Accessible Technologies
The Teaching Transformation & Development Academy (TTaDA) works closely with Disability Services for Students (DSS) and University Information Technology (UIT) to provide assistive technologies for UND. To learn more about faculty responsibilities regarding accessibility visit with DSS.
Creating Accessible Content
It is important to keep in mind that accessibility is not a feature to be added after the design of your course and/or content. It is a set of principles to be considered throughout the design process. For information on designing your course to meet the needs of all learners visit the Universal Design for Learning webpage.
When creating content, there are a few basic steps that should be followed in order to assure your content is accessible.
Learn More About Creating Accessible Content
Check Accessibility with Blackboard Ally
Blackboard Ally works seamlessly with Blackboard Learn to gauge the accessibility of your content. Ally provides guidance and tips for lasting improvements to your content accessibility.
- Receive feedback on the accessibility of your content
- Improve content accessibility with Ally's step-by-step instructions
Learn more about Blackboard Ally
Read&Write
Read&Write is an easy-to-use, intuitive toolbar add-on for PCs and Macs that supports students with reading, writing, studying, and research. Read&Write seamlessly integrates with Microsoft applications, PDFs, e-mail, the Internet, and other software. With over 20 tools available, you can:
- Hear text read aloud to improve reading comprehension, with a choice of natural voices.
- Understand unfamiliar words with text and picture dictionaries.
- Highlight and copy text from documents and web pages to create study guides, outlines or complete assignments.
- Supports writing skills with word prediction.
- Turn text from documents and web pages into MP3 sound files for listening on the move.
- Check writing mistakes with proofreading tools.
Download Read&Write, Information and Tutorials
Accessibility Lab
To assist faculty and staff with creating accessible content, TTaDA has created an Accessibility Lab. In this lab, there are six laptops available to use that have Adobe Acrobat Pro installed on them to assist in making accessible PDFs. Two of the laptops also have JAWS screen reader software installed on them. JAWS can be used to hear how content created reads for persons with visual impairments.
The Accessibility Lab is located in O'Kelly Hall, Room 301. Instructional Designers and Academic Technologists are available throughout the day to meet with faculty and staff to provide guidance with creating accessible content.
JAWS
Job Access With Speech, is a popular screen reader, developed for computer users whose vision loss prevents them from seeing screen content or navigating with a mouse. JAWS provides speech and Braille output for the most popular computer applications on your PC.
UND currently has 20 copies of the JAWS 22 license. Users can submit a ticket to UIT or call 7-2222 to request a license.