Below are some tips that may help with student accessibility in terms of online learning. These facilities can benefit all students, but may be of particular use to students with additional educational needs as the result of a Specific Learning Difficulty, Irlen Syndrome, etc.
Colour Overlay for Computer Screen
Add a colour overlay to your computer screen. This reduces the white glare of the screen and is proven to be effective for students with Specific Learning Difficulties, such as Dyslexia, or, indeed, any student who finds the glare of the screen too much after a long period of time.
Click here to access the free downloadable software. (Scroll down to the SECOND download option – Download EXE or the THIRD, Download ZIP depending on your own preference as regards installing software on your device)
Click here for a video tutorial.
*This is a recommendation only. Please ensure that your device is compatible and read all the text involved prior to installing.
Text to Speech Function
Computers now have many facilities that read written text to you. Immersive reader is an excellent product for reading web text aloud and adjusting font. It is a wonderful resource for students with Dyslexia. As this isn’t compatible with Google Docs, we recommend, therefore, the ‘Read Aloud’ chrome extension as well for use with our G Suite learning platform,. This facility is extremely simple to install and just as easy to use.
Click here to access this extension on the Chrome Web Store.
Click here for a instructions on how to install this facility.
If the ‘speaker’ icon doesn’t appear at the top of your chrome browser as per the video, click on the jigsaw piece, scroll down to ‘Read Aloud’ and click on the ‘pin’ symbol.
Speech to Text Function
When fatigue sets in as a result of typing, a good solution is a tool in our Google Docs – speech to text. This facility allows you to speak into your computer’s mic and the document will fill up with all of your spoken words. It will require a little editing afterwards in terms of capital letters, paragraphing and the odd mis-detected word, but nonetheless, this is a very good feature of the Google Suite that assists with student work that they wish to present in typed format.
Click here for instructions on how to access and use Google’s speech-to-text facility.