Building Better Content: An Accessible-First Content Creation Workshop

Whether you are a faculty member designing a syllabus, a staff member drafting an announcement, or a student preparing a presentation, this workshop will provide you with the tools to ensure your content is usable by everyone.

This session will move beyond theory into hands-on practice. After a brief overview of accessibility tools and best practices in Microsoft Word, Google Workspace, and Blackboard Ultra, the floor is yours.

The Practice Challenge

We encourage all registrants to bring one specific piece of content (a draft document, a slide deck, or a syllabus) that you'd like to practice making accessible during this session with facilitator support.

Topics

• Plain Language: Tips for clear, impactful writing.
• Structure: Mastering titles, subtitles, and logical headings.
• Visuals: Adding descriptive Alt Text and ensuring proper contrast.
• Data: Building tables that screen readers can navigate.
• The PDF Question: When to use them and when to avoid them?

To make the most of your hands-on time, we recommend reviewing these accessible-first resources before the workshop:

• MS Office Training Video or presentation
• Google Workspace Training Video or presentation
• Rethinking PDFs - The Accessibility Shortcut You Need recording or presentation. Both are available from the Kirwan Center's Digital Accessibility Training & Professional Development site. 

This session will be facilitated by Susan Biro, Manager, Online Learning and Josh Abrams, Instructional Design Specialist.

Register

To RSVP for this workshop, click "Going" in the myUMBC event and be sure to add it to your calendar! Registered participants will receive a calendar invitation from the event host at least one week before the event.

A minimum 5 registrations are needed for this session to proceed as scheduled. The session will be recorded if 5 or more people attend and the link will be distributed to everyone who registered.

JOINING THE SESSION

This webinar will take place in a Google Meet virtual conference room. Enter the webinar up to 10 minutes before the start time. Visit the myUMBC Event post and select the "Join Online Event" button to join the Google Meet session.

Prior to the Event

1. For the best viewing experience, we recommend using Chrome, Brave, or Firefox, preferably the most recent updates to those browsers. Closing any unnecessary browser tabs will help conserve your bandwidth.  

2. If this is your first time joining one of our webinars, please review the requirements to use Google Meet. Learn how to connect your audio & video, change/blur your background, and use reactions. You can also review the accessibility support including live captions.