Logos and Text: This course was produced by the National Center on Accessible Educational Materials and CAST

Welcome to the Online Learning Course on Accessible Materials & Technologies! This homepage provides an overview of what you will find in the AEM Topics, including the overarching goals, structure of this asynchronous course, and tools and resources available to support your learning.

Download the transcript (doc) | Access this video on YouTube

Goals

The goal of the course is to support you in learning more about Accessible Educational Materials (AEM). Whether you are new to AEM and want to start at the very beginning, or have more experience and want to dig more deeply into topics you already know, we welcome you on this AEM learning journey.

Structure of the Course

In this Canvas course, you will find a range of topics to explore. You can start with Topic 1 and progress through each topic sequentially or could choose to skip to a topic that you want to learn more about. Note that new topics will be added periodically, so check back for updates!

Topic 1: Accessibility

Topic 2: Assistive Technology

Topic 3: Accessible Educational Materials (AEM)

Each topic is organized so that it has an introductory page that defines why the topic is important, provides a foundational video to build background, and then provides the opportunity for you to select your learning pathway.

Each learning pathway provides opportunities for you to activate and build background, then gain deeper insights by choosing additional resources to explore, such as websites, videos, podcasts, and more. Each pathway is designed to take approximately 1 hour, but we recognize that this will vary depending on your goals and background experience. The pathways are:

Define:
This pathway provides a foundational overview and key definitions related to the topic.

Apply:
This pathway provides an opportunity to get started applying the ideas from the topic.

Extend:
This pathway has opportunities to dive deeper exploring related information and examples.

Each path will provide the opportunity to preview what you already know using Your AEM Journal, or other tool you may choose to use to record your learning. Then, you can build background using the foundational overview and multimedia resource options (such as videos, articles, and more).

Options to Support Your Learning

Navigate page by page using the “next” and “previous” arrows. Or, you can return to this homepage at any time by clicking the course navigation bar located on the left.
Turn on text-to-speech to have content from this site read aloud.
Reference the Glossary of Terms.
Capture your learning as you explore each topic. You could record your insights by downloading My AEM Journal, an accessible word processing document, or by using another tool, such as the Memos or Notes app on your phone, or more. You can use the reflection prompts within the topics, or generate your own notes as you learn.

Get started with Topic 1: Accessibility

More from the AEM Center at CAST:

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This content was developed under a cooperative agreement with the US Department of Education, #H327Z190004. However, those contents do not necessarily represent the policy of the US Department of Education and you should not assume endorsement by the Federal Government. Project Officer, Rebecca Sheffield, Ph.D.

Except where otherwise noted, the National Center on Accessible Educational Materials web content is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

If you have feedback or technical assistance questions as you complete the activities in this course, please contact the AEM Center at aem@cast.org.