actually blind, came and demonstrated to us how some people will, you know, unprompted, go up on the street and try to help him walk when he doesn't actually need help, and this individual actually knows martial arts, so he demonstrated to us what a person might experience getting their arm locked behind their back, if they try and help him unprompted. So in this regard to our listeners, I think that having open communication on both sides, advocating for yourself, and striving to be cognizant of our biases and to approach everything with an open-minded attitude are all really important concepts to keep in mind going forward.
NICOLE [INTERVIEWER]: Thank you so much, Monica for kind of verifying my assumptions, and also reassuring me, and I think many others who are kind of struggling with these insecurities, you know, and it's -- it was a really well-said message. Thank you for that. On that note, I would like to thank everyone today for taking part in this really important topic, accessible education doing theories difficult COVID Times.
MONICA [HOST]: And that wraps up our show for today. I hope you enjoyed it. And for the students, professors, and everyone involved with online classes, you know, good look with this first, and all the very best to you all. I guess we'll see what happens in the fall when accessibility is concerned with online classes, so stay tuned for All Access Pass for more reports for this in the upcoming months.
NICOLE [INTERVIEWER]: And if you're interested in joining the team or think there's an issue that we should bring up on the show, please send us an e-mail at Accessibility Co********@**TR.ca.
GURA [INTERVIEWER]: Again, a special thanks to Alexandria, to Dianne, to Bowen Tang, Jessie and Catherine Siegler for chatting with us today.
MONICA [HOST]: And thank you to all of our listener for listening and hanging out with us this summer during the pandemic, this is our last show for the season, but don't worry, Season 6 of All Access Pass will be making its rounds very soon.SPEAKER: Please like our All Access page, Facebook, and check out the latest updates on the shows and more.
NICOLE [INTERVIEWER]: If you're on Twitter or Instagram or both, please follow us at @access_citr.
GURA [INTERVIEWER]: Right. And if you missed part of our live show today and want to listen again, or maybe you want to listen to our past shows you can do so on CiTR.ca by going into our search box and typing in All Access Pass, and you can catch all our episodes.
MONICA [HOST]: And thank you everyone for listening. Stick around for more CiTR programming coming up next. Bye everyone!