For the last assignment I chose to use prompt 3. My group and I chose to write about how to ensure your pet lives a happy and healthy life. 

Considering the learning environment (online class) for our present plan, there are several ways we can prevent possible barriers and provide positive results. Online classes need to be engaging to students and educators must be flexible in providing additional educational opportunities, be sure to diminish disturbances, and provide access to technology.

Before considering additional educational opportunities, primary material can be made more accessible by providing clear communication, and responding promptly to emails and inquiries. This can help teachers and students engage in the material more effectively. Interactive lesson plans, additional activities, connecting lessons to real-life situations can enrich primary material to enable students to engage better with the class. Students have different learning styles and needs so it is important to personalize approaches with enriching material to accommodate them. For our group’s learning additional material could include specific information about different breeds and health needs. Our course can also be designed to include activities such as quizzes catered to specific learning styles.

One of the largest distractions for online courses is the lack of community support and isolation which can cause a lack of inspiration and stimulus. A way to overcome this barrier is to promote a feeling of commonwealth that builds an online supportive community. Holding office hours for the students to have a way to connect with the teacher one-on-one is an excellent way to break isolation. Other ways to foster teamwork is by having students engage in group projects, forum discussion posts and zoom breakout rooms. For those students with poor technical skill, technological hurdles can be a distraction in themselves, or lead to disruptive behaviour. Helping them to understand the platform is essential and if they still struggle, they should be directed to a student technology support contact. Hosting online event platforms like zoom break-out-rooms, having students comment on discussion forums and also bring a sense of community. Online classes can have many barriers as students can be distracted without the in class interaction and feedback for professors.For our group’s inclusive this would involve tailoring the site to make it user friendly.

Providing technology to all, including people with disabilities, ensures equity and inclusion to all and reduces barriers in learning. Having access to these tools foster self-directed learning, courage and confidence because in this digital age, it is essential to have accessibility to technology and good digital literacy skills. Students often are not compelled to learn when they lack necessary technology needed to learn but, on the contrary, they often have very positive academic experiences while experiencing less stress and anxiety.  Some examples of accessible technology for students are text-to-speech software and various input devices in order to accommodate diverse learning needs. Offering various forms of content, providing wording on videos, and being certain students have compatible assistant technology when needed will solve this dilemma. For our group project, providing AI tools is a simple way to alleviate many accessibility issues at different levels of need. Also, referring those with disabilities to the centre of disability centre can help assist those with disability to access brail or anytime of assistant technology they may need in order not just to survive, but to thrive.