Presented by: Darcie Priester, Coordinator of Professional Learning, Manassas Park City Schools
Date & Time: Wednesday, July 22, 2026 at 10:55 AM
Room: Hyatt Regency 2nd Floor — Kentucky Suite (Oaks/Derby)
Session Description
Don’t let accessibility feel like a hurdle. This session redefines your workflow by moving beyond reactive "fixing" toward proactive design habits rooted in Universal Design for Learning (UDL).
Rather than just chasing errors, you will learn a new way to work by building sustainable “micro-habits” to ensure your Canvas content is inclusive by default. We will also dive into Canvas Studio to streamline captioning, turning videos into a searchable, accessible asset. Learn to integrate these high-impact strategies into your daily routine, using the native Canvas Accessibility Checker as a final quality-assurance tool to verify and maintain an equitable learning environment.
What This Session Is Really About
Here’s what nobody says out loud: most accessibility guidance makes teachers feel like they’ve already failed. This session doesn’t do that.
The Accessibility Sprint is about designing with accessibility in mind from the very first click — not scrambling to fix things before a course goes live. I’ll walk you through three sprint formats (Foundation, Engagement, and Safety Net) that take 30 seconds or less to apply and cover everything from heading hierarchy and naming conventions to alt text, LTI framing, and the Canvas Accessibility Checker. Every habit is demonstrated in live Canvas pages across real K–12 course contexts, so you can see exactly what good design looks like before you try it yourself.
I built this session because I kept seeing the same thing: teachers who cared deeply about their students but had no practical entry point into accessibility. This is that entry point.
This One’s for You If…
If you’ve ever opened the Canvas Accessibility Checker after a course was already live and thought “well, this is a lot” — this session is for you. Join me if:
- You’re a teacher, instructional designer, or Canvas admin who wants to build more inclusive courses but isn’t sure where to start — or feels like accessibility is too complicated to fit into your workflow.
- You support educators in your district, institution, or organization and need a framework you can actually hand to them and say “start here.”
Resources
Check back after the conference for updates, slides, and the session recording, plus:
- The Accessibility Sprint Checklist — your one-page guide to building with accessibility in mind from the start
- The Accessibility Sprint Bookmark — a quick reference card for the habits covered in this session
See You in Louisville!
This is my very first InstructureCon, and I could not be more excited to experience it in person! One of the things I am most looking forward to is meeting the people behind the names I’ve seen in the Canvas community — there is something really special about putting faces to the conversations we have online. Whether you’re a first-timer like me or a seasoned InstructureCon veteran, I would love to connect.
Come find me before or after the session, drop a question in the comments below, and if there’s a specific accessibility challenge you’re wrestling with in Canvas, share it — I’ll do my best to address it during the session. See you in Louisville!
