Handbook of Design in Educational Technology

29 A Blended Instructional Design Approach to Accessible Cyberlearning

Marilyn P. Arnone, Jennifer T. Ellis, and Derrick L. Cogburn

1. Introduction

Two major learning challenges for students with disabilities including impairments to vision, hearing, and mobility are accessibility of content and how it is presented. While strides have been made toward developing distributed learning communities that are more effective and efficient, most still do not have a high enough degree of accessibility to allow persons with disabilities to fully engage in the learning experience (Myhill, Cogburn, Samant, Addom, & Blanck, 2008). If students cannot easily access material or they encounter frustrations in doing so, chaos ensues and learning is compromised, ...