Extra: Using Text to Speech on a Mac
Resources related to Colorblindness
-
8% of males and 0.5% of females experience some sort of color vision deficiency
-
Using a color-blind simulator https://uminntilt.com/2015/06/22/imagining-the-impact-of-visual-color-deficiency-tools-we-can-use/
-
3 Tools to Help You Make Colorblind Friendly Graphics https://digitallearning.northwestern.edu/article/2016/07/18/three-tools-help-you-make-colorblind-friendly-graphics
-
Interesting post about color blindness (although the frequent mentions of chalkboards and chalk dates this post, there are useful pieces of information) http://colorvisiontesting.com/color4.htm
-
Article with lots of great examples about how certain things in academics can look to someone who is colorblind http://www.colourblindawareness.org/teachers/secondary-school-higher-education/
-
Designing For Students With Colorblindness and Low Vision https://dl.sps.northwestern.edu/blog/2015/12/seeing-differently-designing-for-students-with-colorblindness-and-low-vision/
-
Biggest points from multiple articles:
-
Be aware of who in your class may be colorblind
-
While different colors of markers on whiteboards may look pretty or can help distinguish between different things to those with normal vision, those who are colorblind may not be able to see them well or at all
-
When designing graphics or charts, stay away from red and green as your primary colors as these are common color issues for color blind students
-
I have written a blog post that talks about some ways to help our shy students be involved. We have a number of students who are afraid or unsure about participating in class. They do not want to stand out and are definitely afraid to be wrong in front of others. They might also just need more time to process before participating and the pace of the class might not allow them to have the time that they need.
-
Some tools you could use:
-
Google Forms to submit questions that they have during class or even after class
-
Padlet to allow students to make comments or ask questions of others during class discussions or after
-
Sharing your notes with students ahead of time using a Google Doc so they can make edits and comments on the side instead of writing everything down in order for them to better be able to focus on developing questions or comments during class instead of after.
-
Shy Students Get a Voice Through Ed Tech http://enableeducation.com/shy-students-get-a-voice-through-ed-tech/
Using a Swivl to record class - can be very helpful for students who have hearing or vision issues. (longer post coming….)
Other Tools (free)
-
Announcify - text to speech, can remove distracting elements from website, reads whole page and not just selected text.
-
ATbar - color overlays, dictionary, text to speech and other tools
-
MagicScroll Web Reader - turns website into a scrollable book
-
Readline - shows a reading word by word and can select the speed
-
High Contrast - change contrast and invert colors on a webpage
-
Simple Blocker - easily block distracting websites to keep yourself on task
Other Tools (paid)
-
Read&Write for Chrome - whole set of tools include speech to text, text to speech, picture definitions, translation, playback of reading, …
Google Apps Resources
-
Adding Alt Text to Sites, Docs, and Slides by Christine Sellek https://docs.google.com/document/d/11wZYW6bvVvxSzEDhuvn4UxaVjxDsoJQJP3--W1fPUF4/edit