Voices and Perspectives

I believe that everyone has a voice and should be heard. This has been a common theme throughout my life, both personally and professionally.

Throughout my life, my family and social circles have been filled with individuals who fall into various categories of “neurodivergent” or “disabled.” Since my teenage years, I have talked about how it is a terrible idea to try to fit people into an arbitrary box of “normal” that doesn’t actually apply to anyone.

My motivation for my degree in Technical and Professional Writing was sparked by a desire to help people who were doing important work successfully get their message across to those who need it. I have felt that people will understand better and be able to make decisions in more thoughtful ways if they genuinely understand what is being conveyed. My studies sparked self-motivated investigation into things such as accessibility standards and how those coincide with document design.

My work trajectory has reinforced and reflected these values.

Indiana University

At Indiana University Online, the Assessment Office promoted a very forward-thinking attitude in every aspect of our work. I was encouraged to explore the options available to us that would ensure that the documents stood on their own and were available generally. The Assessment Report Template was an example of one of my early attempts at blending accessibility (specifically contrast/headings/formatting) with the needs of the office.

ROTEL

When working with ROTEL, I learned more directly about tools such as WebAIM and the W3C standards for web accessibility. I took advantage of the ISKME accessibility workshop that was provided to my team and have been incorporating their attitudes and styles in my work since. My work with ROTEL prompted me to participate in a presentation at the Open Education Conference on why it’s important to aim for multiple options rather than trying to find a “one size fits all” solution to student learning.

CA-ROTEL and W3C

For CA-ROTEL, I have guided many authors through accessibility standards and continuously updated my knowledge on the evolving understanding of inclusion. I found the W3C WAI0.1x certification in my efforts to build a better understanding of the evolving standards. I used my knowledge from the course to build a modified W3C 2.2 standards rubric that would show the authors for the CA-ROTEL Project what we would be looking for.