Academic and techie “how-to”s

NB: This page is a work in progress. It will be updated (hopefully) on a more-or-less regular basis.

The purpose of this page is to collect “how-to” type posts that I have written that focus on working with academic programs, and on producing accessible teaching materials. TeX and other such specialist programs are famously difficult to learn, and it doesn’t hurt for people to share tips and tricks, however basic, as and when they learn them.

Accessible teaching materials often seem difficult to produce, but they really aren’t, and I think the idea that it’s difficult is one that needs to be challenged. My info and experience on this comes both from personal experience of learning from good and bad examples of teaching materials, as well as experience of producing my own teaching materials for classroom teaching and one-to-one tutoring. I have also had some input into teaching accessibility good practice guidelines at my university.

All these posts, by the way, are “bring-and-shares” in the sense that people should feel free to post solutions and further suggestions in those threads.

–IP

Academic programs

Using LaTeX in instant messaging — for the IM program Adium

GoldVarb bring-and-share — tips on compatibility

Word counts in TeX? — question on how to get an accurate word count

How to make accessible handouts in LaTeX –includes some basic formatting macros

How to make teaching materials accessible

Accessible teaching materials — general tips and guidelines

How to make accessible handouts in LaTeX — what it says on the tin