Making learning accessible for everyone with Microsoft Education

Carla  Gonzalez Fernandez

Carla Gonzalez Fernandez

Microsoft, Modern Work & Surface

Read Time, 4 min.

Every student deserves a solution to help them achieve great things. Learn in this article how Microsoft’s accessibility tools can support diverse learning needs.

More than 1 billion people across the world have disabilities. Yet only 1 in 10 have access to the tools they need to fully participate in society. It is a challenge that every organization has a responsibility to help solve.

Accessible technology can help bridge the gap, providing people everywhere with the tools they need to thrive. Nowhere is that more important than in schools and classrooms, where every student should have access to the resources and support they need to fully engage in learning.

Our commitment to digital inclusivity in education extends through all aspects of the solutions we offer, from product design to customer support. Our goal? To enable every student to fully participate in learning and life and empower every teacher to connect with each of their students, wherever they are, whatever challenges they face.

The accessibility solutions we offer have proven to enhance students’ learning experiences and environments, providing multiple ways for students to create, engage and participate. These tools are designed to help all students, regardless of ability, as outlined below.

 

Learning and speech

  • Our Immersive Reader breaks down syllables, increases spacing between lines and letters, and reduces “visual crowding” to support students with different learning styles to both read aloud and listen to text. It’s a free tool that’s built into Word, OneNote, Outlook, Office Lens, Microsoft Teams, Forms, Flipgrid, Minecraft Education Edition and the Edge browser.

 

  • Other integrated tools like Read Aloud support students with visual impairments by narrating web pages, news, documents, eBooks or your own custom contents. While Presenter Coach can help students prepare for presentations by evaluating pace, pitch and language used, helping to build confidence and improve students’ presentation style.

 

 

  • Teachers can keep track of reading fluency by identifying accuracy rate and trouble words using Reading Progress with Insights. This tool helps students build confidence and reading fluency through personalized reading experiences built into Assignments in Microsoft Teams.

 

  • Additionally, students can develop critical literacy skills using the reading practice tool, Reading Coach. The new offering, which complements other tools such as Reading Progress and Immersive Reader, automatically generates individualized exercises based on each student’s specific needs and provides guidance on the likes of pronunciation and syllabification.

 

Vision, hearing and mobility

    • The built-in screen reader Narrator provides simplified navigation and audio descriptions so students can easily interact with everything on their screen with their keyboard or Braille device.
    • And for students with limited mobility, Dictate enables them to use their computer microphone to dictate presentations or documents.
    • We also provide captions on Microsoft Teams for students who are hard of hearing, have dyslexia, or need support focusing. Teams can detect what’s said in a class session or meeting and present real-time captions with speaker attribution.

 

Neurodiversity and cognitive

  • Microsoft To Do is a list, task and reminder app that can help students get organized and manage their school work and activities from a smartphone, tablet or computer.
  • For students who need support focusing, Reading view removes distracting ads and excess information to reduce cognitive load while using the Edge browser, so every student can stay on-topic.Screenshot of a sample of writing in Microsoft Word in the reading view layout

 

Mental health

  • We’ve made it easier to check on your students’ social-emotional wellbeing with tools within Microsoft Teams. Reflect helps students recognize and navigate their emotions by providing regular opportunities to share and be heard, broadening learners’ emotional vocabulary and deepening empathy for their peers. And there’s support for teachers too with Insights, which provides valuable feedback to help educators build a healthy classroom community.

 

  • Teachers can encourage everyone to learn and share their thoughts using Flipgrid. A safe video expression tool, Flipgrid encourages students to informally share details of their successes, interests and weekends – especially good for quieter and shier students.

 

All learners

  • For students who aren’t learning in their native language, the Translator app, PowerPoint’s Presentation Translator and Teams can be set to translate content into their preferred language.

  • Regardless of the challenges that students may face,The Ease of Access Center in Windows allows everyone to personalize their computer to best support their needs. By making it possible to customize mouse actions, trackpad options, keyboard preferences and more, every student can define a digital experience that matches the way they interact with the world.
  • Before sharing documents and spreadsheets or sending emails, teachers and students alike can run the Accessibility Checker to ensure the content is easy for people with disabilities to read and edit.

 

The COVID-19 pandemic has increased demand for accessibility tools in education, so it’s more important than ever to empower every student with technology that facilitates personalized learning. Because when educators adopt a technology-driven approach to learning and teaching, anything is possible for students of every ability.

1 hour

Accessibility: Build the foundation for inclusive learning

Every student should have the support they need to fully engage in learning. Discover how to create a more inclusive learning environment with the Microsoft Learn Course.

4 digital tools that can help educators create a more inclusive classroom

To find out the best digital tools for an inclusive classroom from an educator’s perspective, read our article here.

Discover more related articles per industry:

Education

Finance & Insurance

Government

Healthcare

  • Two people working together

    Making Every Day Better with Microsoft Teams

    Finland’s second-largest public sector employer, HUS Helsinki University Hospital, deployed Microsoft Teams extensively in its organization of 27,000 employees. Microsoft Teams provides HUS with a foundation for customer-oriented digital transformation, which acts as a part of its vision to be a trendsetter in healthcare. The deployed Microsoft services offer an easy-to-use solution for remote appointments […]

  • Two people working in Healthcare with a Windows device

    Medical device provider builds an Azure data estate for any future

    Danish med-tech company Coloplast makes innovative care products for people with intimate health challenges. To help maintain productive customer relationships and better understand the needs of patients, Coloplast migrated from an on-premises data warehouse and business intelligence (BI) solution to Microsoft Power BI, Azure SQL Data Warehouse, and other Azure services. The migration is part […]

Manufacturing

Retail

  • a person standing in front of a truck

    Why leading Irish retailer Musgrave is ready for anything with cloud technology

    “When assessing the potential effects of major digital transformation projects on our business, we always think about three key constituents: colleagues, retailers, and consumers.” So says Paul Baguley, IT PMO for Musgrave Retail – Ireland’s leading food retail, wholesale and food service company. Together with its retail partners, who operate under leading brands including SuperValu […]

  • Big data boosts business for beverage company

    Big data boosts business for beverage company

    Contemplate, if you will, the multiple choices available every time you want something to drink. Water? Juice? Soft drink? Do you want a single-serve can or a six-pack? Or maybe you just grab a liter bottle. The fact is, we as consumers expect a lot of options and the global non-alcoholic beverage industry delivers. Arca […]

Discover more related articles per dossier:

Customer Stories

  • A large red ship with a few men onboard stationed at the shipyard

    Sparking joy: decluttering the energy sector with Dynamics 365

    Business growth in the digital age is faster than ever before, but it doesn’t come without its own hurdles. While rapid growth is a positive for any business, inherited legacy systems and outdated practices can quickly pile up as businesses expand and acquire. This was a hefty challenge faced by Nordic energy giant Gasum, who […]

Digital Transformation

Security & Privacy

Tips