BeLearning: Using Mental Models to Design Accessible eLearning Applications

Flexibility and adaptivity are two of the outstandig characteristics of new media and new technologies in learning, teaching and research. These properties allow new methods to provide physically challenged people with appropriate education. Accessibility of Web applications is typically focused on the perception and control of information. In contrast, the transfer of knowledge as complex information includes further issues of pedagogics and cognitive psychology. Here, the basale role of accessibility for usability and the transfer of knowledge is extended with the concept of mental models to meet the requirements of Web-based teaching and learning. Based on recent approaches for model-based Web application development the BeLearning concept demonstrates the integration of mental models into the design process of accessible eLearning environments.