Accessibility Tips: Benchmark, Seesaw, Google and Schoology

We all want our students to be successful, and we know that some will need additional scaffolding and support to reach their learning targets. In this tech tip, we'll explore some accessibility tools available in several of our core tools and resources.

Benchmark

Our new Benchmark eAssessments for grades K and 1 have a built-in text to speech reader. Students can click the play button to have the question read to them. Other grade levels do not yet have this feature.

Seesaw

Seesaw activities offer several great ways to help our youngest learners understand their tasks.

• Icons--These handy visuals help early readers understand the words.
• Audio--Early readers can also listen to the directions.
• Examples--These let our students "see" what they need to do.
• Templates--These give our students a starting point and simplify the task.

Google 

These are add-ons to Google Chrome that students can put on their Chromebooks.

• Read Aloud Text to Speech reads screens aloud to students
• Visor helps students follow lines of text by shading other areas.
• Open Dyslexic font changes fonts online 
• Screenshader tints your screen
• Note: Speech to text works really well in Google Docs as well and can be copy/pasted to other applications as needed.

Schoology Assessments

Schoology has added some great tools to help with test accessibility and accommodations. For students to use these, teachers must create the assessment in the new Assessments (not older test/quiz) and then turn on these options under the assessment setup tab.

Activating desired features

1. Create an assessment.
2. Click the set-up tab.
3. Toggle on features you wish students to be able to access.

Accessibility toolbar

When enabled, this toolbar will appear at the top of each question in a Schoology assessment. This toolbar includes two accessibility tools: text to speech and a reading visor.

Text to Speech: 

• Option 1: Click the hand icon and click text on the screen to begin reading that text. 
  
• Option 2: Click the play button to have the text read from the top of the screen to the bottom. 
  
• Note: Text will highlight as the words are read aloud. 

• Options: Click the gear icon to choose your desired playback settings.

Visor--The visor darkens the page except for the line(s) being read. Students drag the visor to highlight areas as needed. This can help students track the words better as they are reading. Click the visor icon to activate this feature. 

Other helpful features:

More Accessibility Options--Click the accessibility button to access accessibility choices for background color, font size and zooming shortcuts.

Eliminate choices--Click the choice eliminator option and then click question choices to cross them out. This is like crossing out answers with a pencil on a paper test.

Flag for review--Students can click the flag icon to mark questions for later review. They can also use the notepad to jot down their thoughts to help them remember things when they return to review the question.

View full screen--By clicking the full screen button at the bottom of the toolbar list, students can maximize their screen and better view content.

Math tools--Teachers may choose to allow access to calculators, rulers and protractors during math tests.