When a leading research university announces the removal of more than 20,000 course videos and podcasts from the public, in response to a U.S. Department of Justice ruling, such a move should not go unnoticed.

The DOJ launched its investigation of the University of California, Berkeley in response to complaints from the National Association of the Deaf asserting that Berkeley’s online videos did not contain closed captioning. Under Titles II and III of the Americans with Disability Act ,public and private universities must ensure that any content made available is accessible, unless meeting accessibility guidelines would result in a fundamental alteration or undue administrative and financial burdens.

This was a standard that U.C. Berkeley did not establish, and they were not alone. The DOJ has initiated investigations of colleges and universities from Arizona State to MIT. The scrutiny, while challenging for these organizations, can yield improved accessibility of digital content over time if organizations heed the call.

Organizations today — whether colleges and universities or third-party providers — are investing considerable funds and effort in building technology platforms, content, features that make the content discoverable and usable, and an interface that allows users to navigate the resource. Many are also joining to support passage of the Accessible Instructional Materials in Higher Education (AIM HE) Act. The Berkeley case teaches us to be attentive to accessibility up front, not simply because of legal requirements but because digital resources designed to meet accessibility standards support increased access for all.

Creating and maintaining an accessible digital resource — a resource where the content, functionalities, and navigability of the website delivering the content meet accessibility standards—is no simple feat. The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 AA standards require providers to support visual, auditory, and manual accessibility. To create accessible resources requires an understanding of these standards, routine monitoring, testing, evaluation, and most important, building accessibility into the DNA of code development and web design.

Success requires commitment from an organization’s leaders, as well as resources to support the work. Accessibility must be seen as essential, not only to meet requirements but because accessible design is good design, improving the user experience for all. Software developers need to understand accessibility requirements and know that they are obligated to meet them. Employers need to train developers in accessibility. Accessibility compliance also involves sustained commitment. As new features and functionalities are added to existing services, these too need to be evaluated to ensure they meet standards, and teams must continually monitor the landscape for new technologies that might lower costs, improve accessibility, or create requirements.

At ITHAKA, we introduced accessibility compliance into the JSTOR online library of scholarly journals in 2000, recognizing that this move would be consistent with JSTOR’s non-profit mission of furthering access to scholarly resources. Furthering access meant not only overcoming geographic and socio-economic barriers to information access, but also leveraging the ways digital resources could reach individuals with disabilities. As noted by Judge Harold Baer in the 2012 lower court decision in the Authors Guild, Inc. v. HathiTrustcase, “…[A]cademic participation by print-disabled students has been revolutionized by the [digital books]”.

The timing turned out to be fortuitous. We had just redesigned our website, complete with accessible navigation and a method to enable the use of screen readers with the content, when a large state-wide university system seeking to license JSTOR for all of its institutions stipulated in its procurement contract that the resource needed to meet their accessibility standards.

The benefits of such a commitment include helping libraries, museums, colleges, and universities to meet their requirements as well as enabling a broad community of researchers and scholars to make productive use of the JSTOR library.

Not to be taken at all lightly, there are enormous costs to accessible information. JSTOR is fortunate to be a financially sustainable digital resource that can invest in accessibility, but this commitment requires ongoing vigilance and planning as organizations take on new content—including images, video, or hand-written documents—and redesign platforms to keep pace with technology.

It could not have been easy for UC Berkeley to decide to remove public access to educational materials. Like so many other aspects of digital transformation, it will take time for accessibility to become part of the fabric of how digital resources are created and improved, and for organizations to put more time, money, and effort into doing so. But it will happen, and we’ll all be better for it. Accessibility is not optional.

This story was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education.

Nancy Kopans is vice president, general counsel and secretary of ITHAKA, a higher education nonprofit focused on the use of digital technologies

Classroom “clickers” quiz students in real time, allowing instructors to gauge student learning and reinforce what is being taught.

New research suggests that the effectiveness of these devices hinges largely on the teaching methods being used with them, not the technology, and that instructors would do well to think about why they are using the devices and whether or not they dovetail with their teaching style.

“It’s super easy to just incorporate clickers into the classroom and to say ‘I am doing something new, something innovative,’ ” said Amy M. Shapiro, a professor of psychology at UMass Dartmouth. “But it’s not that simple.”

The study, published in the most recent edition of the journal Computers & Education, studied clicker use in classrooms of undergraduate students in an introductory biology class and a physics course at a university in the northeast.

The researchers discovered, to their surprise, that these devices encourage some students to focus on rote fact memorization, to the detriment of deeper, conceptual learning. Those students without a background on the topic covered in the course might fixate on the clicker questions when studying, rather than delve deeper into the material of the course, researchers suggested, adding that more study of this novel finding is needed.

The study builds on prior research that generally found that clickers had a favorable effect on student learning. But those earlier studies found it difficult to determine if the improvements in student learning came directly from the use of the clickers. This new research helps fill in the gap by studying how clickers combined with different styles of teaching – lecture halls full of students versus problem-solving in smaller groups, for instance – changed the results of student learning. The study notes that previous research showing positive results with clickers had hypothesized that teaching strategies probably had a major influence on the results. This new research seems to confirm it.

That said, limitations remain. Results could have differed because researchers were comparing courses in different subjects (biology and physics), for example.

The researchers were careful to note that they do no suggest eliminating the technology from the classroom. Instead, they say their research suggests this: The mere use of a technology isn’t enough; careful attention to how devices interact with teaching is required.

Shapiro, for example, said that she uses clickers in a large lecture hall during an introductory level course. There, the clickers are useful in improving attendance (students know the clickers track that), and the course requires a fair amount of rote memorization of new terms. But she does not use clickers in smaller, higher-level courses where students are more engaged in applying what they know to solve problems.

“We suggest that, while clickers are useful in motivating students to come to class, increasing enjoyment of the class, and enhancing rote learning in didactic courses, instructors interested in imparting deeper understanding must be mindful of their overall pedagogy,” the researchers wrote. “Incorporating activities that involve students in active inquiry and problem-solving may be much more helpful than simply offering clicker questions in class, even when the clicker questions are conceptual in nature.”

This story was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news website focused on inequality and innovation in education. Read more about blended learning.

School leaders and teachers struggle to find the right education technology to suit their needs. Education technology makers can’t figure out exactly what schools need – or if their products can work as intended.

Education critics often see technology as unnecessary bells and whistles to a curriculum that has sufficed for decades. But the reality is that technological innovation today is opening the door to entirely new methods of teaching that have never before been feasible.

New tools have changed how teachers interact with their students, and how the students interact with the materials being taught. More than 100 years ago, the chalkboard was a great teaching tool. It’s since been replaced by interactive whiteboards, document cameras, tablets and virtual reality headsets, each slightly more functional than its predecessor.

Changes today are not just incremental improvements of old tools. They are helping us move to a new paradigm, and teachers need to be prepared not only for the tools available today, but for the tools that we can’t fathom are coming in the next 10, 15 or 20 years.

Without a roadmap, how can we be sure our teachers are prepared to handle the coming tidal wave of educational technology that only shows signs of getting larger?

Saint Leo University’s education department began making the use of technology in classroom environments a priority in our teaching program in 2008, in response to feedback from recent alumni. Now, our students don’t graduate without being exposed to, and expected to use, a vast array of technology tool.

It’s not enough to simply provide access to new tools. Certainly, it’s impossible to incorporate the use of virtual reality goggles or headsets if you don’t know how to use them, but knowing what each button does is only the beginning. Teachers must also be able to see the potential in a given object and how it can be tapped to unlock greater learning opportunities.

Every new device or new piece of software that is used in the classroom varies in the impact it will have on learning.

The most basic level is substitution. An online version of Jeopardy to review course material may be more visually appealing but is similarly as functional as any kind of review game that teachers have used in the past.

The second level is augmentation, where technology acts as a direct tool substitution, but also provides functional improvement. Perhaps this makes learning or grading slightly simpler or more proficient, but it doesn’t lead to new horizons.

These two levels are largely dependent on the tool itself, rather than the teacher’s ability to use and innovate with it. Conversely, maximizing the tool requires teachers to see potential in them, and find ways to unlock it.

When this is possible, teachers reach the third level of modification, where technology allows for projects and tasks to be redesigned. Online polling platforms such as Socrative and Kahoot! not only make quizzing more fun, but they provide students and teachers with immediate feedback. These real-time analytics illustrate if there are gaps in student understanding that require additional time, or if it’s time to move on to new concepts.

Finally, the greatest level of impact that teachers can unlock is redefinition. Assignments and tasks are now possible that were previously inconceivable. Instead of written reports, perhaps students can now produce a research project as a video or an interactive digital timeline.

The demands for research and learning are the same, but these additional avenues provide new opportunities to foster student engagement, allow students to create, and  require students to “own” their own understandings. These four levels of technology integration — Substitution, Augmentation, Modification and Redefinition — are known as the SAMR Model. Developed by Ruben Puentedura, the model provides teachers a framework for determining the efficacy of various technology options

Unlocking the coveted redefinition impact through education technology frequently requires teachers to stretch outside of their comfort zone. Often, they’re more than willing to do so, provided they’ve also been given the necessary tools, training, teams and time to succeed. Trial and error is key, and is something that current and future teachers should embrace.

It’s why our department has also reached out to veteran teachers in the surrounding community through events such as the Teacher Technology Summer Institute, where  teachers join together to learn tools they’ll then take back to their classrooms and use every day. The tools are theirs to keep, so long as they engage in a yearlong action research project and report back on what worked and what didn’t.

The goal is to determine new best practices for devices that are ever-changing. The sooner we unlock the full potential of the tools, the sooner we can unlock the full potential of the teachers to use them, and ultimately redefine the role education plays in student development.

Candace Roberts is a professor of education at Saint Leo University in Saint Leo, Florida.

This story was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news website focused on inequality and innovation in education. Read more about blended learning.