Online learning: It’s Effect on Impaired Students

Noureen Bashat

October, 2020

This audio feature highlights Dr. Alexandra Gazis, the director of the students well-being office

at The American University in Cairo.

Dr. Alexandra Gazis the director of the students well-being office at the American University in

Cairo (A-U-C) talked about the struggles that the disabled students at A-U-C are facing with

hybrid learning as well as the universities future plans for these students if they continue online.

Noureen Bashat has the story.

Online learning is specially hard on the disabled students. According to EdTech an entity that

focuses on helping universities and teachers with online learning stated that 20% of students

report having a disability and many of them struggle when it comes to using technology, and this

means that many of these students will need customized tools and tailored assignments.

Now with Dr. Alexandra Gazis the Director of the Students well-being Office at A-U-C.

Alexandra Gazis (AG): “This is why we had to work with the visually impaired or the
hard of hearing and so forth, we had to work with the tech solution team to get to find
accessible applications for them to use, and to convert anything, and give support for the
faculty to convert anything that is not accessible for them to start having accessible
material, accessible videos, accessible PowerPoints so that the students with visual
impairment can use their screen readers to actually do that.” (:31)

Adding to this point using Zoom is great and is the easiest option for visually impaired students

because it offers accessible hotkeys and shortcuts as mentioned in EdTech. However, this is still

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very difficult for these students because some classes they struggle with more, and it might be

due to not getting the face to face help they used to have. Dr. Gazis also says that faculty

members need extra help to get accustomed to the new technology.

(AG): “The students with visual impairment can use their screen readers to actually do
that. As a faculty member. That was a bit challenging because you have to have some
experience using these applications, or at least have meetings with the tech solution
teams to show you how to extend such accessibility options for your students.” (:35)

Furthermore, Dr. Gazis mentioned the Student Disability offices’ plan to aid and support the

impaired students in the future online learning. With the help of A-U-C’s Center for Learning

and Teaching also known as C-L-T team .

(AG): “We want to give more training for faculty and encourage them to actually join and
see what are the options for accessibility CLT is doing an amazing job regarding this
matter. The extra feature that we can add is encouraging faculty to be more in contact
with the students.

In the meantime, A-U-C faculty can work on enhancing their online teaching by taking

advantage of the Center for Learning and Teaching (C-L-T) which provides workshops and

resources focused on creating more accessible content for the students.

Noureen Bashat, A-U-C Radio.

https://soundcloud.com/noureen-tamer-bashat/effect-of-online-learning-on-impaired-students