Facilitator: Pierce Richardson, Disability Federation of Ireland
This discussion centred around the accessibility of different platforms. There was a recognised need for more awareness and training needed around the various platforms available and the pros and cons of each one.
Issues raised:
- Different platforms have different levels of accessibility for different access needs. For example vision impaired users of Zoom experience some difficulties and Microsoft teams is a better platform in this regard. Both are improving and updating all the time.
- There was a lot of discussion on the need for live captioning and to develop Real Time Text (RTT) (Microsoft Teams has this function)
- Peer to peer support has not been an issue when working remotely, particularly for students (more than likely this is because they are digital natives and use other platforms e.g. Snapchat, WhatsApp etc in their daily lives so transitioning to for example Zoom is not an issue for them).
- Issues with privacy and the sharing of that data with some online platforms was noted
Resources identified
- There is a need to look at other ways to engage with the people supported by the group and to keep people involved – the group sharing experience of using webinars
- and how successful that this method is and invited each other to get involved in different webinars to see how they operate.
- Resources for increasing the digital skills of those who may need support to engage with online learning and services include:
- Applied Digital Skills from Google
- Best Practice Guide for Telehealth (pdf) from Allied Health