Join us at the annual (free!) Inclusive Design 24 Conference (#id24) where Say Yeah CEO Lee Dale will be hosting two exciting sessions.

• The Folly of Chasing Demographics, in which presenter Heydon Pickering will challenge the conventional approach to designing for people with disabilities and provide insights into creating more inclusive and respectful digital experiences. 3 p.m. EST (19:00 UTC)
• Inclusive Methods for Co-Design Between Blind and Sighted Designers, in which speakers Chancey Fleet and Lauren Race will show how Blind and sighted designers can work together to bypass inaccessible design tools and create meaningful, collaborative design practices that ultimately reduce ableism in the field. 4 p.m. EST (20:00 UTC)

At Say Yeah, we’ve long been a champion and leader in the field of inclusive design (check out Lee Dale’s 2021 #id24 presentation, “There is no average person.”) and are the cutting edge of using AI to personalize eLearning (check out our latest developments: automated multi-modal elearning and multi-lingual elearning). So we’re always excited to get together with experts, designers, and advocates from around the world at this unique 24-hour online event to share insights and innovations that make digital content accessible to everyone. We’re big believers that eLearning that is inclusive and engaging for all your employees is eLearning that maximizes ROI and grows the capacity and capability of your organization.

What else you can expect at this year’s Inclusive Design 24 (#id24)

In short, great content on accessibility, intersectionality, gamification, UX design, and more. For example:

• How Many Senses Do You Think You Have? with Kaye Moors and Lizzie Hamblin (16:00 UTC)
• Neuro-Diversifying Tech: A Toolkit for Designing with Autistic People with Simona Manni and Belen Barros Pena (17:00 UTC)
• Accessibility beyond WCAG: EAA & EN 301 549 with Wilco Fiers (18:00 UTC)

View the full conference schedule

Watch the conference

This event is free, with no registration required. Join the conversation live on the Inclusive 24 YouTube channel.

Are you delivering organizational eLearning that maximized accessibility and engagement of all employees?

We help you deliver more accessible eLearning that includes manageable multi-modal content and integrated multi-lingual content to effectively engage every employee. We’d love to show you.

Book a demo

The post Inclusive Design 24 Conference #id24, September 12, 2024 appeared first on Say Yeah!.

From AI to machine learning in the workplace, digital transformation has opened up exciting new possibilities to drive economic growth. But when you consider Canada’s declining economic growth, we risk missing out on the potential benefits of our ongoing digital transformation.

Now more than ever, Canada needs a workforce that can adapt to and operate within a rapidly changing technology environment. Building these competencies will require a culture of lifelong learning that spans academia and the workplace. As Canada looks to the future, eLearning is a pillar upon which to build the workforce to power a healthy, sustainable, and growing economy.

In a new op-ed published on TheFutureEconomy.ca, Say Yeah CEO Lee Dale delves into how embracing lifelong learning facilitated by eLearning at institutional and corporate levels can set us on a better path toward global economic prosperity.

Lee Dale with Say Yeah’s post on International Day of Education. See the post on LinkedIn.

Key highlights

Canadian workplaces need to become hubs for innovation and collective growth. How do we do this?

1. Take action on diversity: A large demographic of skilled Canadians remain chronically unhired. As a result, Canada is missing out on a rich diversity of thought and perspectives, which could open up diverse markets and power up innovation.
2. Get the ball rolling on eLearning: Effective eLearning is a critical part of supporting and scaling a productive learning ecosystem across organizations.

By embracing new opportunities and implementing best practices across technology, academia, business, and government, Canada can close its widening skills gap and position itself as a global leader, all while nurturing the next generation of innovators.

Read the full op-ed.

Ready to bring the competitive advantage of #eLearning to your organization?

We’d love to chat. We’re in the business of helping people learn and work smarter. We work with businesses and higher learning institutions to deliver high-impact online learning that drives organizational success.

Get in touch

The post The Power of eLearning: Prospering in a Digitally-Driven Economy appeared first on Say Yeah!.

In today’s ever-evolving digital learning landscape, learning leaders in higher education face new challenges and possibilities. The HEQCO conference will bring together subject-matter experts, educators, and learning leaders across the post-secondary sector to explore creative strategies that pave the way for increased institutional reach and learner success.

As an eLearning agency that prioritizes accessibility, we’re always eager to discuss new approaches to making education more inclusive and decolonizing curriculum to set global standards of learning. In 2022, we worked with George Brown College to build the Universal Design for Learning certificate program—a robust eLearning project built around these objectives and co-signed by HEQCO.

At this conference, we’re thrilled to exchange insights with other learning leaders on ways to deliver more engaging, accessible, and impactful learning programs.

What’s in store for you at the HEQCO Conference?

Hear from distinguished speakers like Dr. Chika Stacy Oriuwa, Malika Asthana, Mandy Bonisteel, Beverly-Jean Daniel, C.A. Klassen,  and more. 

Catch the following talks:

• Meaningful Engagement: Improving Access Research Using EDID Principles with Anthony Berin, Helen Tewolde, and, C.A. Klassen
• Inclusive Approaches to Engaging with Students with Zarreen Brown, Beverly-Jean Daniel, Celeste Licorish, Gillian Parekh, Joseph Pazzano, Katie Traynor, Hai-Anh Vu, and Amanda White
• Spotlight on Universal Design for Learning: Using UDL to Navigate Technological Change with Mandy Bonisteel, Joanna Friend, Sharmaine Itwaru, Danny Smith, and Susan Toews.

See the full speaker lineup here.

Register today!

Don’t miss out on this exciting opportunity to learn more about how to leverage accessibility in your organization. Get tickets for conference access at $325.

Save your seat.

Want to work with us or learn more about our approach to developing accessible online courses for higher education institutions?

If you want to hire us to develop, design and bring your learning to life, you can get in learn more about our custom eLearning service here.

Get in touch

The post HEQCO Conference, November 3, 2023 appeared first on Say Yeah!.

Join us at the annual (free!) Inclusive Design 24 Conference (#id24) where Say Yeah CEO Lee Dale will give a talk on “A practical guide to inclusive design.” 

As champions of inclusive design in tech + education, we’re always eager to talk about how organizations and businesses can leverage inclusive practices to grow access and engagement in evolving and increasingly diverse markets. In 2021, Lee Dale spoke about why designing with intersectionality in mind is critical in his talk titled “There is no average person.” This year, he will dive deeper in exploring the business and organizational benefits of inclusive design and present a complementary model to better understand the people we serve.

Watch Say Yeah CEO Lee Dale’s 2021 talk “There is no average person.”

What you can expect at this year’s Inclusive Design 24 Conference (#id24)

Whether you’re on a product, service, or educational program team, you can look forward to insights on intersectionality, AI, user research, design, and more from accessibility and inclusive design leaders across the world. For example:

• Measuring Accessibility Maturity with Andrew Arch and Neil Jarvis
• Disability Bias in Artificial Intelligence with Christopher Land
• Inclusion Starts with Us with Lia McCabe

View the full conference schedule

Watch the conference

This event is free, with no registration required. Join the conversation live on the Inclusive 24 YouTube channel.

Interested in tech + education insights?

Subscribe to our email list now and be at the forefront of learning innovation!

Sign up for our newsletter

The post Inclusive Design 24 Conference #id24, September 21-22, 2023 appeared first on Say Yeah!.

The Saudi STEM Education Conference 2023 will bring together educators, policymakers and stakeholders in the region to explore ways to set global standards of learning and improve workplace readiness and capability.

As a leader in the tech + education space, we know the power and possibilities of digital solutions and innovations to enhance job readiness, increase access to education, bolster global competitiveness, and more.

Earlier this year, we spoke at the LEAP conference in Riyadh, sharing global research and best practices in online education as part of our commitment to supporting Saudi’s Vision 2030 initiatives. At this conference, we’re thrilled to be continuing those conversations–and to showcase our full-service eLearning and training capabilities in delivering more engaging, accessible, and impactful learning programs.

What’s in store for you at the Saudi STEM Education Conference?

Hear from distinguished speakers like Christopher Tompkins, Kantis Simmons, Abeer Tadmori, Dr. Reema AlQaralleh, Dima Najim, Anis Koubaa, Mike Cobb,  Kamil Jbeily, and more. 

Catch the following exciting talks:

• Inspiring the Next Generation of STEM Leaders: Unleashing Innovation Through Authentic Learning, Student Agency, and Agile Frameworks with Christopher Tompkins and Mike Cobb
• STEM Curriculum Designing and AI Revolution with Dr. Reema AlQaralleh 
• Dynamic Partnerships for Excellence in STEM Education: Empowering Teachers to Teach Effectively with Kamil Jbeily

Don’t miss the full speaker lineup here.

Want to hear more from Say Yeah?

Subscribe to our email list for updates in the tech + education space.

Sign up for our newsletter

The post The Saudi STEM Education Conference, September 19–20, 2023 appeared first on Say Yeah!.

Bringing together educators and learning experts, it was an opportunity to take a deeper dive into UDL and complementary frameworks like community building and empowerment to improve learning across professional development and higher education ecosystems. 

As a sponsor for the event, we were excited to sit in on some great conversations and hear fresh perspectives on continuous improvement, inclusive pedagogy, and more, while sharing a bit of our own mission to deliver inclusive, engaging, and accessible digital-enabled learning experiences for all.

Conference highlights

A snapshot of two attendees interacting during a networking session at a previous annual CAST UDL symposium.

• Unpacking Nicole Tucker-Smith’s keynote speech on cultivating brave spaces by designing from diverse perspectives
• Discovering the concept of the science of hope and how it impacts learning from Cathleen Stocktill-Beachboard
• Participating in a continuous improvement activity with Alia Latorre
• Digesting Humberto Hernandez’s insights into inclusive pedagogies

Takeaways from the 9th annual CAST UDL Symposium 2023

Diversity and intersectionality collectively drive change and innovation.

Nicole Tucker-Smith set the scene with a powerful keynote speech on designing from diverse perspectives, noting that the power of intersectionality is required to solve problems on a large scale. Among her references was a study showing the impact of diversity on the scientific community and how it resulted in improved problem-solving, specialization, objectivity, and more.

To conclude her speech, Nicole shared some concrete ideas about how to design learning environments free from limits:

• We embrace and showcase learner variability when we give learners a wide range of options, including aspirational ones.
• Diverse strategies make learning more effective. Consider storytelling, holistic thinking, systems approach, and analogies. 
• Be proactive in setting learning outcomes, and ensure the design of your learning programs empowers participants to meet them. Designing for learner variability takes into account individual and cultural characteristics.

Learners thrive when we prioritize their strengths.

Cathleen Stocktill-Beachboard’s session was centred around the science of hope and how it impacts learning. In particular, she focused on positive framing: Learning shouldn’t be something to endure; rather, it should be a positive experience that empowers learners to enhance their capabilities and gain confidence in their learning journeys.

Cathleen highlighted that the onus for learning is not just on the learner—education and training experts can do a lot to set learners up for success. In order to make learning more effective, she suggested strategies like enabling reflection, feedback, and goal setting, as well as: 

• making the subject matter relatable to the learner’s perspective and objectives
• providing additional resources and a community of practice to give learners a path forward when they run into challenges
• empowering learners with agency and choice so they can take ownership of their learning journey

Continuous improvement is a key ingredient to successful learning programs.

Whether you’re running onboarding programs or employee training, continuous improvement in learning and development can be a valuable practice in building learning tools and pathways to help learners bridge theory to practice.

 But how do you implement continuous improvement and ensure your learning programs continue to meet the desired levels of impact across the organization? 

In a continuous improvement activity with Alia Latorre, we practiced answering three questions to assess and drive continuous improvement: 

1. What problem are we trying to solve?
2. What change might we introduce and why?
3. How will we know that a change is actually an improvement?

There’s more to inclusive training than accommodations.

In his talk about facilitating inclusive teaching, Humberto Hernandez pointed out the barriers disenfranchised learners experience in programs across the United States. 

For instance, the term “inclusivity” is often associated with accommodations and “making room” for others, but it’s more than that. Inclusivity, especially in learning environments, involves welcoming users through language, design, and engagement. We can achieve this outcome through a deliberate and proactive process that not only designs for but also designs with diverse users.

Another barrier is that learning programs are mostly facilitated by subject matter experts who have limited experience in instructional design and learning science, and therefore can face challenges in applying inclusive practices in a learning environment.

The solution to these barriers mirrors our approach to course design, which includes:

• challenging traditional methods of learning by reviewing educational foundations and processes
• bringing subject matter experts and learning experts together to combine their expertise in building effective learning programs
• making digital learning environments more human by including options to engage with other learners and providing opportunities for learners to apply and contextualize courses in relation to their work and lives

The CAST UDL Symposium 2023 was an excellent opportunity to explore UDL best practices and other evidence-based frameworks that empower learners to move from theory to practice.

We look forward to next year’s symposium and the chance to connect with more of you as we continue to work to advance the goals of UDL.

Interested in learning more about how UDL can help you reach your organization’s training goals?

Over the years, we have set new standards of learning through projects that prioritize the UDL principles of Engagement, Representation, and Action and Expression.

Learn how we helped George Brown College build UDL capacity at scale across Ontario institutions.

The post CAST UDL Symposium 2023 Recap appeared first on Say Yeah!.

A snapshot of a diverse group of six attendees interacting during a networking session at a previous annual CAST UDL symposium.

The annual CAST UDL Symposium provides an excellent opportunity to explore Universal Design for Learning best practices and other evidence-based frameworks that empower learners to move from theory to practice. As eLearning innovators dedicated to prioritizing learner variability, we’re excited to share our perspective on practices that complement and advance the goals of UDL.

We can’t wait to hear from speakers like Nicole Tucker-Smith, Loui Lord Nelson, Tolu Noah, Alia Latorre, James McKenna, Jennifer Pusateri, and more.  

Explore the event agenda

Want to know more about how we approach UDL in course design?

Over the years, we have set new standards of learning through projects that prioritize the UDL principles of  Engagement, Representation, and Action and Expression.

Learn how we helped George Brown College build UDL capacity at scale across Ontario institutions. 

The post Join us at the 9th annual CAST UDL Symposium, July 31-August 1, 2023 appeared first on Say Yeah!.

This symposium offers the opportunity to take a deeper dive into Universal Design for Learning best practices and consider connections between UDL and education topics like learner empowerment, social justice, and community building. 

The 2023 edition of the CAST UDL Symposium will highlight UDL case studies and explore strategies to make UDL a common and prevalent practice in education. As eLearning innovators dedicated to prioritizing learner variability, we’re excited to share our perspective on practices that complement and advance the goals of UDL.

Catch these exciting talks at the CAST UDL Symposium:

• Cultivating Brave Spaces by Designing from Diverse Perspectives with Nicole Tucker-Smith 
• From Single Vision to Transition Lenses: UDL Is Maturing with Loui Lord Nelson
• UDL at work with James Mckenna
• Empowering Learners and Minimizing Barriers with iPad Accessibility Tools with Tolulope, (Tolu) Noah

Explore the event schedule

Save your seat!

You don’t want to miss this chance to explore the potential benefits of UDL in your higher education and professional learning programs. 

Get tickets for virtual access starting at $399 USD and in-person tickets at $799 USD.

Register today!

Looking to develop and deliver eLearning programs that meet the needs of all your learners?

Using our variable learning model, we can help you deliver flexible and engaging online courses that account for learner diversity and variability.

Get in touch

The post CAST UDL Symposium, July 31-August 1, 2023 appeared first on Say Yeah!.

The answer lies in learner-centred solutions and connections promoted in professional learning communities and thought-provoking events like the International Society for Technology in Education’s 2023 conference.

ISTE Conference 2023 emphasizes the transformative power of technology in education by spotlighting learner-centred approaches like project-based learning and communities of practice.

Starting on June 25, the event will showcase real-world projects that empower students, along with strategies to implement them. As innovators in tech and education, we appreciate the value of incorporating best practices in tech to drive desired results for all learners.

Catch these exciting talks at ISTE Conference 2023:

• Creating a Metacognitive Tool for Curating Assistive Technologies for Neurodivergent Students with Jessica Burke and Dr. Nicole Parsons from Curry College
• Using Technology to Create Life Solutions, The Future of Work with Bharanidharan Rajakumar
• Instructional Design Successes in Teaching with Dr. Vanessa Holtgrave

Check out the full event program

Register today!

Sign up for a chance to discover global edtech trends and contribute to the future of education.

Can’t attend the conference in Philadelphia? No worries! You can experience the live talks and networking sessions virtually. Virtual tickets start from $285 USD.

Grab a ticket

Looking to improve learning outcomes for your learners?

Learn about our approach to delivering eLearning experiences that engage all learners.

Get in touch

The post ISTE Conference, June 25-28, 2023 appeared first on Say Yeah!.