Mobile educational technology can serve as a great equalizer for teachers to differentiate instruction and for students with special needs to empower their knowledge and talents.
Mobile technology allows students with special need s to participate and express themselves, present information in new ways and be present in the restrictive learning environment with the help of assistive technology.
These are a few examples of high technology tools available in built-in features in operating systems and from external Apps.
| Built-in Accessibility Features | Third Party Options (Apps) |
| Screen magnification software: – Zoom (built-in option for macOS) – Magnifier (built-in option for Windows) – Screen Magnifier (Chromebooks) – Magnification gestures (Android) – Zoom magnification feature, Magnifier (iOS) Screen reading software: – VoiceOver(built-in for iOS) – Narrator, TalkBack (built-in features in Windows) – ChromeVox (Chromebooks) – Orca (GNOME and Linux) | – Text-based AAC (Proloquo4Text) – Symbol-based AAC (Proloquo2Go) – Speech-to-Text/Text-to-Speech Apps (Azure on Microsoft) – Audio Reader Apps – Screen Reader Apps (JAWS, NVDA, System Access, Dolphin Screen Reader) – Screen Magnifying Apps (ZoomText, iZoom, MAGic, SuperNova Magnifier) – Real-time, automatic captions or subtitles during presentations (Watson Speech to Text by IBM, automatic captions in PowerPoint by Microsoft) |
Great post, and a fine reminder that web accessibility supports a mobile experience!
Web accessibility offers more than support for humans with disabilities. Being fully accessible is a great moral return on investment, but it also supports a strong business case too. Web accessibility means that more people can search and discover your site (SEO) on desktops, laptops, and mobile devices, can navigate your site, and can learn from (consume) or lead to a purchase. You increase your potential audience by a large margin. Keep in mind that as we age our physical abilities diminish. Making web spaces flexible to meet our needs as we change over time is smart for business.
Here are some excellent open ebooks and related applied tools to compliment your good set of recommendations. They may help anyone who wants to learn about web accessibility and anyone who is creating resources for the web that needs some practical, hands-on tools to test their materials.
Professional Web Accessibility Auditing Made Easy: Essential Skills for Web Developers, Content Creators, and Designers
https://pressbooks.library.ryerson.ca/pwaa/
Understanding Document Accessibility: A Reference for Creating Accessible Office Documents
https://pressbooks.library.ryerson.ca/docs/
Digital Accessibility as a Business Practice: Essential Skills for Business Leaders
https://pressbooks.library.ryerson.ca/dabp/
Web Accessibility for Developers: Essential Skills for Web Developers
https://pressbooks.library.ryerson.ca/wafd/
Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1
https://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG21/
AChecker (Web Accessibility Checker)
https://achecker.ca/checker/index.php
WebAIM Colour Contrast Checker
https://webaim.org/resources/contrastchecker/
WAVE web accessibility testing tool
https://wave.webaim.org/extension/
Readable (free readability testing tool)
https://www.webfx.com/tools/read-able/
Thanks for the list of resources. It is true that mobile content accessibility should be ensured for all audience, not just for people with special needs. If the mobile contents are not accessible to the intended audience, then mobile learning experience is not achievable at all.