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Becoming the Voice of Visuals: Audio Descriptions

Amrutha Nandam

Panopto logo

May 4, 2026

Quick Sweeps for Panopto’s Closed Captions

Yay! You’ve uploaded your latest lecture video to Panopto. Now, it’s time to add closed captions to it. Closed captions are a text equivalent of what is said, which appear synchronously on-screen. From Deaf and hard-of-hearing individuals, to English-as-a-Second-Language students, to caregivers learning statistics after finally putting their toddler to sleep, closed captions create a…

Mar 4, 2026

A File By A Descriptive, Relevant Name

While “a rose by any name smells just as sweet,” files are a whole different story. Have you ever rummaged through your folders for a particular file just to find 10 “Document 1s”? You are not alone! Thankfully, we can make the search easier by following accessibility guidelines, which emphasize the importance of describing what…
Canvas by Instructure

Feb 4, 2026

Accessibility for Your Future Canvas Course

A new LMS is coming, and you may be wondering if the accessibility updates you’re making to your Moodle course now will carry over when we transition to Canvas. We fully expect that your content in Moodle will retain all of its accessibility formatting when transferred into Canvas. If you have used Brickfield to make…

Jan 9, 2026

Smart Spacing: Beyond the “Enter” Button

Do you ever feel the urge to press “Enter” repeatedly to create space in your documents? Blank space in a document helps reduce cognitive load by allowing learners to pause and process content before moving on. However, repeatedly pressing the “Enter” button to create space between lines or push text to a new page creates…

Nov 5, 2025

Spatial Contiguity in Moodle Quizzes

Spatial contiguity is a multimedia principle that recommends placing graphics and relevant text close together to indicate their relationship and reduce cognitive load.
During Pack Appreciation Day students show our appreciation to the tens of thousands of donors who supported our Think and Do the Extraordinary Campaign. Students wrote notes and made videos to give thanks. This happened on Stafford Commons. Photo by Marc Hall

Oct 7, 2025

Becoming the Voice of Visuals: Audio Descriptions

When you present to an audience or for a recorded lecture, do you include visuals such as graphs, charts, animations or images to drive home a point in your presentations? Do you describe these visuals as they appear in your presentation? Audio/verbal descriptions of visual content ensure that all learners understand the key takeaways, and…