Now that you have reviewed and better understand the categories of which developers use to build accessibility features, think about your students’ needs. While learning in a hybrid/remote classroom environment, your students are expected to learn content and produce evidence they have learned said content.
They are expected to engage with you and their classmates via video chat or posts in their learning management system. All students learn and demonstrate their understanding differently. In the physical classroom, you as the teacher make adjustments and provide tools/strategies to help students based on their individual needs. The same must be done in a virtual setting. These accessibility features are tools meant to help your students better access the virtual classroom. Therefore, like in the physical classroom, consider each student’s needs then identify a feature (or features) that may help your students successfully learn and demonstrate their learning in the virtual classroom.
A special note for consideration. It is a fact that students come from different home environments and their access to hardware and software vary greatly between households. A student may have a school-issued device (or not), but only have access to the internet on a smartphone (or not!). Therefore, this resource includes accessibility features from the three main technology companies (Apple, Microsoft, and Google) across all different devices (desktops, laptops, tablets, phones) these companies produce.
Do you know what device your students are actually using to participate in virtual learning? Asking this question in a virtual learning environment is just as important as asking if they have a sharpened pencil in a physical classroom.