In the previous course ‘Tech Tools and How to Use Them Inclusively‘ of this learning path, you saw how selecting a core suite of tools helps to lower the cognitive load for everyone who uses them. When people have to learn fewer new processes, systems, and tools, they have more brain-power ready for learning new subject content and ideas. The challenge for us at the level of our institutions is the conflict between simplicity (ease of use, lowest cognitive load, broad access across many connection scenarios) and freedom (using the tools we want, academic freedom, using complex tools to take advantage of specific functions).
The most common barriers to online learning have to do with time, technology, and complexity. Our learners have many demands on their time – work, family, military service, caregiving, and social responsibilities in addition to their studies with us. They are often trying to make time for studying in already-packed lives. Likewise, the number of our learners who have dedicated Internet connections and laptop or desktop computers at home is relatively small. Our learners are much more likely to use mobile devices as their primary connections to the Internet, and to do so most often using wireless connections in public places like cafes and libraries. Our learners are faced with overlapping technology systems across the various facets of their everyday lives: adults worldwide who use Internet-based systems must learn an average of eight different tools in order to take part in interfaces from their government, education, health-care, and economic providers.
The challenge for us in higher education is that our learners come to our online and technology-mediated programs from widely varying technology-ownership and connection circumstances. They are surrounded by more tools and systems than any individual could ever learn and internalize. Conversely, our instructors and designers want to be as free as possible to use tools that help them to teach and share subject-matter concepts and processes with learners. Somewhat paradoxically, when we adopt key accessibility strategies at the level of our organizations (that, is impose more structure), we free up learners and instructors alike to engage in customized and specific interactions using tools that may require more cognitive load for learning new systems.