Digital Learning

If you’re anything like me, I had no clue what it was that made documents accessible and how important it was for people. Online accessibility makes content available to as many people as possible, enabling people with disabilities to access content as someone without a disability could.

In 2018, less than 10% of all websites were meeting web accessibility standards, which makes it difficult for some people to access those websites. In 2018, accessibility became mandatory for public sector bodies – highlighting the importance of this. So, simple corrections to content could enable more people to access it.

This doesn’t have to be a complicated process, simple changes such as colours of texts and the text size to be appropriate could make a difference to someone’s experience with that content. Some other changes could be, including captioning to videos and a transcript and limiting your emoji use.

To support beginners with accessibility, I have created the below guide:

By understanding what accessibility is and how important it is, the basic points to accessibility are easy to remember. You can learn more about accessibility on:

• https://webaccess.berkeley.edu/resources/tips/web-accessibility
• https://gcs.civilservice.gov.uk/guidance/digital-communication/accessible-communications/
• https://www.edgehill.ac.uk/ls/onlinelearning/build-accessible/

By Phoebe White

It’s just so easy isn’t it? You are completely aware that you have looming work deadlines, but you just cannot stop checking your phone, reorganising your desk – turning to anything but the task in hand.

According to a recent Forbes article, procrastination is an emotional response to a distressing issue, protecting you against fear of failure, judgment by others and self-condemnation. You’re doing something against your better judgment, but you do it anyway because of the relief it provides. 

So, to aid combating this I have compiled a series of tips to tackle procrastination whilst working from home (WFH):

By Lydia Woods (Student Intern)

Hi everyone, how are we in week 5 already? Time does go fast when you are happy, but I have found that time can go considerably slow when you are feeling demotivated. You might be asking how do I know this? Well, I’m going to take you on a very, very quick journey (approximately 200 words) to speak about how I went from being very underwhelmed in my life to becoming a better and happier person.

So, I have done counselling, which didn’t work, so I thought if that couldn’t help me, what will? I then proceeded to find a new job in a company that made me feel very welcomed. However, my pessimistic thinking always conditioned me to believe that a positive impact would be followed by a negative one. I began to hate this job, and because I was working from home, I felt isolated and lonely. I have never met any of my team in person so I felt my connection with them was not as strong as it could be. I found it difficult to communicate with anyone about my struggles and to be honest, if I did express my concerns no one would listen. I then decided something had to change. One day in the middle of May, I received a notification for a Student Intern role at Edge Hill. This was perfect for me; I could leave my current job, and I finally might enjoy myself.

Right! I only have about 100 words left, but I might be a bit cheeky and go over.

So, this next paragraph is a text message I wrote to my friend after I had my interview with Laura and Alison, so I apologise for the unnecessary slang.

“Lad, that interview went really well, yenno. I do think I could get the job, but you never know. I genuinely just want to be happy, lol.”

So, when I found this text message, it made me laugh. A possible explanation for the positive experiences during this internship is that I have made some good friends with my fellow interns (shoutout to the FoE interns and my Vlog-Blog Squad team). In addition, every time I see Laura, Leah or Sarah, you are always smiling and making sure that we all feel comfortable in our role, so thank you!

I would love to do this job after the internship because it allows me to unleash this creative side I didn’t even know I had, so Laura and Leah, if there is a job available soon, you know where I am…

This internship has allowed me to grow as an individual, improve my current skills, and develop new skills I never thought would be possible. One thing I can definitely take away from this is that I am more sociable than I thought.

Thanks everyone,

By Reece Thomas (Student Intern)