I sometimes think we forget that our speech to text icon that we use while texting, either because we can’t use our fingers at the moment or because our text is too long to text, is an accessibility tool. Apple also recently released their version of Android’s swiping feature, which allows you to glide your finger across the keyboard to form a word instead of individually clicking each letter. This is another accessibility tool that able-bodied individuals often take for granted or even see as irrelevant to them. I may think “Oh great, yet another update that will make my phone slower” when in reality, I need to be thinking, “Oh great, another update to make phones more accessible!”
Accessibility tools are all around us, and they come in many different forms. In the classroom, I’ve seen accessibility tools in the form of word processing systems, microphones to amplify speech, touchscreens instead of computer mice, option to have text read aloud, and vocabulary support through different programs. In my personal experience, the only time I have found accessibility tools frustrating is when an educator doesn’t want to take the time to learn the tool. That attitude does not benefit the success of the child; educators need to be educating themselves or asking someone to educate them if they have an accessibility tool in their classroom that they do not understand. We know that there is an achievement gap between special education students and general education students, so I feel that educators should be doing their best to explore all ways to decrease that gap; we may want to look at what tools we could incorporate to make that happen (Roblyer, Hughes, 2019, p. 313).
One of my favorite websites, Cult of Pedagogy, created by Jennifer Gonzalez, wrote an article in 2018 titled, “4 Ways that Microsoft is Making Learning Accessible.” In this article, she not only discussed four great tools that could benefit many students in the classroom, but she also highlighted an independent study that found a correlation between accessibility tools and student success. “An independent study published in 2017 showed that students who used Learning Tools showed greater rates of growth in reading comprehension compared to previous cohorts that didn’t use the tools” (Gonzalez, 2018). With the use of Microsoft’s Learning Tools, “students showed an average gain of 123.6 points in their STAR scores, compared to the historical group’s 89.2 points, and an average gain of 10 percentile points, while the comparison group dropped by 0.62 points” (McKnight, 2017). I would personally love to see if this accessibility tool could have as great of an impact in my school as it did for the schools participating in the study.
References
Gonzalez, Jennifer. (2018, April 15). 4 ways Microsoft is making learning accessible [web log post]. Retrived from https://www.cultofpedagogy.com/inclusive/
McKight, K. (2017). Leveling the playing field with Microsoft learning tools. RTI International.
Retrieved from http://edudownloads.azureedge.net/msdownloads/Learning_Tools_research_
study_BSD.pdf
Roblyer, M. & Hughes, J. (2019). Integrating educational technology into teaching, (8th ed.)
New York, NY: Pearson.
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