As technology plays an increasingly large role in classrooms it is important that teachers know what features can aid students with disabilities. Chromebooks have many built in features to help with learners who are low-vision or blind, deaf or hard-of-hearing, have limited range of motion or motor function, or have reading and comprehension challenges. In addition to the features Chromebooks offer there are many Chrome extensions like Read&Write, Insertlearning, and many others that can be helpful with accessibility of content. To set up the accessibility settings for Chromebooks, go into the system settings on the Chromebook and enable accessibility features. The settings are linked to the students account and so will be available when they log in. Hear is a list of some of the features and extensions Chrome offers:
Visual Impairments Features:
- Blind/Severe Vision Loss: Braille Display and ChromeVox Screen Reader
- Partial Vision Loss/Help Focusing: High Contrast Themes, Magnification and Highlights.
Extensions: Stay Focusd, MagicScroll Web Reader, Dualless, Color Enhancer.
Motor and Dexterity Challenges Features:
- Keyboard Shortcuts
Extensions: Google Doc Quick Create, Google Dictionary, Google Translate.
Hearing Loss Features:
- Closed Captions
Reading and Comprehension Challenges Features:
- Select-to-Speak and Voice Typing
Extensions: Read&Write, BeeLine Reader, Co:Writer Universal, and ClaroRead.
Some broad accessibility and organization ideas are sharing and leaving comments on students work, breaking docs into sections so students can look at it section by section, and many other ideas that Chrome offers. Google Hangouts meetings can also have closed captions and other accessibility tools applied to it. In this time of technology and increasingly diverse classrooms there are many options to explore.
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