AACPS OIT Byte

by Tracey Brown, Instructional Technology Teacher Specialist Digital activities often involve multiple modes of information delivery, or mixed media, including text, images, and videos. In order to cover each in this post, we will provide one suggestion for making each more accessible for students; we’ll call it the MOST IMPORTANT consideration for each when we think about ensuring every student has equal access to our digital materials. Text The most important way to ensure that students have equal access to text is to ensure they know how to use speech-to-text tools. Many learners comprehend better by listening, or combining listening with reading. In AACPS, the web-based tool we have to read text aloud to students is the Read&Write extension . But because accessibility is such a big deal, many applications have their own dedicated speech-to-text tools, like Wixie, for example. Microsoft applications, like Word, PowerPoint, Excel, and Minecraft Education also include Immersive Re...

By Koralina McKenna, Instructional Technology Teacher Specialist Last year I did a project with my middle schoolers that required them to break words into syllables in order to create a beat for a song. I had a feeling the syllable part would be an unexpected, yet expected, hurdle. I hate to be right, but I was very right. The struggle over syllables took away from the project as a whole and wasn’t necessary for understanding the content but was necessary to complete the art integration component of the project. We limped through and all was well. Fast forward to this year; I was reviewing various accessibility tools for a PD I was presenting and came across one that has fallen off my radar - Microsoft's Immersive Reader. As I explored the tool, I came across a feature that allows you to break every word on the page into its syllables. You can imagine the amount of shaking my head I did as I thought back to that ill fated project from last year. Such a simple little tool, yet so m...

By: Koralina McKenna, Teacher Specialist - Office of Instructional Technology When I started teaching in 2016, I made it a point to ask students for their preferred name; I took notes on pronunciation and tried my best to get it right as soon as possible. But, it wasn't until 2020 that I added "preferred pronouns" to my first day survey. I created a way to keep track of my students preferred names and pronouns and made sure they were easily accessible for any sub or visitor in my classroom. These simple practices can affirm students' identity and help build a culturally responsive classroom. However, I quickly learned that I needed to do more to support my students and technology could make that seemingly daunting task a little easier.  In my early years, I often overlooked the Read&Write tool; mostly I found the purple puzzle piece to be an annoyance - until I came to appreciate how it could open up the digital world for all my students. During a reading heavy l...

by Tracey Brown, Instructional Technology Teacher Specialist When students are working on their Chromebooks, they have access to Accessibility settings to turn on and off the tools that they need, as they need them. The great thing is, these are built into the Chromebooks and do not require any additional purchase or installation. As teachers, knowing about these tools can allow you to better guide and support your students in making the most of their digital devices, but it can also help you in the instance that you are asked to troubleshoot an issue that stems from a student accidentally turning on one of these features, which is common with younger learners especially.  Initially, accessibility features are found in the settings menu, all the way at the bottom under Advanced, and all the way at the bottom again ( directions here ). What we recommend is having students change the settings to Always show accessibility option in the system menu . That makes the accessibility button...