Text to Speech: Inclusive for all learners

tameika_munday
Community Novice

I recently was working with a teacher who was creating some lessons for her students who were low in their reading ability within a 4/5/6 classroom and needed one on one support to complete most tasks. She wanted a group of students to listen to a story being read to them with headphones and then complete a quiz around comprehension of the story.

This sounds great- allowing students to utilise Canvas to work independently, freeing the teacher to work with other student groups. However, what happens when students get to the quiz and can't read the questions. Will the teacher be able to assess their actual comprehension of the story or just get students pressing buttons and taking a guess? How will this teacher make sure her current group she is working with is not constantly being interrupted for support by reading out the quiz to the other students? 

The answer to this question was a nifty Google extension called 'Speak it.' This extension was placed on all devices in all classrooms at this school. You simply highlight any text on the screen and right click and then the computer will read what you have highlighted. We tested it on the  group of students and they could all work the extension, allowing them to hear the question and responses. This allowed for a true reflection of what the students actually knew and stopped minimal disruption to the teaching and learning of other students. 

What other nifty tools or extensions have you used in your canvas courses to make sure that all students can access, particpate and learn?