Making Digital Classroom Accessible for All

What Do We Mean by Accessible Digital Classrooms?

Edu­ca­tion­al access means: pro­vid­ing class­room accom­mo­da­tions, aux­il­iary aids and ser­vices to ensure equal edu­ca­tion­al oppor­tu­ni­ties for all stu­dents regard­less of abil­i­ty. NIC’s Depart­ment of Acces­si­ble Learn­ing Ser­vices (DALS Team) advise and sup­port stu­dents with doc­u­ment­ed dis­abil­i­ties.

What We Need to Know and Do, and Helpful Tips

  • Accom­mo­dat­ing stu­dents with doc­u­ment­ed dis­abil­i­ties falls under the Col­lege’s legal respon­si­bil­i­ty of Human Rights and Duty to Accom­mo­date
  • Mak­ing sure all stu­dents can access learn­ing in sup­port­ive ways in all our respon­si­bil­i­ty
  • Stu­dents with doc­u­ment­ed dis­abil­i­ties are encour­aged to meet with a mem­ber of our DALS team
  • If it is deter­mined that the stu­dent requires accom­mo­da­tions, the instruc­tor will receive an accom­mo­da­tion let­ter
  • DALS can help instruc­tors under­stand what accom­mo­da­tions can look like in a class, if you are unsure
  • Design­ing learn­ing activ­i­ties and resources with acces­si­bil­i­ty in mind helps sup­port all stu­dents
  • Microsoft tools (Word, Adobe, Pow­er­Point) have func­tions embed­ded to help us ensure what we cre­ate is acces­si­ble
  1. Keep com­mu­ni­ca­tion, accom­mo­da­tions and course design sim­ple
  2. Com­mu­ni­cate in short but val­ue-added bursts
  3. Com­mu­ni­cate to cre­ate com­mu­ni­ty
  4. Use closed cap­tion­ing and class notes
  5. Pro­vide oppor­tu­ni­ties of asyn­chro­nous learn­ing
  6. Be flex­i­ble to the ben­e­fit of all stu­dents
  7. Employ prin­ci­ples of Uni­ver­sal Design for Learn­ing
  8. Pro­vide sum­maries after top­ics and mod­ules
  9. Put a per­son­al spin on sum­maries of learn­ing, demon­strat­ing to stu­dents, we learn too
  10. Focus on the pos­i­tives of dig­i­tal learn­ing (e.g., flex­i­bil­i­ty)

Digital Exams for Students with Disabilities

Dig­i­tal test­ing accom­mo­da­tions are an inte­gral com­po­nent for mit­i­gat­ing dis­abil­i­ty impact with­in the learn­ing envi­ron­ment. Stu­dents requir­ing dig­i­tal exam accom­mo­da­tions have been asked to con­tin­ue to book their exams fol­low­ing the stan­dard DALS pro­ce­dures. DALS review all accom­mo­dat­ed exam requests and reach out to both stu­dents and instruc­tors to facil­i­tate accom­mo­da­tions.

The fol­low­ing are con­sid­er­a­tions for deliv­er­ing dig­i­tal exams for stu­dents with dis­abil­i­ties. If you have any ques­tions about accom­mo­dat­ing stu­dents with dis­abil­i­ties for a dig­i­tal exam, please reach out to DALS. See also down­load­able PDF of this web page.

Con­sid­er whether the time lim­it you have set is rea­son­able or whether it might be inad­ver­tent­ly adding stress. Extra time ben­e­fits all stu­dents. Dig­i­tal test­ing plat­forms (such as Bright­space) have built-in func­tions for increas­ing or remov­ing test­ing time lim­its. Email NIC Ser­vice Desk for sup­port with adjust­ing the tim­ing vari­ables on quizzes and tests in Bright­space. Take home or open book exams often have a very long exam writ­ing win­dow so may or may not require extra time added for stu­dents with dis­abil­i­ties

Many sup­port­ed stu­dents require an envi­ron­ment in which they can con­cen­trate with­out out­side stim­uli for dis­trac­tion. In gen­er­al, stu­dents are respon­si­ble for find­ing a suit­able space in their home or alter­na­tive to write. Con­sid­er that many stu­dents with dis­abil­i­ties may find it dif­fi­cult to find some­where to write an exam in an envi­ron­ment which mit­i­gates the func­tion­al impact of their dis­abil­i­ty ‑sus­tained atten­tion, anx­i­ety, ergonom­ic, etc.  DALS can pro­vide dis­trac­tion-reduced test­ing envi­ron­ments for stu­dents, if need­ed

This is where stu­dents are giv­en more than a day to com­plete the exam. The accom­mo­da­tion of extend­ed time does not typ­i­cal­ly apply to these cas­es. Stu­dents who believe that they would still require addi­tion­al time will need to con­nect with DALS to review test­ing needs

In gen­er­al, stu­dents who need sched­uled breaks would be afford­ed this time with­in their accom­mo­da­tion of ‘extra time.’ Giv­en the com­plex­i­ty of dis­abil­i­ty impact and test­ing for­mat, oth­er con­sid­er­a­tions may also be war­rant­ed

If the exam is pre­sent­ed in mul­ti­ple, dis­crete sec­tions, the instruc­tor could ‘load’ the test­ing in sep­a­rate sec­tions for the stu­dent for sep­a­rate sit­tings. If not fea­si­ble, an alter­na­tive eval­u­a­tion may be need­ed

Some stu­dents may need a read­er, scribe, inter­preter, or mobil­i­ty assis­tant. This lev­el of test­ing accom­mo­da­tion will need to be worked out on a case-by-case basis. A scribe or read­er could also be uti­lized via video con­fer­enc­ing or face-to-face invig­i­la­tion with DALS

There are numer­ous pos­si­bil­i­ties, such as voice input, screen read­ers, mag­ni­fiers, cap­tion­ing, etc. Stu­dents will need to work with DALS on a case-by-case basis to deter­mine func­tion­al­i­ty in the spe­cif­ic test­ing envi­ron­ment.  Stu­dents who require adap­tive soft­ware have usu­al­ly received access through the Cana­da Stu­dent Grant. Note that Respon­dus Lock­down brows­er is not com­pat­i­ble with many adap­tive tech­nolo­gies and alter­na­tives may need to be explored

Text to Speech

Voice Input Soft­ware

Screen Read­ers

Mag­ni­fiers

Voice Over
(MAC’s built-in text-to-speech tool)

Google Doc­u­ment with Google Voice Typ­ing allows for dic­tat­ing direct­ly into a word doc­u­ment

NVDA (Non-Visu­al Desk­top Access) (free, Win­dows)

Mag­ni­fi­er for Win­dows (built-in)

Nat­ur­al Read­er 
(free for Win­dows and MAC)

Apple Dic­ta­tion (iOS, macOS)

JAWS is the most com­mon screen read­er

 

Cen­tral Access Read­er 
(free, open source, reads for­mat­ted math, Win­dows and MAC)

Win­dows 11 Speech Recog­ni­tion

 

 

Tex­tAloud

 

 

 

Nar­ra­tor 
(free, built-in Win­dows 7 and lat­er)

 

 

 

Adobe Read­er 
(free, Win­dows and MAC)

 

 

 

Other Tech Supports

  • Cal­cu­la­tors
  • Own device(s)
  • Enlarged font
  • Spelling assis­tance (e.g. Gram­marly, or MS Word)
  • White noise machine or music
  • Ergonom­ic key­board
  • C‑pen
  • Adjustable desk/chair
  • Mag­ni­fi­er

Learn More

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