Familiarize Educators with Tech to Make Learning Accessible
Technology has increased accessibility for low-vision students, making learning more achievable and comfortable. In addition to hyperlegible fonts, there are other steps IT leaders can take in K–12 environments to make learning accessible to low-vision users.
Many accessibility tools are already built into Chromebooks and other devices. IT teams should become familiar with the possibilities so they can recommend the right tool when a student requires assistance.
“For example, on Chromebooks, we have a variety of features,” Allen explains. “You can invert colors. You can increase the size of the mouse cursor. You can magnify the screen in different ways, whether that’s increasing the size of the whole screen, or using what’s called our docked magnifier, which basically makes the top third of the screen a magnified region.”
There are also screen reading features that users can employ on their devices which can read either the entire screen or selected text.
In addition to the tools, IT leaders can make learning more accessible to low-vision users through purposeful and thoughtful changes to educational materials; for instance, by creating web pages and printed media that use strong contrast between the text and the background, allowing low-vision students to read any overlaying text.
Educators and IT professionals should also caption images or include alt text, Allen says, so that screen readers can describe the images to low-vision students.