Castleton Information & Educational Technology

#4 Color with Care

The use of color can affect how readable a page is for students with vision disabilities. For instance, color-blind individuals have a hard time discriminating between specific colors and hues. Therefore, you should never rely solely on color to convey information (using red to indicate homework and green to indicate readings).  Color should instead be used to compliment what is already implied in your text.

If you must use color, make sure there is considerable contrast between the background and text colors. You should also limit how many colors you use on your page to help alleviate confusion for students with vision impairments.

The image below shows how color-blindness can affect what information a person sees.

#3 Choose the Right Font

Choose one font for your Moodle page and stick with it. Keep in mind that sans-serif fonts such as Arial and Veranda are easier to read on-line than serif fonts (Times New Roman). You should avoid using narrow or decorative fonts as these can be incredibly hard for students with visual impairments to read. Fonts should be no smaller than 10 points.

Fonts

To change your font, use the following steps.
Open your Moodle course.
Turn Editing on.
Anytime you have the opportunity to add text to Moodle – think weekly summaries, labels, assignments and discussion forms – you should have ability to change fonts.
Locate the bar tool bar, just above your text. It should have one row of icons.
Click the very first icon to expand the tool bar giving you access to the Font Family and Font Size settings.
Make sure you highlight your text before you try to change the font.

#2 Organize

Choose an organization design and use it consistently in your Moodle sections. This can be as simple as always posting readings first, followed by a Powerpoint, video, or other resource, and then a discussion forum. You can use Labels to help identify sections (Assignments, Lectures, Discussions, etc.). Use the Move Right/Left option for activities and resources (Edit – Move right) to organize data. Name assignments and forums consistently.

This will help students anticipate where to find information from week to week.

How to Add Labels

To add a label to a section, perform the following steps.
Open your Moodle course.
Turn Editing on.
Locate the week you want and choose “Add an Activity or Resource.”
Scroll to the bottom of the popup and choose Label.
Insert your text and save changes.

[You can easily duplicate a label by clicking the Edit drop down and choosing Duplicate.
Clicking and dragging labels (once you have duplicated them) will allow you to move them to subsequent weeks.]

#1 Summarize

Provide a summary of each week or section of your course. Weekly summaries should be brief, no more than a few sentences, written with the intention of informing students to your goals for the week. This will help students navigate your course and understand learning goals and objectives.

To add a summary for each week, do the following.

Open your Moodle course.
Turn Editing On.
For each week/topic click the gear and add your summary.
Save changes.