Our current seminar on “Inclusive Design of e-Learning Environments: A Global Agenda” which run from 25-29 August. The seminar is led by Professor Denise Wood, Professor of Learning, Equity, Access and Participation at Central Queensland University, Australia.

Please note: Professor Wood will be hosted an Adobe Connect live meeting Monday 25 August at 2:30 pm (SAST/GMT+2). The recording is available here and if you have not yet joined the conversation on Facebook, this can be done here.

Professor Wood will discuss the complexities of using digital technologies to engage students from diverse backgrounds. This presentation argues that ‘inclusion’ is a highly contestable concept and that despite the rhetoric, the move towards standardisation of inclusion, access and equity through institutional policy has ‘reterritorialized difference’ leading to a focus on ‘management of, rather than engagement with, difference’.

For the goals of inclusive education to be realised, as Denise Wood argues, there is a need for a more nuanced understanding of the dimensions required for education, and e-learning environments in particular to be inclusive of the diverse needs of our student population.

The four dimensions of accessibility; usability; personalisation and transformative pedagogical practice will be explored with examples of application in practice.

Denise Wood’s research with community organisations and national and state governments in Australia and South Africa focuses on the potential of new media technologies such as participatory Web 2.0 and 3D virtual learning environments to enhance the educational and social participation of young people with disabilities, as well as exploring the pedagogical potential of these environments to engage learners in the higher education context.

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Denise Wood is Professor of Learning, Equity, Access and Participation at Central Queensland University. She also holds an Adjunct Professorial position in the Faculty of Education at the University of the Western Cape, South Africa. Her qualifications include a PhD (Education), Master of Educational Technology, Master of Design, Graduate Certificate in Flexible Learning, Graduate Diploma in Social Sciences and a Bachelor of Arts in Social Work. Denise’s research focuses on the use of accessible information and communication technologies (ICTs) to increase social and educational participation, as well as the pedagogical benefits of social media in teaching and learning.