Thread by @athorsen16

I got a great reminder about Accessible v. Assistive Technology yesterday from @krista_bolen . Since so many students have #dyslexia but few have IEPs, we need to ensure they all can access classroom content through audiobooks and screen readers. Lets make all content accessible!

The movement towards accessible content is so important for so many people with disabilities. So many websites and classroom content barely useable for people with severe dyslexia. Why, you ask? Most tech has built-in screen readers - isn’t that good enough?

Nope. (A thread.)

Screen Readers: Most work on only certain types of content. So if your website or class lesson has text, a graph, a map and a slideshow with text, our readers cannot access all the content. This is a huge issue with Florida Virtual School many students are using this year.

Spelling:
If your website or online lesson requires people to have correct spelling to access information, fix it. We cannot spell well enough to get there. I cannot tell you how many times I type in a website search bar and “0” results come up because I have spelled it wrong.

Working Memory:
If your website or class lesson requires users to hold information from one page to the next, that can be really hard for us. We will have to keep flipping back and forth and it slows us down so we can’t keep up. Adding reminders or cues on each page can help us.

Students w/ disabilities need to be able to keep up in class (and in life) in real time. Doing accessibility well empowers all of us to get the full benefit of content. I am so excited to see this shift happening. Let’s keep improving!

Side note: Writing this thread, I began wondering how much of my life I have wasted online trying to access info. My nemesis: Phone numbers you can’t click to call. It takes me 3 to 4 tries flipping back & forth to get the number right. 😫 I love it when the number pops up!