The tools offered by google for teaching and learning that we have discussed the past couple of months are google classroom, google Expedition, google suite for education, and google Chromebook. This week we will focus our discussion on the accessibility for google tools for teaching and learning.
Accessibility for students with disabilities is critical for any website, product, or service as a good percentage of Americans have a disability. According to an article by Oblinger and Ruby, 20 percent of the U.S. population have some sort of disability. Google for Education focuses on creating their products with accessibility to allow every learner to take advantage of these products and services that they offer.
Below is a link for the G Suite user guide to accessibility. Each of the products offered under the G Suite for Education has a guide on how to use their products to make accessibility and usability better and easier. For example, the guides offer how to use screen readers for each product, how-to setup keyboard shortcuts for each product, changing text, images, and video sizes, and many other services.
https://www.google.com/accessibility/products-features/
Below is an official blog about how Google is using AI to improve products for people with impaired speech:
https://blog.google/outreach-initiatives/accessibility/
Below is the link to the main website for Google Accessibility if you would like to learn more.
https://www.google.com/accessibility/
Looking forward to your opinions and input on Google Accessibility.
Billy
Billy,
ReplyDeleteI went to the website, but could not find any information pertaining to the Accessibility of google glass with respect to pulling both the web and good glass together.
If I understand your blog the future will involve the use of google glass within the academia or educational departments.
I like the idea of incorporating accessibility and usability into (Google Glass), but I'm wondering how they will intertwine the two platforms onto a pair of glasses. I've watched the movies like (Iron man) where Tony Stark has the glasses on and he is interacting with his artificial intelligence in real time, but do you think this will be something we will see in the near future?
If so, When?
Long ago, I saw a pair of Google Glasses up close, but the initial protocol version was bulky and felt weird when you put them on. The right eye screen had a floating screen within your vision, but I am not sure how they would have incorporated accessibility. Possibly allowing for the use of voice as in the Tony Stark Iron man movie, but the pair I saw did not have this option.
Let me know your thoughts.
Tony Ruiz
Billy,
ReplyDeleteI'm curious if you, or anybody else, have any experience using any of these accessibility tools. In my past, I have mostly only worked with Deaf people, and for them navigating the internet comes quite easily. For the most part I've only seen the use of closed captions, which are helpful to anyone, not just Deaf people. Does anyone else have any experience with any of these other accessibility tools?
-Michaela
Michaela,
DeleteThanks for visiting and commenting on this topic. Unfortunately, I do not have experience in using these accessible tools. Hopefully, others in the class can provide some of their experiences.
Billy
Billy,
ReplyDeleteThanks for posting this timely topic for me...reason being is my wife is a Special Education Teacher and is actually using Google suite and it's products to teach her children that have those particular disabilities. It's actually amazing to watch her develop her methods in order to reach children in her class due to their various learning disabilities. I am already perusing your links for a way to help her enhance her tools she uses to teach her children at her school. Additionally, like Micheala- I don't think people really give a second thought to accessibility if they don't use assistive technology or know those that do. This is a very interesting topics, thanks for the post.
~Nick A.
Nick,
DeleteThanks for visiting and commenting on this topic. Glad to hear that you and your wife were able to find some value on this post.
Billy
Billy,
ReplyDeleteI am glad to see companies making their online platforms and products accessible and usable for students with disabilities. If they did not do this would their product efficient? I do not think so. This takes me back to the 5 attributes designers need to remember when they are designing their products. Is it easy to use, efficient, easy to remember, free of most errors, and pleasant to use? If they follow these attributes then their design should be accessible and usable for any person. I just looked at your second link and read How Accessible Design Helps Everyone. The article, says 70% of websites are not accessible to people with disabilities. I thought a lot of website would be inaccessible to people with disabilities but I did not think it would be 70%. Hopefully, more companies develop their websites that are accessible and usable to all people.
Thanks
Mark
Mark,
DeleteThanks for visiting and commenting on this topic. I agree with you, it is good to see that some platforms focus on making their products accessible and usable. But 70% of website not making their sites accessible and usable is pretty high.
Billy
Billy,
ReplyDeleteGreat post, very informative. It also ties in nicely with some of the things we have talked about in other course. I am truly amazed at the versatility and accessibility of Google and all their products. Looking forward to reading more of your posts.
Craig
Craig,
DeleteThanks for visiting and commenting on this topic. The reason I selected this topic was because I believe it will be relevant as we have discussed this in our other classes.
Billy
Billy,
ReplyDeleteGreat post and very informative. One of the accessibility tools throughout google is a speech to text option. I have a lot of experience with this tool as most of my students need to use it for several different things. There is also a tool that allows users to highlight different parts of text, and make notes. This can be done in a document or on a webpage right through google. In the program that I work in we use a lot of accessibility tools for our students. Many of them have them as accommodations on their IEP's.
Marianna