[Year 12 IT Apps] ITA exam - B2 - accessibility

Mon Nov 10 12:12:35 EST 2014

This story popped up last Thursday about a blind woman taking legal action against Coles regarding the accessibility of their website (supports our known definition accessibility). A good one for this topic. The outcome of the case will be interesting.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-11-05/blind-woman-launches-court-action-against-coles-over-its-website/5869874

Heath Matheson
Mount Beauty Secondary College

From: itapps-bounces at edulists.com.au [mailto:itapps-bounces at edulists.com.au] On Behalf Of Gary Vear
Sent: Sunday, 9 November 2014 5:56 PM
To: 'Year 12 IT Applications Teachers' Mailing List'
Subject: Re: [Year 12 IT Apps] ITA exam - B2 - accessibility

Mark/Ben/others,

I share your frustration with the unusual interpretation of key terms and concepts evident in a few of the exam questions. I taught my students to believe that improving the ‘accessibility’ of an information solution meant accommodating the needs of users who may suffer from a particular disability (hearing/ vision impairment, poor motor skills, etc.), so I can only hope that my Year 12s had enough sense to see that the exam was asking about something quite different than what I taught them.

I also have an issue with multiple choice Q10 (efficiency vs effectiveness), regarding the ‘ease of backing up files’, since ‘ease of use’ (as I’ve noted in the past) can refer to either efficiency or effectiveness, depending on where you get your information from the VCAA website:

Effectiveness = ‘ease of use’ (http://vels.vcaa.vic.edu.au/ict/glossary.html)
OR
Efficiency = ‘ease of use’ (Study Design glossary, p. 13, http://www.vcaa.vic.edu.au/Documents/vce/infotech/infotechsd2011-2014.pdf)

Certainly the Study Design should be gospel for VCE students, but shouldn’t we also be teaching the same definitions to our Yr 7-10 students in the name of consistency?

From: itapps-bounces at edulists.com.au<mailto:itapps-bounces at edulists.com.au> [mailto:itapps-bounces at edulists.com.au] On Behalf Of Mark
Sent: Sunday, November 09, 2014 1:54 PM
To: Year 12 IT Applications Teachers' Mailing List
Subject: Re: [Year 12 IT Apps] ITA exam - B2 - accessibility

Yes. I tried a 'disabilities' answer and could not make it fly.

Hopefully the stronger students managed to cope with the weird use of VCE IT conventions.
I worry mainly about the others who expect examiners to behave nicely and obey the conventions that the students were told were sacred.
It's really not fair to earnestly teach kids basic principles all year, and have an exam overturn them - as if the question writer did not actually teach ITA, and only read the study design.

On the same tack, I'm still not happy with A1, which I believe misunderstood the VCE IT interpretation of 'storyboard', which the study design clearly intends (e.g. p.65, "using a range of design tools including a sitemap, layouts and storyboard, redesign your school’s website") to be a website design tool, not an animation design tool.
 The only reason I'm not livid about that was because the other options were all worse than the 'correct' one.

It worries me how questions like this get through to publication...

On 9 November 2014 13:36, Ben Hines <b.hines at ccg.vic.edu.au<mailto:b.hines at ccg.vic.edu.au>> wrote:
I was thinking this too mark. It sounds like many of my students used common sense and didn't answer it with a special needs interpretation. Because to them it didn't seem to fit here.

My thought was around the fact that maybe persons with disabilities may more easily communicate using video or audio ( by recording it and uploading it). Than by just typing.

But the question really doesn't seem to be leaning this way?

Sent from Samsung Mobile

Ben Hines
Mathematics and ICT Teacher
Senior Campus
(03)5241 1577
[Christian College Geelong]

[https://www.ccg.vic.edu.au/email/images/Enviro.jpg] Please consider the environment before printing this email.

-------- Original message --------
From: Mark
Date:09/11/2014 13:22 (GMT+10:00)
To: Year 12 IT Applications Teachers' Mailing List
Subject: [Year 12 IT Apps] ITA exam - B2 - accessibility
Does anyone else have a sneaking fear that this second question in section B is misinterpreting the word "accessibility"?

We in VCE IT have (AFAIK) always understood 'accessibility' as referring to catering for special needs or disabilities.

This question smells to me as if it's referring to "ease of loading/finding". Try answering it with a "special needs" view of accessibility, and see how far you get.

Frustratingly, the current study design does not define accessibility, and it even muddies the water by including this in the glossary's definition of 'design elements'...

"In this study the elements related to functionality are structure, usability and accessibility, including navigation and load time, appropriateness and relevance."

This makes it sound like accessibility includes navigation and load time (curse their ambiguous punctuation) which is definitely not related to disabilities.

Yet the Nelson/Potts textbooks seems to agree that 'accessibility' relates to factors like colour blindness, reduced language skills etc.

The problem is that I can't find a VCE IT source for this 'accessibility' convention.
Does anyone remember where this interpretation of accessibility came from years ago?

Or have I slipped several cogs and is question B2 quite appropriate and right? Has the exam question writer read the study design and made a quite valid (but wrong) interpretation of the word?

--

Mark Kelly

Mark Kelly
mark AT vceit DOT com
http://vceit.com

I love the sound of people's voices after they stop talking.

I, Mark Kelly, am entirely responsible for the offensive verbiage I spew forth.
Have I offended anyone with this post?  I would not be surprised.
If offended, please whinge to me at the email address above.
Please leave poor Kevork alone.  It is not his fault.

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