In coordination with the Division of Rehabilitation Services, MDTAP is hosting another Inclusive, Accessible Game Night for anyone interested in playing video games!

Tuesday, September 27th

5:30pm – 8pm

@ The Workforce and Technology Center

2301 Argonne Drive

Baltimore, MD 21218

Enjoy a variety of adapted & non-adapted game stations (Xbox, PC, PlayStation and more), adapted board & card games, gamers merch, and good company.

Gamers encouraged to bring their own favorite controllers & games! 

GAME NIGHT REGISTRATION

Web Accessibility Testing Boutique – September 14, 2022, 1:00-5:00 p.m. ET

Wednesday, September 14, 2022, from 1:00 to 5:00 p.m. via Zoom | Register for the web accessibility testing seminar

Build a solid foundation in website accessibility to test your own websites. Properly testing a website for accessibility for blind and low-vision users may seem to be a daunting task,

You may be struggling with questions such as:

• Which automated tool should I use?
• How much manual testing is needed?
• Do I need to know how to use a screen reader to test my site?

The National Federation of the Blind can help you answer these questions and more during a half-day Web Accessibility Testing seminar. This seminar will offer attendees information on various aspects of both manual and automated website accessibility testing. This seminar will include information on testing webpages with automated tools, reviewing automated testing tool reports, and using screen readers to manually test webpages.

Hands-on web accessibility testing experience included. The group will review and analyze a report from an automated website accessibility testing tool and will also be guided through testing a webpage manually with NVDA, a free screen reader software.

Recommended for website developers, web designers, web administrators, content administrators, site owners, site admins for a business or government agency, web coordinators, if you review websites.

Register for the web accessibility testing seminar.

It’s Worth the Effort

Accessibility simplifies and improves interactions with blind customers, employees, and employers. Accessible documents are useful to more than blind users. Most of the features added to increase accessibility also make projects easier to use for a wide variety of people.

• Keyboard users
• Those with small screen devices
• Dictation software users
• People using automated tools to gather information on documents, webpages, and other media.
• Some accessibility features can make a project easier to migrate to other platforms or formats.

Creating accessible documents can be simple and powerful for anybody to incorporate into their workflow. Accessibility boutiques and seminars are workshops presented by our access technology experts that provide introductions to accessibility best practices and the latest trends in access tech.

Don’t miss the ImpAACt Voices Live AAC Hangout and Celebration 2022, the only networking event of its kind for the Augmentative Alternative Community (AAC) and business communities.

Organized and led by AAC users, the event will:

•  Provide networking opportunities for businesses and the AAC community

•  Assist AAC users in showcasing their abilities and gain employment opportunities

Link to learn more and register: Learn More 

View a video message from Vice President Chris Klein below:

Inaugural Live Hangout and Celebration 2022, Save the date October 7th & 8th in Arlington, Virginia

Event Details

Date: October 7 and 8, 2022

Location:

Crystal City Marriott at Reagan National Airport

1999 Richmond Highway

Arlington, Virginia 22202

Tel: 703-413-5500

Cost: 

Two-Days: $200

One-Day: $100

AAC User Scholarship: Request Scholarship

Includes:

• Friday night happy hour & networking reception

•  Friday night IV Live Hangout & Celebration event, featuring AAC speakers

•  Saturday light breakfast 

•  Saturday workshops and round table discussion

•  Complimentary snacks and drink

Reading, Writing, Organizing & Notetaking AT Solutions

September 14th @ 1pm, EST

Join us for this free webinar highlighting AT tools to help students, teachers, and parents feel ready for a successful, new school year. 

REGISTER HERE!

All webinars include live captioning. If you need additional accommodations, please contact Lori Berrong, lori.berrong@maryland.gov

September is an important month in the d/Deaf community. Not only is Deaf Awareness Month celebrated, but also International Week of Deaf People from 19-25 September and World Deaf Day on 27 September.

These are occasions to celebrate the d/Deaf community, educate about deafness, and advocate for accessibility in everyday life.

We’d love to take this opportunity to encourage you to make your events this September – and all events – accessible! CLICK HERE to find out how. 

Other Events:

Written by Stephen Polacek

Our work in the IT Access Initiative is centered on complying with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines.  Maryland’s own Non Visual Access Clause and the federal Section 508 guidelines both use WCAG 2.0 as their baseline.  There’s been a lot of discussion around moving up to 2.1 standards to incorporate mobile access, but with 2.2 around the corner, it may be better to wait and look at what these new standards have to offer.

WCAG 2.2 expands on the same goals as 2.1: providing better accessibility on mobile devices and increased accessibility for those with cognitive disabilities.  It also keeps the older standards numbers; there’s no moving around of existing guidelines.  This means there is no grouping by the subset level (A, AA, AAA) but that should be easy enough to remember.  What WCAG 2.2 (found here) does offer is more guidance on physical interactions, such as dragging or touch targets and newer trends like two-step authentication. 

For those asking about WCAG 3.0, W3C states in the draft that 3.0 will be an incorporation of the WCAG, Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines (ATAG), and User Agent Accessibility Guidelines (UAA).  This means 3.0 will have different testing requirements and a different compliance level determination.  The current working draft also states that 3.0 is not backward-compatible with WCAG 2.X.  Depending on what 3.0 looks like closer to its final publishing, the existing laws based on WCAG 2.X may need to be rewritten.

When considering these 2.2 updates, it’s worth considering skipping 2.1 and going straight to 2.2 compliance.