Digital Smarts - Accessibility Tools That Can Be Helpful to All Learners

Seemingly innocuous digital tools and features, such as text size and cursor color, can help students learn — or hamper the experience. A built-in Chromebook feature, for example, not only makes the cursor larger, but it also draws a red circle around the object, making it easier to spot helping distracted remote learners. Gendered voices are another example. Having the option to select a particular voice can enable children and teens to choose the one that puts them most at ease. Text to speech tools are built into most devices and include other features such as voice typing and transcription, and Chromebooks have a built-in screen reader that reads aloud full pages or selected text. The tool highlights individual words as well as the paragraphs that contain them. Other features include options to adjust the speech rate and voice. Additional features are also available.