Skip to main content

Accessibility for Student Chromebooks - Easily Dictate Speech to Text

Screenshot of Google Search bar and the "Search + D" shortcut

The Chromebooks that our students use just got a huge update in regards to speech to text accessibility! Now, a simple keyboard short (search + d) will enable dictation for the students! This is a huge game changer when it comes to our students that have a difficulty typing responses. 

In order for this to work, you will have to enable accessibility features, specifically the voice to text option. Then, students will be able to have speech to text available in any input field! 

GIF of the process with the Google Homepage!


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Google Docs - Email Building Blocks

Google Docs has recently added the Smart Chips to allow for more functionality in a document, allowing you to tag other people, pull templates, and have a document in a more collaborative environment. Now, Google has added the ability to draft an email in Google Docs and easily transfer this to Gmail for sending.  This update is extremely useful if you have an important email to send and you don't want to accidentally send it prior to it being done, you have an email to send as a team and you want everyone to have the ability to craft and have their say, or you have a list of running items that need to be included in the email over the course of time. Once you are ready to send it, click the Blue Gmail Logo and it will open in your Gmail. Once it is open, you only have to click send! No more accidentally sent too early emails! 

Open Educational Resources - A New Way

Educational materials cost a lot of money. Whether it is buying curriculum, purchasing items from Teacher Pay Teachers, or taking the time to develop your own and make it truly unique.  There is one other option, and this option keeps getting better and better. Open Educational Resources, or OERs, are resources that are developed by educators, for educators. These resources, which are openly licensed under Creative Commons for use, remixing, and re-sharing, are an excellent alternative to curriculum packs and Teachers pay Teachers.  Currently, there is group of Michigan Social Studies educators that have developed an entire textbook series, the MiOpenBook Project , that is openly licensed and freely distributed. In our current review of science curriculum, we have also found OpenSciEd , a collection of middle school level curriculum aligned to the NGSS standards. One of my favorites, that I had used in the classroom prior to my knowledge of OERs, was CK12.  CK12 is a collection of res