August 18, 2025 • 44 mins
In this episode, Holly Owens and Nicole L'Etoile discuss the critical importance of accessibility in education and corporate environments. They explore the need for proactive approaches to accessibility, the challenges faced by organizations, and the upcoming federal regulations that will impact compliance. Nicole shares insights from her accessibility cohorts and community initiatives, emphasizing the importance of networking and continuous learning for educators transitioning into accessibility roles. The conversation highlights the resources available for those looking to enhance their knowledge and skills in accessibility, as well as the significance of maintaining one's teaching experience in the professional journey.
Resources mentioned in this episode:
Guest Contact Information:
___________________________________
Episode Sponsor: iSpring Solutions
🎙️ Huge thanks to our friends at iSpring Solutions for sponsoring this episode of the EdUp L&D podcast! 🙌
If you haven’t already, be sure to check out the iSpring Learning Exchange Community — a vibrant space for creators, educators, and L&D pros to connect and grow.
Grateful for the support and excited to see what our community creates 💡
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Hi friends. It's Holly Owens and welcome to
another fabulous and proactive episode of End Up L&D.
And I say proactive with purposetoday because we are diving in
deep into accessibility with none other than Nicole Latrois.
Yes, she's back. If you missed her the first
(00:21):
time, go ahead and hit rewind after this because Nicole is the
accessibility expert you need inyour network and possibly in
your LMS. Since our last chat, she's been
on a mission, running accessibility cohorts, repping
the world for WUKAG 2.1 compliance, and launching A
(00:43):
widely popular LD Slack community that's become the
space for accessibility pros andnewbies alike.
In this episode, we're covering what's coming in 2026 with the
new federal ADA Title 2 regulations.
Spoiler alert, it's a big deal. Why accessibility needs to be
baked in, not bolted on. When new IDs and corporate
(01:07):
teams. What new IDs and corporate teams
get wrong and how to fix it. How to get involved in her
thriving community of accessibility advocates.
Whether you're brand new to digital accessibility or you're
the designated can you check this contrast person on your
team, Nicole drops knowledge youcan use right now, and with her
(01:29):
usual mix of insight, practicality, and passion, it's
time for you to grab your coffeeor matcha and let's dive in.
Hi, we're Ice Spring, an international team of e-learning
enthusiasts who help more than 60,000 clients across the globe
succeed with better online learning.
(01:51):
Our two flagship solutions are ispring Suite and ispring Learn
LMS. Ispring Suite is an intuitive,
all in one authoring tool for creating engaging elearning
content, and ispringlearn is an innovative online training
platform for onboarding, upskilling, and certifying your
teams. We also provide tons of free
(02:12):
resources for aspiring and experienced e-learning
professionals, conduct weekly webinars with top industry
experts, and organize annual e-learning conferences,
challenges, and championships. We'd be happy to get to know you
and pick a solution that fits your needs best.
Go to www.icepringsolutions.com to learn more about us, download
(02:36):
our resources, and connect. Hello everyone, and welcome to
another fantastic fabulous. I'm going to stay proactive
because we're talking about accessibility today episode of
Ed up L and DI am happy, grateful, pumped.
We're pumped to welcome back my friend Nicole, who is going to
(02:58):
tell us all about accessibility.But first, Nicole, tell people
who you are, what you do. You've been on a previous
episode. They need to go back and listen
to it. But tell us all about you for
those in the audience who have not met you yet.
All right. Hey, everyone.
Hi, I'm Nicole Latwal. It is great to, you know, be
back here with you, Holly. I'm just so excited.
(03:19):
We have so much to catch up on. It's been just over a year and a
lot has happened. I'll, you know, say that it's
been busy in a good way. I can't complain with my company
Latwal Education just growing the course, making online
content accessible for all. We're now heading into, we're in
the third cohort, kind of the 4th.
(03:39):
We had a side one happen and we can talk about that a little bit
that just popped up. And so we're we're coming into
the 4th cohort this October and just really excited.
And with that, I've had a few clients along the way doing
audits for learning management systems and courses, getting
ready for the new ADA title to ruling, getting clients for
(04:00):
that. If you don't know people,
something federal's coming out that's going to impact you, pay
attention. Big deal.
So anyway, yeah, so, so it's been good supporting some
clients around different spaces,you know, coming out of
education this past year, the last six months and and working
with organizations at local and state agencies and governments
too. So a little bit of everything.
(04:22):
Yeah, I've been watching you. I've been in all the stuff that
you've been doing. And I'm like, like, where first
of all, where does she find all the time to do that?
And second of all, I'm like, this is such an important topic
around accessibility because people are still Nicole, and I
know this bothers you just just as much as it bothers me, are
taking accessibility and they are not putting it as more of a
(04:44):
proactive approach in their organizations or institutions.
They're more reactive to it. I feel like what's coming down
the line with the federal regulations will hopefully get
people to have a proactive approach.
But before we dive into all the stuff you've been doing, can you
tell to us a little bit about why it's important for
accessibility to be something that's proactive in a company
(05:08):
rather something rather than something that's reactive?
Well, it's less painful. We'll just start there, right?
Yeah, it'll be a whole lot it. It doesn't seem to be that it's
a whole lot easier. It's a it's a lot less painful
in terms of, yes, learning is hard.
We have to learn how to build accessibility, but it's harder
(05:28):
when we have to go back and and retrofit and rethink and rework
because we know. It's time.
It's time, but it's also like you put your effort, you know,
you put your heart and soul intosomething you could find.
You create it. It's your baby.
You've you've put all this energy and to have it feel as if
like there's something wrong with it when there's not.
It's nothing that is wrong with it.
(05:50):
We're just out, you know, looking for ways to improve it
so that all can use your beautiful, amazing content.
But it's harder when it's already done and designed to
then look back. Especially folks who've been in
this for a while where they havecatalogs of courses and it's
overwhelming to think, you know,where do I start?
Do I go back and fix all this? Most people get overwhelmed with
(06:11):
it because they want it to be good.
That's because they do care. So when they retrofit and they
come back after, they think I got to go back and fix
everything now, yeah. So once you see it, you can't
Unsee it, I promise. So yeah, so I think that's why
it gets harder. Yeah, yeah, I definitely agree
with you too. And just, you know, I just want
(06:32):
to start off with that question right off the bat because I feel
like it's, it just bothers me that it's still not a thing to
people. It's still just like this, this
checklist item that we'll worry about later.
And I really feel like people shouldn't, accessibility
shouldn't be an afterthought. Like you said, it makes things
easier. It, it really helps everyone.
(06:52):
It's just not with people with disabilities.
It's people who, you know, like color contrast.
Oh my gosh, that's the one that bugs me the most.
So I'm being honest when I see things out on LinkedIn or I see,
you know, I am judging you. If you're using like yellow
backgrounds and you're using like low contrast the colors, it
just that kind of stuff is just so easy to fix.
(07:15):
It's. You know, like kind of look and,
and think I don't have time to learn it.
So I, you know, we've got new designers, we will get it.
I know we're going to get into this, but I have a new Finder
right now who's fantastic putting in all this work into
the course that we're teaching and making accessible.
But they're also trying to learnthe tool at the same time while
learning to be a designer. And I give them kudos for saying
(07:37):
I'm going to learn it from the start, But you can see the
learning curve there. And they're just said to me, it
was almost like I just wanted toreach across the, the zoom and
be like, no comment, I'll help you, You know, like maybe I
should just build it and then I can go back and worry.
I was like, no, no, no, we're not doing that.
We're not doing that. We're not doing that.
So I can see if you're not, you know, if you don't have the
(07:58):
guidance which we can get into, like I have this big grand idea
for a mentoring program next year, whatever.
Like, I just feel like we need to, you know, do something
because we can't keep doing whatwe're doing.
Well, tell us about all you've been doing because you've been
doing a lot. You've had a lot of great
initiatives that's happened in the past year, including your
accessibility cohorts, working with Luke Hopson in the
Instructional Design Institute. So tell us what you've been off
(08:20):
to. What have you been doing this
past 365 days? You asked me where you getting
all this time? I remember sitting here a year
ago too, talking to Doctor Luke Hopson going how do you do all
this? Where do you?
Right. And now I'm going, oh, I kind of
get it now because. I understand.
Drive and yeah, so, yeah, so thethe course launched as part of
(08:42):
Instructional Design Institute as part of Idi and it was kind
of a branch off of that. And we had our first cohort in
January of this year 2025 almostsaid January 2020.
Five. I know it's so close.
It's like. 2025 and we've had a mix of folks coming in from
higher Ed we've had some K12 more of the virtual online space
(09:05):
K12 but higher Ed K12 but also corporate nonprofit folks who
are consultants themselves who want to increase their knowledge
so they can offer this to as a service to their clients.
We've had folks who are overseeing as a director of
curriculum that are working on new launches of Ed tech programs
that are trying to up, you know,upskill and accessibility.
(09:27):
So we've just had so many different folks and and new
designers is what I'm really excited to see.
I love hearing that, by the way.Me too.
That's. Great.
Yeah. Me too.
Yeah, it's great to have a one. Yeah.
So like what are you seeing? Like what are some of the things
that you're seeing with these cohorts or people coming in
where, where are they kind of lacking in the, the knowledge of
(09:48):
accessibility or what are some of the things like they're just,
I wanna know about blank here because it's probably a question
that a lot of our audience members have too.
When they don't follow you on LinkedIn, they need to follow
you because you give accessibility tips as well.
But where do you kind of see where it's common across that
everybody's asking about this orthat?
(10:10):
As we know everything varies so and as the cohort has gone on,
we, you know, we started out with I think I had 10 people,
the 1st 113, the second one we got up to, you know, 15.
This one it's growing and the levels as it goes on have I've,
I've gotten more advanced and newer.
So we are seeing an increased level of folks who have been
(10:34):
doing this on their own right, self teaching, working through
it and folks that are just new to it.
So what I see is someone who hasn't explored the web
accessibility guidelines at all.As soon as I start using Wu CAG
and putting out the numbers and we start saying Wu CAG 2.21, you
know, like sometimes it's like that is I don't want to know
(10:54):
that just yet. We get a, a glimpse of there's a
lot to learn here. And then I have someone in my
cohort who's Wukag specialist, that's in their title, who's
just like, give me your process.How are you auditing?
And I need to do this for my joband I'd like to learn from you
at the same time. Yeah.
(11:14):
So yeah, it's we're, we're really divided in.
Skill levels are like and knowledge levels are really
across the board. We.
Have a big gap right now and it's like closing that and
trying to get people to and meeting them where they are.
And I do love that this is facilitated.
I don't think I could ever teachor just create the self-paced
and send people on their way because you to meet them where
(11:35):
they are. I mean, we, we pivot, we're,
we're using UDL universal time for learning in practice in this
moment and being responsive. And I meet typically by Week 2,
I can get a sense of where you are.
So then I can start to target and kind of create a pathway
that supports you while others are being supported in their
pathway and hopefully they can work together.
(11:56):
And that's the beauty of a cohort, right?
So, so it's just kind of like trying to figure out.
So we've just got different, different levels all over the
place We've got. Yeah, I I can see that.
And I think it's, I think it's interesting too that you're
getting people who have that actually in their title and
that's their, their role in likeyou say, we don't know
everything. We know a lot in terms of you're
(12:17):
an accessibility expert. I know a lot about LND jobs.
I don't know everything. So it's important to remain open
to learn from those people as well, see what they're doing,
ask them questions. Because while we remain an
expert, we still have things to learn.
One of the things I want you to mention is when's your next
cohort coming? Because we're gonna, we're gonna
include everything in the show notes for that.
(12:38):
Yeah, October 1st and this one is an 830 early AM Eastern Time.
We've been that helps anyone in the because the EAA, the
European Accessibility Act is also driving some of folks to
the course and driving some of the work which has been helpful
for us here in the States as well.
And if you're out there listening, we're meeting 8:30 to
accommodate the European schedule nice and early.
(13:02):
Wednesday to me, 830. I'm about 90 minutes into my
work day because I'm an early bird.
Yeah, for some people, yeah. I was like, so I don't know how
that works for your W coaster. If you want to get up at 5:30
and join us, we'd love to grab your coffee, grab your tea,
whatever it may be. You could always go back to
sleep. I don't know.
Or maybe just start your day. Yeah, you become up at 5:00 AM
or. Sounds good.
So we'll have everything in the show notes on how to sign up for
(13:24):
that. What else are you doing?
What else are there? Exciting initiatives are
happening. Yeah, I feel again, there's a
lot in terms of well, since we, you know, we started this
accessibility LED slack and I say we because like I.
Well, let's try. And I forgot about the Slack
channel too. Oh, and there's 812 people in
there as of this morning, and wejust launched to.
(13:45):
Get in there. And so, you know, one of the, it
was one of those things, I was in a live session, I was in a
webinar and I got to give a shout out to Lewis and the TLDC
group over there because it was one of those sessions.
I don't remember exactly what conference it was and I was
watching someone or listening tosomeone present.
Again, not being an expert, I still go to everything to see
(14:07):
what other people do, to see if I've missed anything, make some
connections. And I was in someone's
presentation, a little newer to accessibility and I was
listening and I was like, we need a place for all of us to go
regularly. Yes, I know these groups exist,
but we haven't talked all about accessibility, access, you know,
24/7. We we need that.
(14:27):
So I sent a message to, to two other people on LinkedIn.
I was like, I'm going to do this.
Do you want in? And they were like, yeah, what
are you thinking? I'm like, I don't know, a couple
of days maybe I'll post it. Not even you know this is how
Nicole works Within 5 minutes Post it because I had the
thought and I was like. Yeah, we're the same, yeah.
(14:47):
Here it's now it's fresh, get itout there and it apparent people
says this is what a viral post is.
I didn't know what that was at the time because I'd never had
anything more than a 500, you know, whatever impressions.
And so it grew and it got a lot of notice and a lot of people
joined and we have some great questions in there, great
conversations, sharing of resources.
(15:10):
People are doing coffee chats. We started the Summer of Access
webinar series, free series thissummer with everybody there, you
know, stepped up, took a sessionand yeah, we could talk about
that too. So that's a new initiative that
branched off of that. And we, we had three sessions in
June, 3 or 4 in July, and we've got four more coming up.
(15:31):
So by the, I think by the time this comes out though, it'll
have completed. But it was called the Summer of
Access webinar series and we hada everyone doing things from,
you know, audio descriptions to how to how to blind learners use
the screen reader, navigating a course with MBDA, I don't know,
(15:53):
we did keyboard navigation, all free, you know, anywhere from 45
to an hour sessions. And those are just people in the
Slack group that said I'll do something, I'll do something.
So I've just kind of put it all together and got it out there.
And it's like your own little, it's your own little workshop
series happening and the Slack channel generated that.
So networking is important, everyone.
(16:15):
Networking is very, very. Important.
Important. Will those recordings, will we
be able to share those or did you?
They're OK. So we did as a you know.
OK, five groups with a slack. But to the they're cuz they're
they're unlisted on YouTube and so if you get into the.
Understood. Yeah, Yeah.
So we'll get everybody into that.
Slack groups, right? Every the thing I love about
(16:36):
this most is and all they're doing the cohort and things like
that is that most of it's free. It's like people don't
understand that the resources that you need in order to become
a quote UN quote expert and accessibility are free.
It's not like you need to pay for something if you want more
of like what you're doing with the cohort, you want more of
that. Like the we're going through
this at a certain pace and we'rebreaking it out and scaffolding
(16:58):
into certain topics. And you know that that is
something that takes a little bit longer to kind of organize.
So obviously that's paper, but most of the stuff it's like free
that's out there. Yeah, there's a lot of free
right now and you can get in there and be part of it.
And then, yeah. And so the, the paid option,
it's it's I'm, I'm coaching, I'mgiving feedback, you know where
we're taking your project and we're we're fixing it along the
(17:21):
way. It's just, it's a, it's, it's a
support, you know, an additionalsupport.
So yeah, the Slack group's completely free and so is the
series. And then people share so many
other free resources and supportin the group as well.
And every, you know, the L&D community.
So giving, I mean, yourself, right?
You give up, you give up so much.
(17:42):
I well, you know, you have all these offerings, you do this
podcast, you give up all your time to work with new
instruction designers and support everyone.
So. So where do you find the time?
Yeah, I have to, you know, actually I learned from Luke how
to kind of manage everything when he was doing some of those
(18:02):
virtual working sessions, like we were recording himself like
with music and stuff and kind ofdoing Pomodoro technique.
I kind of took that as I needed to change my how I'm focusing
myself every time that I'm working.
So I've consistently been using Pomodoro and doing tasks, and I
keep 1 task per 25 minutes. That's it.
(18:22):
If I finish early, then I can start on the other task, but
otherwise it's 25 minutes. I give myself at the beginning
of the day, I do a brain dump, which is something that's
recommended by Mel Robbins, and then I spend the 1st 25 minutes
of the day going through emails and organizing myself.
And then it's off to like my toptask.
I just start checking them off the list.
(18:44):
Is it rewarding you just like you said?
Then you get to do another path.Like do you feel good when you
complete the first one? And then you're like, yes.
Do the next one. I'm the, I'm that type of
person. And I was like, oh, I, I have a
checklist. And when I talked about this
with Ben Irwin too, because he'sa checklist person, I crossed
off the list as just some sort of motivation there and some
sort of serotonin or something that's really kind of like when
(19:05):
you go shopping for something, the dopamine of completing
something is really something that motivates me.
And I think if it's something that I'm passionate about,
especially the the idealist thatI share with all the different
books and job boards, it's it's double dopamine because I'm at
(19:26):
the same time, I love doing thisstuff.
It's like a game to me. I don't know what it is.
And then I also love the fact that I'm supporting other people
and their journeys and helping. Like that's the second piece of
it is like I like if you have a child or you have from having
students in K12, you don't want them to make the same mistakes
you did in life. You want them to have the nice
(19:46):
laid out path so that they can move to something faster than
you did or avoid this or avoid that.
So that is the motivation behindeverything that I do.
Yeah, that's neat. I mean, there's something about
getting to the certain like illicit level, right.
So there's the gaming of like I got this thing, I'm checking it
off, I'm getting to the next level.
But there the reward is that, you know, we were helping other
(20:08):
help others advantage. Yeah, which is?
Getting those messages and LinkedIn, I'm sure you get them
too when people just take time out of their day.
I'm not going to talk about the other messages I get because
those are the ones that make me mad.
But the people that take time intheir day just simply say like,
thank you Nicole. Thank you, Holly, probably you
do for the community that just that just reinvigorates me to do
(20:30):
even more and want to want to give back more because that's
telling me we can't see how impactful our work is from this
side. I mean, we know we're we're
aware of it, but I can't see what it's really doing in the
community. Like, I don't know, every time
my name is brought up or, you know, somebody shared the
resource, I can track with analytics, but I don't know
(20:50):
every time that that's happening.
I hope it's happening, right? But when somebody says that,
just that's just, you know, recognition, that reassurance
that that is in fact happening. Yeah, and it no matter, it
doesn't matter how many times ithappens, but even someone just
posting and saying thank you forsharing this resource, I saved
it or any acknowledgement to something that you put out
there, it kind of gives you a little boost of we'll keep
(21:12):
putting it out there. Maybe someone doesn't say thank
you for it that day, but someonesaw it, probably saved it, maybe
they used it. And so that's what keeps you
going, you know, the consistency.
So you kind of just keep showingup and it's just being
passionate. I think you said that too.
You know, if you really passionate about your work and
you want to do it even no matterif there's a like or a kudos at
(21:34):
the end, it doesn't, it doesn't stop matter.
It doesn't matter because you'relike, I'd do this anyway, right?
Like I'm going to work really hard to make something
accessible and include people. And if you're not, if you don't
like it or not, it doesn't matter.
I'm still going to work really, really hard to include everyone
as much as I can. And I mess, you know, and I mess
up often like in just regular day, like who we are when we're
(21:55):
not on LinkedIn, Like I mess up like I could, there could be
someone here who's listening, being like, well, I don't feel
like you included me. And, and they're upset with
something I did along the way. And I, and if I did, I, you
know, I don't know that and I'm sorry.
And we could talk about, you know, those things, but we're
behind the LinkedIn profile. We're human.
And, and I can sit on my soapboxand say, you know, make it
(22:15):
accessible and, and do these things and, and then still make
mistakes along the way and, and need to be able to like, own
those like. Yeah.
Yeah. And it's OK to make a mistake
because we don't, like I said, we don't know everything.
And I feel like the audience really needs to hear that too,
because they're like you and I, they're transition teachers or
they're going to be transition teachers.
And they, we've talked about this before, I've experienced a
(22:39):
lot of trauma coming out of the classroom, but I feel like
knowing accessibility gives you a level up on other people,
especially in the corporate industry, because this is not
something that corporate, I'm not saying everybody not
necessarily sees as a priority in their workflows.
So I mean. Yeah, first for job hunting, you
know, I am noticing and people are asking, it is coming up and
(23:01):
they're saying I'm seeing more and more that it says WCAG 2.1
or two point O needs to be listed in there or you know, ABA
508. And what does that mean?
What kind of level, what should I know?
It's being listed more and more.And the certifications, like
since we talked, I got this, theCPAC, the core professional
accessibility certification. And people ask, well, why did
(23:22):
you do that? Should I go get certifications
around accessibility? And it's like, it can be helpful
if you're job hunting, if you're, and not only that, just
studying for the exam and getting ready for it.
You get a whole new set of knowledge that some someone else
puts you at an advantage for a job and and just knowing how to
approach it. Yeah.
That's a great point. Yeah.
So I'm assuming that things are happening around and being
(23:45):
presented in job responsibilities because of
what's coming in 2026, right? Yeah.
Can you, can you for the audience and for myself, because
as much as I have to go back andread it all the time, can you
tell us a little bit what's going to be coming down
federally regulated in 2026 around WIC?
I call it Wiccag. I know you call it Wiccag.
Yeah. It's WCAB.
(24:06):
It's all it's. All the same, yeah.
Motto. Right.
Yeah, yeah. So tell us what's happening.
Give us the like. I need the layman's terms.
Sure, sure. Well, you know so ADA has always
been there's always been a roll around accessibility.
They decided in 2026, April 2026, there's a compliance date
(24:27):
set that all, all state and local agencies and that includes
higher Ed and schools, all public, state and local agencies
have to meet a technical standard now around accessible
digital accessibility. So they chose the WUCAG 2.1 AA.
So they're saying in order to becompliant that you have to meet
those standards and that would include certain things around
(24:48):
color contrast, certain things around video description and
transcripts. And so all the things that we
talk about have a number attached to it and they have a
level attached to it. And so you would have to include
those things. So if you're in 2026, if your
organization supports a population of 50,000 or more,
(25:09):
you know you have your compliance date.
If you have less than that in your population that you serve,
it's 2027. So I did post about this
recently, like an example of if you're a government agency and
you support the city of Stillwater, OK, and there's, you
(25:29):
know, 48,000 people in that community, your compliance date
is April 2027. But if you're the state of
Oklahoma University and you havethe whole state, right, that's
more than 50,000, you should be compliant.
Your organization needs to be compliant by April 2026, so
there's certain dates that were set for compliance and to meet
(25:51):
that technical standard. Yeah.
So what is that technical standard?
I'm sure people don't know what it is.
Yeah. Well, so that's where, and
that's what I, so I do notice that's, you know, folks that
come into the course who have a good understanding of I'm, I
know that I need a, a color contrast.
And so I can go really technicalin this conversation and some
(26:11):
people will be right there with you and go, Oh yeah, 4 to 1
contrast. I'll use my web aim contrast
color checker. And I and then some will say,
well, I know there needs to be contrast, but I don't have a
specific tool to do that. I don't know the number.
You know that it is 1.4 point, you know, one under
distinguishable principle and that that's a level A.
So that's what we, you know, that's what I try to teach in
(26:34):
the trainings and the course that it's good to know how to
check color. This is the level, this is what
you're trying to reach. And then it give the tools to
how to do it. So that takes, it takes, it
takes learning, it takes work. Someone recently posted and
shared with me, it's like learning a new language.
You know, I, I'm, we're, I'm trying to learn French.
(26:55):
So I took Italian in high school.
And college because her name is French.
Yeah, so I, I wanted to learn French.
I'm like, oh, this. What's it feel like to learn
Mookag without knowing OK, rightlanguage?
And it's overwhelming because when you first open up that
quick reference, whatever, wherever you go in the
(27:16):
documentation, there's just a lot of words.
It's a lot of text, so. I also it's a lot of stuff
people don't understand. There's a lot of jargon in it.
There's the jargon. So I, so I do get the feeling of
like sometimes I want to push people away from the jargon and
(27:36):
give you the plain language. But then I also don't want you
to shy away from some of the jargon.
Some of the jargon is the the back end to why the screen
reader is able to do what it does.
And if I don't talk about the technical, if I don't talk about
the jargon, then, you know, if you're truly going to design for
a screen reader user, there's certain things you should know
(27:57):
about HTML and semantic coding that you need to kind of have
some knowledge of. You don't have to go code it.
So, you know, that's, that's where we have the levels of
folks that are coming in and saying, OK, great.
What kind of contrast should I have?
What, what would I use to check?And then there's someone telling
me like, tell me the exact level.
Tell me you know what, what's the number?
(28:20):
Is it a level A, is it a level AA things like that.
So, so there's the technical standards are are deep and
there's 86 success criteria. So.
That's a lot. It's a lot.
Yeah. Well, it's good to spread the
awareness that that's coming. And I, I can see where people
would be intimidated by that, but obviously people like you
(28:42):
can help mitigate and help get prepared for this.
Well, well, in advanced of all those regulations coming down,
one of the things I was going toask you about, and hopefully it
didn't slip my brain too much is, oh gosh, what was I asking
about? I completely slipped my brain.
It's totally. Yeah, no.
(29:04):
So getting ready for that was the question.
Is there some sort of like checklist?
That's what I was asking. Is there some sort of like
checklist somewhere that the government is offering?
I didn't really see one. Or is there something?
They put out a road map they putout, but it's not it's I don't,
I, I don't, I wouldn't say to aninstruction designer go go look
at that. So I mean, I do blog about it.
(29:25):
Do you try to put out little mini things every day?
A little tip, especially Accessibility Monday of like
things you can look for. We look for the checklist.
I don't know if you can hear that noise in the background,
but it's 4:00 and my husband's making an espresso.
Oh, got it, got it. No, it'll be edit that part out.
(29:45):
We were fine with. We're all at home, we're all
doing our own things. We probably should have said,
can you not do that while we were doing that?
So anyway, yeah, so so there's, there's not necessarily the, the
checklist. We, we know that those checklist
exists and you can start with those.
But in order to get to that level of compliance, I would, I
(30:09):
would, maybe we could post some,some free courses in here, you
know, for folks to, to go through to help them get started
in some, some checklist we can provide because there's nothing
really from the government's perspective right now.
Yeah, yeah. So we're gonna just have to cuz
it's, I think they put this out there and then it's it's
(30:30):
interpreted by each state like that kind of like with the how
the states will interpret it. You know, there's the, the
requirements of like 50,000 and then below 50,000.
So it's open to interpretation, but it's not open to not
acknowledging it. You must acknowledge it and put
these things in the play. Well, yeah.
And I don't know if I would say it's necessarily open to
(30:52):
interpretation what your client's date is.
I think, I think people confuse it so when so I guess that is
the open. So someone will confuse that and
say it incorrectly and say, oh, you know the number incorrectly,
right. So I guess that was an
interpretation. I, I guess the big worry or the
big concern is that no, you know, is the DOJ going to
(31:15):
enforce this is. And how?
About it and how especially withall the cuts.
So we the accessibility community expects there to be
more of more of like the privatelevels of of like the private of
the businesses taking a bulk of this work, freelancers like
myself and other people doing a bulk of this work or consultants
(31:37):
and business owners trying to help people get ready.
But like any anything ADA is going to we see lawsuits.
So if we have lawsuits we've hadin the past, we may just have
more lawsuits with the standard attached to the lawsuit the EAA
is taking a little bit more seriously.
France has started to sue private businesses because it
(31:59):
doesn't just apply to their government agencies.
So. Right.
We're seeing it there, yeah. Yeah, I'm sure you can get a
whole conversation about that, too.
It's almost been. It's almost been 30 minutes.
Do you believe it? No.
We're at 29. Well, we can talk about
something more exciting. No, no, I, no, no.
(32:19):
I think that the listeners need to be aware of this is what's
happening. I know people are talking about
it like something's coming, something's coming, but they
need to have more of an awareness.
And we'll obviously include in the show notes what that
information is. The one thing that I like to
leave the listeners with and we don't, we don't necessarily have
to end it. There is, you know, my community
(32:40):
has a lot of transition teachers.
So you were in education for quite a while, different,
different roles. What are the top three pieces of
advice you could give those people who are thinking about
jumping into something like being having your own business
or becoming an accessibility specialist or you know, jumping
into instructional design or something like that?
(33:00):
What are the top three pieces ofadvice you give them?
It's, I don't know it's this advice.
It's not as easy as it looks. That's great advice.
Just scanning, so when you see profiles on LinkedIn of people
that are, you know, hey, they'rehaving success, it's not that
(33:22):
easy. And you know, this is my 24th
year in my career. And I'd say it took seven years
of real networking, contracting and consulting outside when I
left my principal job for me to then walk away and be able to do
this fully. So, and there were a lot of
different stops and starts alongthe way.
(33:43):
So it wasn't as if, you know, I had 12 years in classroom, I had
five years in administration. And when I've always been part
of adult learning at some point of that, even as a teacher,
right? So whatever teachers that steps
up, if you're a teacher out there that steps up and does PD
in your school, does PD at your district, right?
You start there, you start goingto conferences, you start
(34:04):
presenting. So you know, if you're in year
345 and you're like, I'm not in this for the long haul, right?
So you could start to dip your toes in the PD space without
jumping to freelance and and write to this consulting
business. And get the school district to
support you in those efforts. Yes, and pay for some of your
(34:26):
learning. I had the ability during Race to
the Top in 2012, 2014, you know,we here, we had and we had money
to release 30 of us in the classroom where we went.
I was in the whole state for twofull years getting training, how
to develop professional development, how to facilitate,
how to coach from an organization out of California,
(34:46):
came to Rhode Island and trainedus.
So I, I got out, I got this amazing professional development
experience. I was released.
I didn't go to my classroom. I got in my car.
It was so cool at that time, right?
I'd go from school to school state, you know, from city to
city, all across the, the, the state K12, I got a new network,
I got out of my building new network.
(35:07):
So that was one step. Then administration, I started
networking in different spaces as, as a principal in leadership
spaces. And so then there's leadership
outside of education, which thenled to becoming a professional
development director in the education space.
So my L&D work has always kind of been adjacent education,
(35:30):
adjacent, right, an element administrator.
So if you're out there thinking about how do I, you can mute,
leverage education and leverage what you do to look for that
kind of work to get that kind ofexperience to build up a
network. So when you do make the leap and
you start dropping seeds and posting that you're doing this
work, there's people that know you that you already have
(35:51):
credibility. That's how it worked for me.
I started posting and people from other different walks of
life where like we just bought an LMS Nicole and we need to.
So we didn't even talk about theLMS thing.
Jesus, we forgot about that. But so piece of advice is not is
not the misconception that it's easy, Not just just know that we
(36:14):
do over it kind of like professional athletes do they do
a really good job of making likeit looks easy, but it's not
really that easy. So be cognizant of that or two
is networking. Yes, network.
Yes, build up your skill set. I don't know.
So network we said, we said networking, we said build up
skill set. What other advice there's?
(36:34):
There's gotta be a third one. I can come up with one if you.
Want. Yeah, go for it.
Yeah, I would say that for transitioning teachers is to
mine is always honor your teaching experience when you're
transitioning. Because I know a lot of teachers
talk to different types of consultants or professional
resume writers that tell them toNix that out of their resume.
(36:55):
And I don't like that. I don't think that's fair
because if you came to me, Nicole, and you've had about 17,
almost 2 decades in education and we nixed 20 years of your
professional career. Why?
Why? Yeah, why do why do we do that?
You know, because they're sayinglike people, some companies
specifically say, and I've seen this in a couple job posts that
they don't hire transitioning teachers.
(37:17):
No, no, no, no, no. You want to go to a company that
honors that experience and you want to know what level you're
coming in at. So if you have like 4 to 5,
you're probably coming in at an entry to mid level position when
you're thinking about LD shift. Beyond that, it's mid and then
it goes to senior and you have the transferable skills.
So my advice is honor that teaching experience and do not
(37:37):
ever Nix that from your resume until it becomes, you know, 10
or 15 years old. And then you, you're already
well on your way into transitioning to different L&B
roles at that point. I.
Think that's really strong advice.
I think you're, you know, you'regiving them strong advice around
not letting go of, of what created right.
They have this amazing skill set.
(37:58):
What created their background? Like why would you let that go?
Right. And why would it?
You know, the other reason why you won't let it go is like
teaching taught you some taught you something like what you what
did you enjoy most about the classroom?
Maybe you can bring that with you and the other aspects of a
different role like instructional designer
e-learning development. And then what you did like maybe
(38:18):
some of the classroom managementstuff.
Maybe you don't want to deal so much on the front end with
people or parents or communication and stuff.
And then you can find roles thatyou know really suit your
personality and fit with what you really want to do.
Yeah. And that makes sense.
And I know a lot of folks out there that are trying to get
into teaching that. I've had years of, you know,
that I was like that There's folks out there that want to go
(38:41):
the other way. Surprisingly that I think this
is what the LinkedIn. We don't talk about that.
We also, this is what the LinkedIn world is doing.
I think, you know, the, the social media or the LinkedIn
space is everyone's leaving, everyone wants to get an LND.
But I have a very good friend ofmine who is, has a science
background, has been a pharmacist who wants to go into
teaching like, and so I think there's, you know, there's
(39:04):
nothing, there's nothing wrong with being an educator.
It's a strong profession and they've, you've been trained to,
to help folks learn. You have been trained to help
kids and adults go from, you know, 1 spectrum to the other
spectrum of learning. You understand designing
learning. So don't.
(39:26):
Don't. In a way that other people do
not. Yes, so it's a strength and and
your your skill set is, is always there.
So continue to honor it. I need to know more about you,
so can we OK? What do you want to know?
We'll take the last three minutes.
What do you want to know? I want to know what's up in your
(39:46):
world, what's up in your space, What new, new things are
happening. Yeah.
Love to know. Well, obviously it's, it's
probably pretty obvious that I'mtrying to grow this podcast.
It's at, it's at a point where it needs to expand.
So I'm having experts like yourself on.
We're releasing 2 episodes per week now.
We want sponsors. We want, we want to feature
(40:06):
people on here that are transitioning out and they need,
they need a space to have a voice and to reach the masses.
So that's one thing that's happening.
I'm doing more consulting work. I'm going to be shifting some
things. And by the time this episode
comes out, so I can say it, I'llbe leaving Yellow Dig full time.
I've decided that L&D is where it's at for me.
(40:28):
I want to be in that space with people.
So I have a couple contracts, things going on, brand
ambassadorships, kind of all that keeping me busy.
But also too, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm writing a book.
Yeah. I'm writing a book about
shifting into the space. And I've interviewed.
At this point, we're almost near200 episodes.
The people in LND or LND adjacent.
(40:48):
So I have beyond my own experience.
I have all this research that I can tap into and use that in my
book to kind of give people the real talk behind transitioning
out LND. Like there are steps and the
steps are not linear, but what worked best for me or what
worked best for other people based off of what I heard.
So that's coming out and hopefully in November of this
(41:10):
year, yeah. You were putting out, you were
putting out the seat. I've been wondering because we
were like you were getting a little bit like the books
coming. You were dropping some hints
along the way, you know, things,you know took a slight little
turn for you for a little while and.
Yeah, I started that yellow dig.That's what the turn was.
And. Wasted, right?
You probably walk away with some.
Really, you know, you get to take some things with you
because then. But yeah, your heart's been.
(41:32):
I was like, I hope that book's still getting written.
That's good. Yeah, it is.
I have the 1st, I have the firstlittle part done, like the, I
guess you call it the preface, yeah, preface or whatever.
And then chapter 1 is done and I'm doing chapter 2 and 3 next
week. So it's going to be probably 13
chapters because I love Taylor Swift.
So it's the Easter egg. 13 chapters and favorite number is
(41:53):
13. Are you self-publishing?
Are you working with someone? I'm.
Self-publishing it at this point, Yeah, I don't, you know,
I'm open to help, but I know Luke.
Luke's like my idol, you know, I'm going to name drop him all
the time. He's self published and looking
for his book is gone. So I'm following his lead and
I'm definitely going to do some self-publishing.
But if a publisher reaches out and they're like we want to get
(42:15):
you on board, you know, I just reached 48,000 followers as of
today, which is July 28th. So I'm so excited about all the
things to come, but mostly I'm excited about giving back to the
community. This is me giving back, and
that's what I love to do. Yeah, and we need you on big
stages. Yes.
(42:36):
Just given those big keynotes, that's where we want to see
Holly. I don't know if that's on my
bingo card for 2025, but it might be for 2026.
I appreciate you. I appreciate.
You get the book out right. And then when we want to see the
big stages, yeah. Sounds good.
Hoping. Well Nicole, where can everybody
chat with you or find you? Where's the best places for them
to look? Certainly LinkedIn big big
(42:58):
place. I spent a lot of time on there.
But reach out to me by e-mail oror direct message me, send my
get over to my website and I'll spell that out for you.
LETOILE, Hi. Show notes to.
Education.com and don't hesitateto join that L&D Slack group.
There's a, there's a join on thewebsite.
(43:19):
So you don't even have to reach out to me to do that.
It's free. Just Join Now and we'll see you
in the Slack group and and that's a great place to talk.
Awesome. Well, thank you so much for
coming on again and sharing in less than 45 minutes all the
things you've been doing in a year.
Oh gosh. Yeah, I appreciate that.
It's been a wonderful year and Ijust thank you and thanks to
Doctor Luke Hobson. Thank to you.
(43:40):
You know, I mean, a whole year has gone by and I really
appreciated everyone's support as I was getting started and so,
so thank you. Thanks for spending a few
minutes with Holly. She knows your podcast queue is
packed. If today's episode sparked an
idea or gave you that extra nudge of confidence, tap, follow
or subscribe in your favorite app so you never miss an episode
(44:03):
of Ed Up L&D. Dropping a quick rating or
review helps more educators and learning pros discover the show,
too. Want to keep the conversation
going? Connect with Holly on LinkedIn
and share your biggest take away.
She reads every message. Until next time, keep learning,
keep leading, and keep believingin your own story.
Talk soon. Hi, we're ispring, an
(44:26):
international team of e-learningenthusiasts who help more than
60,000 clients across the globe succeed with better online
learning. Our two flagship solutions are
ispring Suite and ispring Learn LMS.
Ispring Suite is an intuitive all in one authoring tool for
creating engaging e-learning content, while ispringlearn is
an innovative online training platform for onboarding,
(44:47):
upskilling, and certifying your teams.
We'd be happy to get to know youand pick a solution that fits
your needs best. Go to www.icepringsolutions.com
to learn more about us and connect.
Hi friends. It's Holly Owens and welcome to
another fabulous and proactive episode of End Up L&D.
And I say proactive with purposetoday because we are diving in
deep into accessibility with none other than Nicole Latrois.
Yes, she's back. If you missed her the first
(00:21):
time, go ahead and hit rewind after this because Nicole is the
accessibility expert you need inyour network and possibly in
your LMS. Since our last chat, she's been
on a mission, running accessibility cohorts, repping
the world for WUKAG 2.1 compliance, and launching A
(00:43):
widely popular LD Slack community that's become the
space for accessibility pros andnewbies alike.
In this episode, we're covering what's coming in 2026 with the
new federal ADA Title 2 regulations.
Spoiler alert, it's a big deal. Why accessibility needs to be
baked in, not bolted on. When new IDs and corporate
(01:07):
teams. What new IDs and corporate teams
get wrong and how to fix it. How to get involved in her
thriving community of accessibility advocates.
Whether you're brand new to digital accessibility or you're
the designated can you check this contrast person on your
team, Nicole drops knowledge youcan use right now, and with her
(01:29):
usual mix of insight, practicality, and passion, it's
time for you to grab your coffeeor matcha and let's dive in.
Hi, we're Ice Spring, an international team of e-learning
enthusiasts who help more than 60,000 clients across the globe
succeed with better online learning.
(01:51):
Our two flagship solutions are ispring Suite and ispring Learn
LMS. Ispring Suite is an intuitive,
all in one authoring tool for creating engaging elearning
content, and ispringlearn is an innovative online training
platform for onboarding, upskilling, and certifying your
teams. We also provide tons of free
(02:12):
resources for aspiring and experienced e-learning
professionals, conduct weekly webinars with top industry
experts, and organize annual e-learning conferences,
challenges, and championships. We'd be happy to get to know you
and pick a solution that fits your needs best.
Go to www.icepringsolutions.com to learn more about us, download
(02:36):
our resources, and connect. Hello everyone, and welcome to
another fantastic fabulous. I'm going to stay proactive
because we're talking about accessibility today episode of
Ed up L and DI am happy, grateful, pumped.
We're pumped to welcome back my friend Nicole, who is going to
(02:58):
tell us all about accessibility.But first, Nicole, tell people
who you are, what you do. You've been on a previous
episode. They need to go back and listen
to it. But tell us all about you for
those in the audience who have not met you yet.
All right. Hey, everyone.
Hi, I'm Nicole Latwal. It is great to, you know, be
back here with you, Holly. I'm just so excited.
(03:19):
We have so much to catch up on. It's been just over a year and a
lot has happened. I'll, you know, say that it's
been busy in a good way. I can't complain with my company
Latwal Education just growing the course, making online
content accessible for all. We're now heading into, we're in
the third cohort, kind of the 4th.
(03:39):
We had a side one happen and we can talk about that a little bit
that just popped up. And so we're we're coming into
the 4th cohort this October and just really excited.
And with that, I've had a few clients along the way doing
audits for learning management systems and courses, getting
ready for the new ADA title to ruling, getting clients for
(04:00):
that. If you don't know people,
something federal's coming out that's going to impact you, pay
attention. Big deal.
So anyway, yeah, so, so it's been good supporting some
clients around different spaces,you know, coming out of
education this past year, the last six months and and working
with organizations at local and state agencies and governments
too. So a little bit of everything.
(04:22):
Yeah, I've been watching you. I've been in all the stuff that
you've been doing. And I'm like, like, where first
of all, where does she find all the time to do that?
And second of all, I'm like, this is such an important topic
around accessibility because people are still Nicole, and I
know this bothers you just just as much as it bothers me, are
taking accessibility and they are not putting it as more of a
(04:44):
proactive approach in their organizations or institutions.
They're more reactive to it. I feel like what's coming down
the line with the federal regulations will hopefully get
people to have a proactive approach.
But before we dive into all the stuff you've been doing, can you
tell to us a little bit about why it's important for
accessibility to be something that's proactive in a company
(05:08):
rather something rather than something that's reactive?
Well, it's less painful. We'll just start there, right?
Yeah, it'll be a whole lot it. It doesn't seem to be that it's
a whole lot easier. It's a it's a lot less painful
in terms of, yes, learning is hard.
We have to learn how to build accessibility, but it's harder
(05:28):
when we have to go back and and retrofit and rethink and rework
because we know. It's time.
It's time, but it's also like you put your effort, you know,
you put your heart and soul intosomething you could find.
You create it. It's your baby.
You've you've put all this energy and to have it feel as if
like there's something wrong with it when there's not.
It's nothing that is wrong with it.
(05:50):
We're just out, you know, looking for ways to improve it
so that all can use your beautiful, amazing content.
But it's harder when it's already done and designed to
then look back. Especially folks who've been in
this for a while where they havecatalogs of courses and it's
overwhelming to think, you know,where do I start?
Do I go back and fix all this? Most people get overwhelmed with
(06:11):
it because they want it to be good.
That's because they do care. So when they retrofit and they
come back after, they think I got to go back and fix
everything now, yeah. So once you see it, you can't
Unsee it, I promise. So yeah, so I think that's why
it gets harder. Yeah, yeah, I definitely agree
with you too. And just, you know, I just want
(06:32):
to start off with that question right off the bat because I feel
like it's, it just bothers me that it's still not a thing to
people. It's still just like this, this
checklist item that we'll worry about later.
And I really feel like people shouldn't, accessibility
shouldn't be an afterthought. Like you said, it makes things
easier. It, it really helps everyone.
(06:52):
It's just not with people with disabilities.
It's people who, you know, like color contrast.
Oh my gosh, that's the one that bugs me the most.
So I'm being honest when I see things out on LinkedIn or I see,
you know, I am judging you. If you're using like yellow
backgrounds and you're using like low contrast the colors, it
just that kind of stuff is just so easy to fix.
(07:15):
It's. You know, like kind of look and,
and think I don't have time to learn it.
So I, you know, we've got new designers, we will get it.
I know we're going to get into this, but I have a new Finder
right now who's fantastic putting in all this work into
the course that we're teaching and making accessible.
But they're also trying to learnthe tool at the same time while
learning to be a designer. And I give them kudos for saying
(07:37):
I'm going to learn it from the start, But you can see the
learning curve there. And they're just said to me, it
was almost like I just wanted toreach across the, the zoom and
be like, no comment, I'll help you, You know, like maybe I
should just build it and then I can go back and worry.
I was like, no, no, no, we're not doing that.
We're not doing that. We're not doing that.
So I can see if you're not, you know, if you don't have the
(07:58):
guidance which we can get into, like I have this big grand idea
for a mentoring program next year, whatever.
Like, I just feel like we need to, you know, do something
because we can't keep doing whatwe're doing.
Well, tell us about all you've been doing because you've been
doing a lot. You've had a lot of great
initiatives that's happened in the past year, including your
accessibility cohorts, working with Luke Hopson in the
Instructional Design Institute. So tell us what you've been off
(08:20):
to. What have you been doing this
past 365 days? You asked me where you getting
all this time? I remember sitting here a year
ago too, talking to Doctor Luke Hopson going how do you do all
this? Where do you?
Right. And now I'm going, oh, I kind of
get it now because. I understand.
Drive and yeah, so, yeah, so thethe course launched as part of
(08:42):
Instructional Design Institute as part of Idi and it was kind
of a branch off of that. And we had our first cohort in
January of this year 2025 almostsaid January 2020.
Five. I know it's so close.
It's like. 2025 and we've had a mix of folks coming in from
higher Ed we've had some K12 more of the virtual online space
(09:05):
K12 but higher Ed K12 but also corporate nonprofit folks who
are consultants themselves who want to increase their knowledge
so they can offer this to as a service to their clients.
We've had folks who are overseeing as a director of
curriculum that are working on new launches of Ed tech programs
that are trying to up, you know,upskill and accessibility.
(09:27):
So we've just had so many different folks and and new
designers is what I'm really excited to see.
I love hearing that, by the way.Me too.
That's. Great.
Yeah. Me too.
Yeah, it's great to have a one. Yeah.
So like what are you seeing? Like what are some of the things
that you're seeing with these cohorts or people coming in
where, where are they kind of lacking in the, the knowledge of
(09:48):
accessibility or what are some of the things like they're just,
I wanna know about blank here because it's probably a question
that a lot of our audience members have too.
When they don't follow you on LinkedIn, they need to follow
you because you give accessibility tips as well.
But where do you kind of see where it's common across that
everybody's asking about this orthat?
(10:10):
As we know everything varies so and as the cohort has gone on,
we, you know, we started out with I think I had 10 people,
the 1st 113, the second one we got up to, you know, 15.
This one it's growing and the levels as it goes on have I've,
I've gotten more advanced and newer.
So we are seeing an increased level of folks who have been
(10:34):
doing this on their own right, self teaching, working through
it and folks that are just new to it.
So what I see is someone who hasn't explored the web
accessibility guidelines at all.As soon as I start using Wu CAG
and putting out the numbers and we start saying Wu CAG 2.21, you
know, like sometimes it's like that is I don't want to know
(10:54):
that just yet. We get a, a glimpse of there's a
lot to learn here. And then I have someone in my
cohort who's Wukag specialist, that's in their title, who's
just like, give me your process.How are you auditing?
And I need to do this for my joband I'd like to learn from you
at the same time. Yeah.
(11:14):
So yeah, it's we're, we're really divided in.
Skill levels are like and knowledge levels are really
across the board. We.
Have a big gap right now and it's like closing that and
trying to get people to and meeting them where they are.
And I do love that this is facilitated.
I don't think I could ever teachor just create the self-paced
and send people on their way because you to meet them where
(11:35):
they are. I mean, we, we pivot, we're,
we're using UDL universal time for learning in practice in this
moment and being responsive. And I meet typically by Week 2,
I can get a sense of where you are.
So then I can start to target and kind of create a pathway
that supports you while others are being supported in their
pathway and hopefully they can work together.
(11:56):
And that's the beauty of a cohort, right?
So, so it's just kind of like trying to figure out.
So we've just got different, different levels all over the
place We've got. Yeah, I I can see that.
And I think it's, I think it's interesting too that you're
getting people who have that actually in their title and
that's their, their role in likeyou say, we don't know
everything. We know a lot in terms of you're
(12:17):
an accessibility expert. I know a lot about LND jobs.
I don't know everything. So it's important to remain open
to learn from those people as well, see what they're doing,
ask them questions. Because while we remain an
expert, we still have things to learn.
One of the things I want you to mention is when's your next
cohort coming? Because we're gonna, we're gonna
include everything in the show notes for that.
(12:38):
Yeah, October 1st and this one is an 830 early AM Eastern Time.
We've been that helps anyone in the because the EAA, the
European Accessibility Act is also driving some of folks to
the course and driving some of the work which has been helpful
for us here in the States as well.
And if you're out there listening, we're meeting 8:30 to
accommodate the European schedule nice and early.
(13:02):
Wednesday to me, 830. I'm about 90 minutes into my
work day because I'm an early bird.
Yeah, for some people, yeah. I was like, so I don't know how
that works for your W coaster. If you want to get up at 5:30
and join us, we'd love to grab your coffee, grab your tea,
whatever it may be. You could always go back to
sleep. I don't know.
Or maybe just start your day. Yeah, you become up at 5:00 AM
or. Sounds good.
So we'll have everything in the show notes on how to sign up for
(13:24):
that. What else are you doing?
What else are there? Exciting initiatives are
happening. Yeah, I feel again, there's a
lot in terms of well, since we, you know, we started this
accessibility LED slack and I say we because like I.
Well, let's try. And I forgot about the Slack
channel too. Oh, and there's 812 people in
there as of this morning, and wejust launched to.
(13:45):
Get in there. And so, you know, one of the, it
was one of those things, I was in a live session, I was in a
webinar and I got to give a shout out to Lewis and the TLDC
group over there because it was one of those sessions.
I don't remember exactly what conference it was and I was
watching someone or listening tosomeone present.
Again, not being an expert, I still go to everything to see
(14:07):
what other people do, to see if I've missed anything, make some
connections. And I was in someone's
presentation, a little newer to accessibility and I was
listening and I was like, we need a place for all of us to go
regularly. Yes, I know these groups exist,
but we haven't talked all about accessibility, access, you know,
24/7. We we need that.
(14:27):
So I sent a message to, to two other people on LinkedIn.
I was like, I'm going to do this.
Do you want in? And they were like, yeah, what
are you thinking? I'm like, I don't know, a couple
of days maybe I'll post it. Not even you know this is how
Nicole works Within 5 minutes Post it because I had the
thought and I was like. Yeah, we're the same, yeah.
(14:47):
Here it's now it's fresh, get itout there and it apparent people
says this is what a viral post is.
I didn't know what that was at the time because I'd never had
anything more than a 500, you know, whatever impressions.
And so it grew and it got a lot of notice and a lot of people
joined and we have some great questions in there, great
conversations, sharing of resources.
(15:10):
People are doing coffee chats. We started the Summer of Access
webinar series, free series thissummer with everybody there, you
know, stepped up, took a sessionand yeah, we could talk about
that too. So that's a new initiative that
branched off of that. And we, we had three sessions in
June, 3 or 4 in July, and we've got four more coming up.
(15:31):
So by the, I think by the time this comes out though, it'll
have completed. But it was called the Summer of
Access webinar series and we hada everyone doing things from,
you know, audio descriptions to how to how to blind learners use
the screen reader, navigating a course with MBDA, I don't know,
(15:53):
we did keyboard navigation, all free, you know, anywhere from 45
to an hour sessions. And those are just people in the
Slack group that said I'll do something, I'll do something.
So I've just kind of put it all together and got it out there.
And it's like your own little, it's your own little workshop
series happening and the Slack channel generated that.
So networking is important, everyone.
(16:15):
Networking is very, very. Important.
Important. Will those recordings, will we
be able to share those or did you?
They're OK. So we did as a you know.
OK, five groups with a slack. But to the they're cuz they're
they're unlisted on YouTube and so if you get into the.
Understood. Yeah, Yeah.
So we'll get everybody into that.
Slack groups, right? Every the thing I love about
(16:36):
this most is and all they're doing the cohort and things like
that is that most of it's free. It's like people don't
understand that the resources that you need in order to become
a quote UN quote expert and accessibility are free.
It's not like you need to pay for something if you want more
of like what you're doing with the cohort, you want more of
that. Like the we're going through
this at a certain pace and we'rebreaking it out and scaffolding
(16:58):
into certain topics. And you know that that is
something that takes a little bit longer to kind of organize.
So obviously that's paper, but most of the stuff it's like free
that's out there. Yeah, there's a lot of free
right now and you can get in there and be part of it.
And then, yeah. And so the, the paid option,
it's it's I'm, I'm coaching, I'mgiving feedback, you know where
we're taking your project and we're we're fixing it along the
(17:21):
way. It's just, it's a, it's, it's a
support, you know, an additionalsupport.
So yeah, the Slack group's completely free and so is the
series. And then people share so many
other free resources and supportin the group as well.
And every, you know, the L&D community.
So giving, I mean, yourself, right?
You give up, you give up so much.
(17:42):
I well, you know, you have all these offerings, you do this
podcast, you give up all your time to work with new
instruction designers and support everyone.
So. So where do you find the time?
Yeah, I have to, you know, actually I learned from Luke how
to kind of manage everything when he was doing some of those
(18:02):
virtual working sessions, like we were recording himself like
with music and stuff and kind ofdoing Pomodoro technique.
I kind of took that as I needed to change my how I'm focusing
myself every time that I'm working.
So I've consistently been using Pomodoro and doing tasks, and I
keep 1 task per 25 minutes. That's it.
(18:22):
If I finish early, then I can start on the other task, but
otherwise it's 25 minutes. I give myself at the beginning
of the day, I do a brain dump, which is something that's
recommended by Mel Robbins, and then I spend the 1st 25 minutes
of the day going through emails and organizing myself.
And then it's off to like my toptask.
I just start checking them off the list.
(18:44):
Is it rewarding you just like you said?
Then you get to do another path.Like do you feel good when you
complete the first one? And then you're like, yes.
Do the next one. I'm the, I'm that type of
person. And I was like, oh, I, I have a
checklist. And when I talked about this
with Ben Irwin too, because he'sa checklist person, I crossed
off the list as just some sort of motivation there and some
sort of serotonin or something that's really kind of like when
(19:05):
you go shopping for something, the dopamine of completing
something is really something that motivates me.
And I think if it's something that I'm passionate about,
especially the the idealist thatI share with all the different
books and job boards, it's it's double dopamine because I'm at
(19:26):
the same time, I love doing thisstuff.
It's like a game to me. I don't know what it is.
And then I also love the fact that I'm supporting other people
and their journeys and helping. Like that's the second piece of
it is like I like if you have a child or you have from having
students in K12, you don't want them to make the same mistakes
you did in life. You want them to have the nice
(19:46):
laid out path so that they can move to something faster than
you did or avoid this or avoid that.
So that is the motivation behindeverything that I do.
Yeah, that's neat. I mean, there's something about
getting to the certain like illicit level, right.
So there's the gaming of like I got this thing, I'm checking it
off, I'm getting to the next level.
But there the reward is that, you know, we were helping other
(20:08):
help others advantage. Yeah, which is?
Getting those messages and LinkedIn, I'm sure you get them
too when people just take time out of their day.
I'm not going to talk about the other messages I get because
those are the ones that make me mad.
But the people that take time intheir day just simply say like,
thank you Nicole. Thank you, Holly, probably you
do for the community that just that just reinvigorates me to do
(20:30):
even more and want to want to give back more because that's
telling me we can't see how impactful our work is from this
side. I mean, we know we're we're
aware of it, but I can't see what it's really doing in the
community. Like, I don't know, every time
my name is brought up or, you know, somebody shared the
resource, I can track with analytics, but I don't know
(20:50):
every time that that's happening.
I hope it's happening, right? But when somebody says that,
just that's just, you know, recognition, that reassurance
that that is in fact happening. Yeah, and it no matter, it
doesn't matter how many times ithappens, but even someone just
posting and saying thank you forsharing this resource, I saved
it or any acknowledgement to something that you put out
there, it kind of gives you a little boost of we'll keep
(21:12):
putting it out there. Maybe someone doesn't say thank
you for it that day, but someonesaw it, probably saved it, maybe
they used it. And so that's what keeps you
going, you know, the consistency.
So you kind of just keep showingup and it's just being
passionate. I think you said that too.
You know, if you really passionate about your work and
you want to do it even no matterif there's a like or a kudos at
(21:34):
the end, it doesn't, it doesn't stop matter.
It doesn't matter because you'relike, I'd do this anyway, right?
Like I'm going to work really hard to make something
accessible and include people. And if you're not, if you don't
like it or not, it doesn't matter.
I'm still going to work really, really hard to include everyone
as much as I can. And I mess, you know, and I mess
up often like in just regular day, like who we are when we're
(21:55):
not on LinkedIn, Like I mess up like I could, there could be
someone here who's listening, being like, well, I don't feel
like you included me. And, and they're upset with
something I did along the way. And I, and if I did, I, you
know, I don't know that and I'm sorry.
And we could talk about, you know, those things, but we're
behind the LinkedIn profile. We're human.
And, and I can sit on my soapboxand say, you know, make it
(22:15):
accessible and, and do these things and, and then still make
mistakes along the way and, and need to be able to like, own
those like. Yeah.
Yeah. And it's OK to make a mistake
because we don't, like I said, we don't know everything.
And I feel like the audience really needs to hear that too,
because they're like you and I, they're transition teachers or
they're going to be transition teachers.
And they, we've talked about this before, I've experienced a
(22:39):
lot of trauma coming out of the classroom, but I feel like
knowing accessibility gives you a level up on other people,
especially in the corporate industry, because this is not
something that corporate, I'm not saying everybody not
necessarily sees as a priority in their workflows.
So I mean. Yeah, first for job hunting, you
know, I am noticing and people are asking, it is coming up and
(23:01):
they're saying I'm seeing more and more that it says WCAG 2.1
or two point O needs to be listed in there or you know, ABA
508. And what does that mean?
What kind of level, what should I know?
It's being listed more and more.And the certifications, like
since we talked, I got this, theCPAC, the core professional
accessibility certification. And people ask, well, why did
(23:22):
you do that? Should I go get certifications
around accessibility? And it's like, it can be helpful
if you're job hunting, if you're, and not only that, just
studying for the exam and getting ready for it.
You get a whole new set of knowledge that some someone else
puts you at an advantage for a job and and just knowing how to
approach it. Yeah.
That's a great point. Yeah.
So I'm assuming that things are happening around and being
(23:45):
presented in job responsibilities because of
what's coming in 2026, right? Yeah.
Can you, can you for the audience and for myself, because
as much as I have to go back andread it all the time, can you
tell us a little bit what's going to be coming down
federally regulated in 2026 around WIC?
I call it Wiccag. I know you call it Wiccag.
Yeah. It's WCAB.
(24:06):
It's all it's. All the same, yeah.
Motto. Right.
Yeah, yeah. So tell us what's happening.
Give us the like. I need the layman's terms.
Sure, sure. Well, you know so ADA has always
been there's always been a roll around accessibility.
They decided in 2026, April 2026, there's a compliance date
(24:27):
set that all, all state and local agencies and that includes
higher Ed and schools, all public, state and local agencies
have to meet a technical standard now around accessible
digital accessibility. So they chose the WUCAG 2.1 AA.
So they're saying in order to becompliant that you have to meet
those standards and that would include certain things around
(24:48):
color contrast, certain things around video description and
transcripts. And so all the things that we
talk about have a number attached to it and they have a
level attached to it. And so you would have to include
those things. So if you're in 2026, if your
organization supports a population of 50,000 or more,
(25:09):
you know you have your compliance date.
If you have less than that in your population that you serve,
it's 2027. So I did post about this
recently, like an example of if you're a government agency and
you support the city of Stillwater, OK, and there's, you
(25:29):
know, 48,000 people in that community, your compliance date
is April 2027. But if you're the state of
Oklahoma University and you havethe whole state, right, that's
more than 50,000, you should be compliant.
Your organization needs to be compliant by April 2026, so
there's certain dates that were set for compliance and to meet
(25:51):
that technical standard. Yeah.
So what is that technical standard?
I'm sure people don't know what it is.
Yeah. Well, so that's where, and
that's what I, so I do notice that's, you know, folks that
come into the course who have a good understanding of I'm, I
know that I need a, a color contrast.
And so I can go really technicalin this conversation and some
(26:11):
people will be right there with you and go, Oh yeah, 4 to 1
contrast. I'll use my web aim contrast
color checker. And I and then some will say,
well, I know there needs to be contrast, but I don't have a
specific tool to do that. I don't know the number.
You know that it is 1.4 point, you know, one under
distinguishable principle and that that's a level A.
So that's what we, you know, that's what I try to teach in
(26:34):
the trainings and the course that it's good to know how to
check color. This is the level, this is what
you're trying to reach. And then it give the tools to
how to do it. So that takes, it takes, it
takes learning, it takes work. Someone recently posted and
shared with me, it's like learning a new language.
You know, I, I'm, we're, I'm trying to learn French.
(26:55):
So I took Italian in high school.
And college because her name is French.
Yeah, so I, I wanted to learn French.
I'm like, oh, this. What's it feel like to learn
Mookag without knowing OK, rightlanguage?
And it's overwhelming because when you first open up that
quick reference, whatever, wherever you go in the
(27:16):
documentation, there's just a lot of words.
It's a lot of text, so. I also it's a lot of stuff
people don't understand. There's a lot of jargon in it.
There's the jargon. So I, so I do get the feeling of
like sometimes I want to push people away from the jargon and
(27:36):
give you the plain language. But then I also don't want you
to shy away from some of the jargon.
Some of the jargon is the the back end to why the screen
reader is able to do what it does.
And if I don't talk about the technical, if I don't talk about
the jargon, then, you know, if you're truly going to design for
a screen reader user, there's certain things you should know
(27:57):
about HTML and semantic coding that you need to kind of have
some knowledge of. You don't have to go code it.
So, you know, that's, that's where we have the levels of
folks that are coming in and saying, OK, great.
What kind of contrast should I have?
What, what would I use to check?And then there's someone telling
me like, tell me the exact level.
Tell me you know what, what's the number?
(28:20):
Is it a level A, is it a level AA things like that.
So, so there's the technical standards are are deep and
there's 86 success criteria. So.
That's a lot. It's a lot.
Yeah. Well, it's good to spread the
awareness that that's coming. And I, I can see where people
would be intimidated by that, but obviously people like you
(28:42):
can help mitigate and help get prepared for this.
Well, well, in advanced of all those regulations coming down,
one of the things I was going toask you about, and hopefully it
didn't slip my brain too much is, oh gosh, what was I asking
about? I completely slipped my brain.
It's totally. Yeah, no.
(29:04):
So getting ready for that was the question.
Is there some sort of like checklist?
That's what I was asking. Is there some sort of like
checklist somewhere that the government is offering?
I didn't really see one. Or is there something?
They put out a road map they putout, but it's not it's I don't,
I, I don't, I wouldn't say to aninstruction designer go go look
at that. So I mean, I do blog about it.
(29:25):
Do you try to put out little mini things every day?
A little tip, especially Accessibility Monday of like
things you can look for. We look for the checklist.
I don't know if you can hear that noise in the background,
but it's 4:00 and my husband's making an espresso.
Oh, got it, got it. No, it'll be edit that part out.
(29:45):
We were fine with. We're all at home, we're all
doing our own things. We probably should have said,
can you not do that while we were doing that?
So anyway, yeah, so so there's, there's not necessarily the, the
checklist. We, we know that those checklist
exists and you can start with those.
But in order to get to that level of compliance, I would, I
(30:09):
would, maybe we could post some,some free courses in here, you
know, for folks to, to go through to help them get started
in some, some checklist we can provide because there's nothing
really from the government's perspective right now.
Yeah, yeah. So we're gonna just have to cuz
it's, I think they put this out there and then it's it's
(30:30):
interpreted by each state like that kind of like with the how
the states will interpret it. You know, there's the, the
requirements of like 50,000 and then below 50,000.
So it's open to interpretation, but it's not open to not
acknowledging it. You must acknowledge it and put
these things in the play. Well, yeah.
And I don't know if I would say it's necessarily open to
(30:52):
interpretation what your client's date is.
I think, I think people confuse it so when so I guess that is
the open. So someone will confuse that and
say it incorrectly and say, oh, you know the number incorrectly,
right. So I guess that was an
interpretation. I, I guess the big worry or the
big concern is that no, you know, is the DOJ going to
(31:15):
enforce this is. And how?
About it and how especially withall the cuts.
So we the accessibility community expects there to be
more of more of like the privatelevels of of like the private of
the businesses taking a bulk of this work, freelancers like
myself and other people doing a bulk of this work or consultants
(31:37):
and business owners trying to help people get ready.
But like any anything ADA is going to we see lawsuits.
So if we have lawsuits we've hadin the past, we may just have
more lawsuits with the standard attached to the lawsuit the EAA
is taking a little bit more seriously.
France has started to sue private businesses because it
(31:59):
doesn't just apply to their government agencies.
So. Right.
We're seeing it there, yeah. Yeah, I'm sure you can get a
whole conversation about that, too.
It's almost been. It's almost been 30 minutes.
Do you believe it? No.
We're at 29. Well, we can talk about
something more exciting. No, no, I, no, no.
(32:19):
I think that the listeners need to be aware of this is what's
happening. I know people are talking about
it like something's coming, something's coming, but they
need to have more of an awareness.
And we'll obviously include in the show notes what that
information is. The one thing that I like to
leave the listeners with and we don't, we don't necessarily have
to end it. There is, you know, my community
(32:40):
has a lot of transition teachers.
So you were in education for quite a while, different,
different roles. What are the top three pieces of
advice you could give those people who are thinking about
jumping into something like being having your own business
or becoming an accessibility specialist or you know, jumping
into instructional design or something like that?
(33:00):
What are the top three pieces ofadvice you give them?
It's, I don't know it's this advice.
It's not as easy as it looks. That's great advice.
Just scanning, so when you see profiles on LinkedIn of people
that are, you know, hey, they'rehaving success, it's not that
(33:22):
easy. And you know, this is my 24th
year in my career. And I'd say it took seven years
of real networking, contracting and consulting outside when I
left my principal job for me to then walk away and be able to do
this fully. So, and there were a lot of
different stops and starts alongthe way.
(33:43):
So it wasn't as if, you know, I had 12 years in classroom, I had
five years in administration. And when I've always been part
of adult learning at some point of that, even as a teacher,
right? So whatever teachers that steps
up, if you're a teacher out there that steps up and does PD
in your school, does PD at your district, right?
You start there, you start goingto conferences, you start
(34:04):
presenting. So you know, if you're in year
345 and you're like, I'm not in this for the long haul, right?
So you could start to dip your toes in the PD space without
jumping to freelance and and write to this consulting
business. And get the school district to
support you in those efforts. Yes, and pay for some of your
(34:26):
learning. I had the ability during Race to
the Top in 2012, 2014, you know,we here, we had and we had money
to release 30 of us in the classroom where we went.
I was in the whole state for twofull years getting training, how
to develop professional development, how to facilitate,
how to coach from an organization out of California,
(34:46):
came to Rhode Island and trainedus.
So I, I got out, I got this amazing professional development
experience. I was released.
I didn't go to my classroom. I got in my car.
It was so cool at that time, right?
I'd go from school to school state, you know, from city to
city, all across the, the, the state K12, I got a new network,
I got out of my building new network.
(35:07):
So that was one step. Then administration, I started
networking in different spaces as, as a principal in leadership
spaces. And so then there's leadership
outside of education, which thenled to becoming a professional
development director in the education space.
So my L&D work has always kind of been adjacent education,
(35:30):
adjacent, right, an element administrator.
So if you're out there thinking about how do I, you can mute,
leverage education and leverage what you do to look for that
kind of work to get that kind ofexperience to build up a
network. So when you do make the leap and
you start dropping seeds and posting that you're doing this
work, there's people that know you that you already have
(35:51):
credibility. That's how it worked for me.
I started posting and people from other different walks of
life where like we just bought an LMS Nicole and we need to.
So we didn't even talk about theLMS thing.
Jesus, we forgot about that. But so piece of advice is not is
not the misconception that it's easy, Not just just know that we
(36:14):
do over it kind of like professional athletes do they do
a really good job of making likeit looks easy, but it's not
really that easy. So be cognizant of that or two
is networking. Yes, network.
Yes, build up your skill set. I don't know.
So network we said, we said networking, we said build up
skill set. What other advice there's?
(36:34):
There's gotta be a third one. I can come up with one if you.
Want. Yeah, go for it.
Yeah, I would say that for transitioning teachers is to
mine is always honor your teaching experience when you're
transitioning. Because I know a lot of teachers
talk to different types of consultants or professional
resume writers that tell them toNix that out of their resume.
(36:55):
And I don't like that. I don't think that's fair
because if you came to me, Nicole, and you've had about 17,
almost 2 decades in education and we nixed 20 years of your
professional career. Why?
Why? Yeah, why do why do we do that?
You know, because they're sayinglike people, some companies
specifically say, and I've seen this in a couple job posts that
they don't hire transitioning teachers.
(37:17):
No, no, no, no, no. You want to go to a company that
honors that experience and you want to know what level you're
coming in at. So if you have like 4 to 5,
you're probably coming in at an entry to mid level position when
you're thinking about LD shift. Beyond that, it's mid and then
it goes to senior and you have the transferable skills.
So my advice is honor that teaching experience and do not
(37:37):
ever Nix that from your resume until it becomes, you know, 10
or 15 years old. And then you, you're already
well on your way into transitioning to different L&B
roles at that point. I.
Think that's really strong advice.
I think you're, you know, you'regiving them strong advice around
not letting go of, of what created right.
They have this amazing skill set.
(37:58):
What created their background? Like why would you let that go?
Right. And why would it?
You know, the other reason why you won't let it go is like
teaching taught you some taught you something like what you what
did you enjoy most about the classroom?
Maybe you can bring that with you and the other aspects of a
different role like instructional designer
e-learning development. And then what you did like maybe
(38:18):
some of the classroom managementstuff.
Maybe you don't want to deal so much on the front end with
people or parents or communication and stuff.
And then you can find roles thatyou know really suit your
personality and fit with what you really want to do.
Yeah. And that makes sense.
And I know a lot of folks out there that are trying to get
into teaching that. I've had years of, you know,
that I was like that There's folks out there that want to go
(38:41):
the other way. Surprisingly that I think this
is what the LinkedIn. We don't talk about that.
We also, this is what the LinkedIn world is doing.
I think, you know, the, the social media or the LinkedIn
space is everyone's leaving, everyone wants to get an LND.
But I have a very good friend ofmine who is, has a science
background, has been a pharmacist who wants to go into
teaching like, and so I think there's, you know, there's
(39:04):
nothing, there's nothing wrong with being an educator.
It's a strong profession and they've, you've been trained to,
to help folks learn. You have been trained to help
kids and adults go from, you know, 1 spectrum to the other
spectrum of learning. You understand designing
learning. So don't.
(39:26):
Don't. In a way that other people do
not. Yes, so it's a strength and and
your your skill set is, is always there.
So continue to honor it. I need to know more about you,
so can we OK? What do you want to know?
We'll take the last three minutes.
What do you want to know? I want to know what's up in your
(39:46):
world, what's up in your space, What new, new things are
happening. Yeah.
Love to know. Well, obviously it's, it's
probably pretty obvious that I'mtrying to grow this podcast.
It's at, it's at a point where it needs to expand.
So I'm having experts like yourself on.
We're releasing 2 episodes per week now.
We want sponsors. We want, we want to feature
(40:06):
people on here that are transitioning out and they need,
they need a space to have a voice and to reach the masses.
So that's one thing that's happening.
I'm doing more consulting work. I'm going to be shifting some
things. And by the time this episode
comes out, so I can say it, I'llbe leaving Yellow Dig full time.
I've decided that L&D is where it's at for me.
(40:28):
I want to be in that space with people.
So I have a couple contracts, things going on, brand
ambassadorships, kind of all that keeping me busy.
But also too, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm writing a book.
Yeah. I'm writing a book about
shifting into the space. And I've interviewed.
At this point, we're almost near200 episodes.
The people in LND or LND adjacent.
(40:48):
So I have beyond my own experience.
I have all this research that I can tap into and use that in my
book to kind of give people the real talk behind transitioning
out LND. Like there are steps and the
steps are not linear, but what worked best for me or what
worked best for other people based off of what I heard.
So that's coming out and hopefully in November of this
(41:10):
year, yeah. You were putting out, you were
putting out the seat. I've been wondering because we
were like you were getting a little bit like the books
coming. You were dropping some hints
along the way, you know, things,you know took a slight little
turn for you for a little while and.
Yeah, I started that yellow dig.That's what the turn was.
And. Wasted, right?
You probably walk away with some.
Really, you know, you get to take some things with you
because then. But yeah, your heart's been.
(41:32):
I was like, I hope that book's still getting written.
That's good. Yeah, it is.
I have the 1st, I have the firstlittle part done, like the, I
guess you call it the preface, yeah, preface or whatever.
And then chapter 1 is done and I'm doing chapter 2 and 3 next
week. So it's going to be probably 13
chapters because I love Taylor Swift.
So it's the Easter egg. 13 chapters and favorite number is
(41:53):
13. Are you self-publishing?
Are you working with someone? I'm.
Self-publishing it at this point, Yeah, I don't, you know,
I'm open to help, but I know Luke.
Luke's like my idol, you know, I'm going to name drop him all
the time. He's self published and looking
for his book is gone. So I'm following his lead and
I'm definitely going to do some self-publishing.
But if a publisher reaches out and they're like we want to get
(42:15):
you on board, you know, I just reached 48,000 followers as of
today, which is July 28th. So I'm so excited about all the
things to come, but mostly I'm excited about giving back to the
community. This is me giving back, and
that's what I love to do. Yeah, and we need you on big
stages. Yes.
(42:36):
Just given those big keynotes, that's where we want to see
Holly. I don't know if that's on my
bingo card for 2025, but it might be for 2026.
I appreciate you. I appreciate.
You get the book out right. And then when we want to see the
big stages, yeah. Sounds good.
Hoping. Well Nicole, where can everybody
chat with you or find you? Where's the best places for them
to look? Certainly LinkedIn big big
(42:58):
place. I spent a lot of time on there.
But reach out to me by e-mail oror direct message me, send my
get over to my website and I'll spell that out for you.
LETOILE, Hi. Show notes to.
Education.com and don't hesitateto join that L&D Slack group.
There's a, there's a join on thewebsite.
(43:19):
So you don't even have to reach out to me to do that.
It's free. Just Join Now and we'll see you
in the Slack group and and that's a great place to talk.
Awesome. Well, thank you so much for
coming on again and sharing in less than 45 minutes all the
things you've been doing in a year.
Oh gosh. Yeah, I appreciate that.
It's been a wonderful year and Ijust thank you and thanks to
Doctor Luke Hobson. Thank to you.
(43:40):
You know, I mean, a whole year has gone by and I really
appreciated everyone's support as I was getting started and so,
so thank you. Thanks for spending a few
minutes with Holly. She knows your podcast queue is
packed. If today's episode sparked an
idea or gave you that extra nudge of confidence, tap, follow
or subscribe in your favorite app so you never miss an episode
(44:03):
of Ed Up L&D. Dropping a quick rating or
review helps more educators and learning pros discover the show,
too. Want to keep the conversation
going? Connect with Holly on LinkedIn
and share your biggest take away.
She reads every message. Until next time, keep learning,
keep leading, and keep believingin your own story.
Talk soon. Hi, we're ispring, an
(44:26):
international team of e-learningenthusiasts who help more than
60,000 clients across the globe succeed with better online
learning. Our two flagship solutions are
ispring Suite and ispring Learn LMS.
Ispring Suite is an intuitive all in one authoring tool for
creating engaging e-learning content, while ispringlearn is
an innovative online training platform for onboarding,
(44:47):
upskilling, and certifying your teams.
We'd be happy to get to know youand pick a solution that fits
your needs best. Go to www.icepringsolutions.com
to learn more about us and connect.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
New Heights with Jason & Travis Kelce
Football’s funniest family duo — Jason Kelce of the Philadelphia Eagles and Travis Kelce of the Kansas City Chiefs — team up to provide next-level access to life in the league as it unfolds. The two brothers and Super Bowl champions drop weekly insights about the weekly slate of games and share their INSIDE perspectives on trending NFL news and sports headlines. They also endlessly rag on each other as brothers do, chat the latest in pop culture and welcome some very popular and well-known friends to chat with them. Check out new episodes every Wednesday. Follow New Heights on the Wondery App, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to new episodes early and ad-free, and get exclusive content on Wondery+. Join Wondery+ in the Wondery App, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. And join our new membership for a unique fan experience by going to the New Heights YouTube channel now!