Immersive reader in Discussions?

[Brendanq]

Why can we not have immersive reader or any accessibility options for discussions and other categories? Is this an instructor setting or can I change my personal settings elsewhere?

I apologize if this question has already been asked.

Also, I assume the canvas mobile app for android has zero immersive readying capabilities?

[NoahBoswell · Accepted solution]

Hi there @Brendanq ,

Thanks for reaching out on the Instructure Community!

While I am unsure about the mobile app, you are correct, immersive reader is not supported in discussions. Unfortunately, there are no settings for you to enable as the Instructor that can grant students access to the immersive reader in other areas of Canvas, as it is not currently designed to work in other areas of Canvas at this time. The only setting that exists for immersive reader is at the account-level, where admins can decide if this feature is turned on or off for an entire institution. 

This being said (and it's certainly possible Instructure is working on a way to implement this), I'd recommend submitting this as a feature idea for the product team to look at. https://community.canvaslms.com/t5/Instructure-Community-Guide/How-do-I-create-a-new-idea-in-the-Ins...

I apologize that this is not the news you wanted to hear, however I still hope this helps.

All the best,
Noah 

[NoahBoswell · Accepted solution]

Hi there @Brendanq ,

Thanks for reaching out on the Instructure Community!

While I am unsure about the mobile app, you are correct, immersive reader is not supported in discussions. Unfortunately, there are no settings for you to enable as the Instructor that can grant students access to the immersive reader in other areas of Canvas, as it is not currently designed to work in other areas of Canvas at this time. The only setting that exists for immersive reader is at the account-level, where admins can decide if this feature is turned on or off for an entire institution. 

This being said (and it's certainly possible Instructure is working on a way to implement this), I'd recommend submitting this as a feature idea for the product team to look at. https://community.canvaslms.com/t5/Instructure-Community-Guide/How-do-I-create-a-new-idea-in-the-Ins...

I apologize that this is not the news you wanted to hear, however I still hope this helps.

All the best,
Noah 

[Brendanq]

Thanks for the information Noah.

I see it's been addressed one way or another. I also replied to another question that addressed the absence of the immersive reader on quizzes.

I still don't understand why it's not automatically defaulted everywhere on canvas. Or is there another accessibility tool available that I'm not aware of?

I don't have any accessibility software that reliably views webpages anymore. Chrome has seemed to do away with that feature both on desktop and mobile.

So if canvas can add that ability, it would greatly bridge any gaps for disabled students or students thatbenefit from the feature.

Why limit it?

[NoahBoswell]

To my understanding, they've tried implementing it before. However, I guess developing it to work with the different question types and things like that within quizzes apparently messed up how the quizzes would operate. I don't think they're trying to "limit" anything on purpose. It's likely that it's not defaulted everywhere on Canvas because Instructure hasn't been able to find a way to successfully make it work everywhere on Canvas like it's supposed to. That doesn't mean they aren't wanting or planning on continuing to try implementing it.

All this being said, it's definitely possible that there are other tools similar to immersive reader that are out there, however, with the ones that I have come across, in order to successfully implement it into Canvas, the school would have to purchase a subscription and then add the app into the LTI tools. I'm not exactly sure if there are any other types, such as extensions, that Canvas would fully support.

Noah

[dbrace · Accepted solution]

Hi @Brendanq,

I do not have any specific insight to its lack of availablity but I believe part of the reason is because the immersive reader functionality is officially a Microsoft solution that Instructure has added to the Canvas LMS.

• https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/training/educator-center/product-guides/immersive-reader
• https://www.instructure.com/resources/blog/immersive-reader-improves-student-reading-comprehension
• https://community.canvaslms.com/t5/Student-Guide/How-do-I-use-the-Microsoft-Immersive-Reader-in-a-co...
• https://community.canvaslms.com/t5/Instructor-Guide/How-do-I-use-the-Microsoft-Immersive-Reader-in-a...

This might mean that it is not possible for Instructure to add the functionality to aspects of the Canvas LMS that have more unlying code besides Canvas pages.

-Doug