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

  • Unlock the potential of your students with Microsoft’s new Learning Accelerators

    Unlock the potential of your students with Microsoft’s new Learning Accelerators

    Personalized learning is a goal that educators everywhere have been trying to achieve for years. But the pandemic shone a light on the complexity of that challenge for teachers, who face a more diverse set of student needs than ever before.  Because delivering a truly personalized learning experience for every student has traditionally required lots […]

  • Girl studying

    Secondary school Kirchdorf: Reimagining hybrid learning with Surface and Teams

    “What we really wanted to achieve was simplicity for both our students and our educators. Through our digitalization efforts, we’ve seen that using technology to complement traditional teaching and learning is an investment for the future, not just for children, but for everyone.” Martin Schnetzer, teacher and IT admin at Mittelschule Kirchdorf, Austria, reflects on […]

Finance & Insurance

  • External shot of Fire Group offices building

    The Fire Group: how data-driven processes are reshaping sustainable credit management

    “We want to change the way credit management is perceived, because we play an important social role in this sector. Data and technology allow us to show the critical role that we play in a more direct way.” Sonia Di Nuzzo, Corporate Communication Leader at Fire is outlining the ambitious goal the company is setting for the industry it operates in with data. As Italy’s largest independent credit management solutions provider, Fire plays a pivotal role […]

  • a view of a city

    Harvesting data helps save water

    With more than 140 years of history, the financial service company Ibercaja is deeply invested in the north-east region of Spain. In order to support its rural clients and solve the local water scarcity problems, the company now helps farmers to digitally transform their crop management. Key to this transformation are “Internet of Things“ enabled […]

Government

Healthcare

  • A woman undergoing a scan

    Predictive maintenance is improving quality of life for cancer patients

    With cancer affecting more than 17 million people annually, a figure set to rise dramatically in the coming years, efficient and cost-effective treatment is essential. Since deploying Microsoft Azure IoT, IBA Worldwide, a leading developer of medical equipment for cancer treatment, has been able to reduce the cost of maintenance and improve repair times for […]

  • Scientist looking at a screen with data

    European Health Data Space aims to unleash the full potential of health data

    Background A key challenge in healthcare today is that both patients and clinicians have difficulty accessing the health data they need. This has multiple implications. For patients, it prevents them playing a more proactive role in their own care.  For clinicians, it affects their productivity and the quality of the care they can provide. In […]

Manufacturing

  • a man holding a paint spray

    What we can learn from AkzoNobel’s digital transformation

    Savvy businesses are always on the lookout for ways to improve what they do and differentiate themselves from the competition. From organisational restructure to the development of entirely new business models, the quest for continuous improvement takes many forms. But one common factor in almost all modern business leaders’ plans is an emphasis on technological […]

  • 2 persons standing

    5 Key Insights about Modern Manufacturing

    The pace of change in manufacturing is relentless. An unstoppable wave of technological innovation is sweeping across the industry, redefining the processes and structures it leaves in its wake. No sooner are new milestones glimpsed, than they’re reached and surpassed. It is an industry outliving itself. Riding this wave – rather than being overcome by […]

Retail

  • How to Stay Competitive in Retail and Accelerate Business Growth?

    How to Stay Competitive in Retail and Accelerate Business Growth?

    The rise of ecommerce has been a major factor in the shift towards digital in retail with the high street increasingly becoming a less regular destination for consumers. Customers have come to expect a superior experience across multiple channels (including in-store). Maximizing customer insights requires unifying your data sources across the end-to-end buyer journey to […]

  • A man standing in front of an industrial food refrigerator

    Bell Food Group: Proving the benefits of digitalization through a Power Platform solution

    “We expected a few drawings or designs to see what the product-tasting app would look like – but instead, they came in with a working model. We were all speechless, and really impressed at how fast Power Platform allows you to build something that works.” Valery Thomas, Head of Business Intelligence, Analytics and Digitalization at […]

Discover more related articles per dossier:

Customer Stories

  • Four people in a collage-style image

    The Leader’s Guide to Creating Business Impact with AI

    One year ago, ChatGPT launched and became the fastest growing consumer app in history, with 100 million monthly active users exploring the power of artificial intelligence (AI). This enthusiasm pushed AI into the mainstream of conversation in Europe, and also generated optimism in how we can apply AI to help us solve some of our […]

Digital Transformation

Security & Privacy

Tips

  • Group of two female and one male office workers brainstorming in informal office setting. Both women are using laptops while the man is writing. Large screen shown in background.

    2019 Modern Selling Trends in 5 webinars

    The relationship between buyers and sellers grows more complicated each day. Every potential partnership requires finding the right buyer, fully understanding their business, tracking progress through the buying cycle, and engaging them with the right content—when and how they want it. These shifting dynamics underscore the artistry of modern selling. When the time is right, […]