By: Audrey Pfannes, Peninnah Posey, Denise Perez
#OnlineMeetingSpaces #Classroom #Organizations #Virtual Spaces #Disability #Accessibility
Project Description: During the COVID-19 pandemic, remote learning technology became abundant and well thought out to allow students and professionals to collaborate without face-to-face interaction. For many disabled groups, remote options offered not only protection from the pandemic but also a more accessible and convenient way to connect with others. Unfortunately, as COVID-19 cases declined, these remote options have become less normalized and available in many social settings. For our final project, we used a survey (questions from the survey are linked below) to investigate the impact of the reduction of remote options that provided an alternative for learning and connection after the COVID-19 pandemic. We will discuss how this impacted chronically ill people and other people with disabilities who may benefit from remote options.
Our goal for this project is to shed light on the fact that the reduction of remote options might be extremely harmful to some disability groups. This topic connects to many themes seen throughout this class, including the exclusion of disabled minority groups in global decision-making, as well as the social model which presents the idea that society and the environment we create work to disable people.
The data that we collected from the survey, which was sent out to multiple groups of students at the University of Michigan, as well as other information about chronic illness and disabilities that may impact in-person learning opportunities have been organized in the form of an accessible Instagram post:
https://www.instagram.com/umich_virtual_effect/
For people who do not have access to social media, we compiled all of the posts as well as the image descriptions and alt text descriptions into this Google Document:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1leaw5ViNnxr1fvIAAT0UjLKI0gxCg5urlQqnRygbywU/edit?usp=sharing
The questions from the virtual impact survey will be linked below for viewers to see what students were asked to think about while filling out the survey:
Works Cited:
- “About Chronic Diseases.” Chronic Disease, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, www.cdc.gov/chronic-disease/about/index.html. Accessed 9 Dec. 2024.
- Benavidez, Gabriel A, et al. “Chronic Disease Prevalence in the US: Sociodemographic and Geographic Variations by ZIP Code Tabulation Area.” Preventing Chronic Disease, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 29 Feb. 2024, www.cdc.gov/pcd/issues/2024/23_0267.htm#:~:text=An%20estimated%20129%20million%20people,and%20Human%20Services%20(2).
- DeLorenzo, Evan, and Justin O’Beirne. “‘I Felt Disposable’: UMich Faculty Denied Remote Teaching Option.” The Michigan Daily, 11 Oct. 2021, www.michigandaily.com/news/academics/i-felt-disposable-umich-faculty-find-difficulty-seeking-approval-for-remote-instruction-this-semester/
- Google Forms: Online Form Creator | Google Workspace, Google, www.google.com/forms/about/
- Instagram, www.instagram.com/.
- Maslow, Gary R, et al. “Growing up with a Chronic Illness: Social Success, Educational/Vocational Distress.” The Journal of Adolescent Health, U.S. National Library of Medicine, 4 Feb. 2011, pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3414253/.
- Team, Ripl. “How to Write Alt Text on Instagram and Why It’s Important.” Ripl, Ripl, 19 July 2023, www.ripl.com/post-1/how-to-write-alt-text-on-instagram-and-why-it-s-important.
