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VARK Example #3
Course Title: Astronomy
162, Stars, Galaxies, and Cosmology
Available online at: http://csep10.phys.utk.edu/astr162/lect/index.html
School:
Commenter: Kathleen
Fox-Williams
VARK: Visual, Read/Write and
Kinesthetic
This site appeals to me because it provides rich visual stimulation along with the text reading. I like the fact that this course requires a textbook. This gives the student time to study the material anywhere, rather than only learning this information while sitting at their computer desk. The course also provides several “virtual” experiments to help illustrate ideas such as “the inverse square law” and “the Doppler effect”. These are the two most important things from this course that I could apply to my own course. That is 1) embed pictures and illustrations in with the text to help liven up the material, and 2) its not that difficult to incorporate small labs into a lecture. You are only limited by your creativity (and programming skills).
The Astronomy program also has a jazzy homepage that provides links to newsgroups, Astronomy homework help, Astro calculator, quizzes and much more. This is a great idea for a separate page outside of the classroom for related information that may or may not be part of the class. For my class I could describe careers in health physics and related fields, other classes in similar fields, places for radionuclide look-up tables, and half-life, shielding and dosimetry calculators.
This page does not yet meet the requirements for Bobby AAA Approved status. The biggest issue is to provide alternative text whenever an image or color is used. Also, there are many instances to check for color contrast. There were 3 priority 1 user checks and 8 priority 2 user checks (specific to this website). The website provides an entire semester html pages containing lecture notes and labs. I only tested two of the pages. They use color and images extensively, and many places with ”pop-up windows or changes in the active window” which elicits a Bobby comment.
This page does not yet meet the requirements for Bobby Section 508 Approved status. There were six instances where Bobby asked for alternative text for all images. I assume this isn’t a failure if the image is not necessary but only adds visual stimulation. There were 8 instances where color was used to convey information. Most of the index is provided in blue on white with black on white for highlight.