The Adaptive Technology Resource Centre at the University of Toronto would like to invite you to attend an upcoming International Open Forum on e-Learning and Standardization, entitled Supporting Human Diversity Through Inclusive Design. This two-day event will be hosted by the ATRC in partnership with the E-Learning Standards Advisory Council of Canada, ISO/IEC JTCI/SC36 and the Standards Council of Canada, and will take place in Toronto on September 13 and 14, 2007.
The forum will bring together delegates - including public policy makers, administrators, industry associations, educators and researchers, educational advocacy groups, and usability and accessibility design experts - from over 22 countries to discuss the challenges for international standards development in regard to e-learning technologies, in conjunction with the September 2007 International Plenary Meeting of the IT Standardization for Learning, Education and Training.
Open Forum participants will have the opportunity to engage with a roster of speakers representing the government, academic, corporate, and non-profit sectors, including such notable organizations as UNESCO, the World Wide Web Consortium, JTC1/SC36, Bell, the Canadian Human Rights Commission, Citizenship and Immigration Canada, Lights, Camera, Access, Heritage Canada, the Trace Centre at the University of Wisconsin, the Ontario Ministry of Community and Social Services, and the Faculty of Information Studies at the University of Toronto.
The overall goal of the forum is to advance the inclusive design of emerging and future educational systems, by:
- Identifying and addressing the challenges to inclusion,
- Harnessing the potential benefits of emerging technologies and systems to address the needs of individuals with alternative access requirements,
- Infusing inclusive design into the foundation architectures of emerging technologies so that inclusion will be a foundational characteristic of future developments, and by
- Developing inclusive practices in computer mediated education that are innovative and sustainable;
such that no one is excluded from optimizing their potential through learning.
We would greatly value your input into this important public debate on international standards development for e-learning technologies, and hope that you will join us in Toronto this September. The full conference programme and online registration are available at http://openforum.elsacc.ca/.