TSBVI Coffee Hour: Google Classroom Accessibility 03/11/2021 >> Kate Borg: Good afternoon, everyone. We'll get started in a couple of minutes. Let folks come in. While you're all coming in, please go ahead and, in your chat, make sure that the little drop down menu is set to "all panelists and attendees" so as you make comments or ask questions, everyone can see that in the chat. The link to the handout is also there, if you want to go ahead and open that up. And as you're coming in, if you want to let us know where you're joining from, that would be great. We'll get started in just about one minute. Hi, Karen in Waco. Again, as you're coming in and getting settled, please in your chat box make sure that drop down menu says "all panelists and attendees". All right. We'll get started. So that Nina has plenty of time. I know we'll have some folks trickle in, in the next few minutes. But welcome, everyone. Excited about today's Coffee Hour. We're going to, as you can see on the screen, talk about Google Classroom and accessibility. If you have a question or a comment, during the time that Nina is talking, please post that in the chat box. Again, make sure that little drop down menu says "all panelists and attendees" so that everyone can see that. This is -- if you've been with us for symposium this last couple of weeks, we will keep the chat open. Okay? So you don't need to use the Q&A box. Go ahead and put it in the chat. Your microphones and cameras are automatically muted so you don't need to worry about that. You're not going to suddenly pop on if -- you just don't need to worry about that. The handout for today's session has been shared in the chat for immediate viewing and then will also be available for later viewing along with the recording of this Coffee Hour session and our previous Coffee Hour sessions. You can find that on our chowf paining TSBVI.edu/Coffee Hour. It says visit the new Coffee Hour archives. There's a link that you can find all of the recordings, handouts, transcripts and chat from all of our Coffee Hour sessions. Just as a reminder, to attain your CEUs or your professional development credit you will respond to the evaluation that will be emailed to you after our session from the registration website ESC works. I will give you a code at the end that you will enter into the evaluation and you will get that CEU certificate automatically. No opening code, just a closing code. We will start the presentation at 12 -- we will stop the presentation at 12:55 Central Time to give that code and some announcements. Without further ado, I'm really excited to introduce to you Nina Wibbenmeyer who is part of TSBVI's short-term programs. Nina, take it away. >> Nina: Thank you, Kate. So happy to be here, everybody. Yes. My name is Nina and I work in the short-term programs department. And just to share a little bit about what we do, we offer short courses to students around the state of Texas, typically those short courses are either a week-long or weekend-long program. During our week-long programs, we typically cover a variety of technology and math topics. And during our weekend programs, we cover Expanded Core Curriculum topics. So, for instance, later this month I'm going to be doing an outdoor challenge class, which unfortunately for us this year is not going to be in person. Normally we take kids out to a place called candlelight ranch, we go zip lining, we have a campout. This year it will be modified but next year we will be back in person. We also offer prom for students around the states so they can come and attend the TSBVI prom, that's in May. Then we offer cooking classes, science classes, all kinds of different short courses. And those are listed on our short-term programs website, which is housed on the TSBVI main site. So we also offer what we call individualized instruction, those courses are designed to be conducted via Zoom. They are synchronous classes and one-on-one sessions. We do these anywhere from six to 18 sessions, depending on the need of the student. And that's something that we've done a lot of this year, especially, because we've been in these strange pandemic times and we're doing a lot of -- of Zoom courses. We also offer asynchronous distance learning courses and those are all built into Google Classroom and those are classes that students can sign up for and take and just have some support from their TVI if they need. And take at their own pace. Those also cover technology, primarily, and math topics. We do also have a book club series that we've run this year. And I think we're starting a writer's workshop. One of my colleagues is starting that soon. So it's quite a variety of things that we offer during the school year. Then in the summer, we are in charge of summer school here at TSBVI. During a regular in-person year, we serve almost 400 students across the state of Texas. So we are looking forward to doing some in-person classes this year and the referrals for summer school do close this Friday. So if you are considering, if you are in the state of Texas and you are considering referring a student to summer school, FYI, you have a couple more days to do it. We serve six through 21, all ages and abilities in the summer. So what I typically teach in short-term programs is I primarily during our access classes, I typically teach students how to use JAWS on their laptop. So today, as far as goals for the presentation, I wanted to focus on how Google Classroom functions with JAWS because it's a program that many, many of our students are using right now, it's a very popular screen reader for the PC laptop and that's also what we typically get the most referrals for in our department. Occasionally, over the years that I've been in short-term programs and I've been in short-term programs for almost 14 years, we have received several times for -- received referrals for Mac laptops with VoiceOver, some Braille note taker requests and then VoiceOver for iPad or iPhone, but our large bulk of referrals are for JAWS on the laptop. That's what I'm focusing on that today. So during this presentation, I'm going to be discussing some helpful prerequisites before students actually attempt to navigate Google Classroom. I will cover basic JAWS navigation strategies and I'm also going to show you ways that students can navigate Google Classroom with JAWS. I have prepared a handout, as Kate said, so feel free to follow along. It is more expansive than what I have in my slides. So it will give you some actual commands and other resources and strategies in there, so I highly recommend that you -- that you take a look at that handout if you can. Before we get started, I would like to take a poll. I'm curious to know what is your comfort level with the JAWS screen reader. So, Lowell, I think you're going to -- yeah. And then, Kate, if you are able to see results, can you share? >> Kate Borg: Yeah, I'm not seeing them yet. >> Nina: I'm not seeing them, so I just want to -- there we go. Just took a minutes to pop up, okay. So comfort level with JAWS. So far ... I'm seeing kind of a mix, a range from not comfortable to comfortable. Not very many very comfortables. Fair enough. Comfort level with Google Classroom, quite a few of you are very comfortable or comfortable with Google Classroom and then a few of you, looks like, not quite as comfortable. Okay. Kind of a mix here. All right. Okay. So the million dollar question, is Google Classroom accessible? So the short answer is, yes. It is accessible with JAWS. However, if teachers upload assignments that are not prepared with accessibility in mind, I'll talk more about this, students using screen readers may encounter difficulties easily accessing those assignments. So while the Google Classroom structure may be accessible, assignments may or may not be. Depending on the way that they were designed. So more on that to come. First, I would like to talk about some helpful prerequisite skills that students benefit from before learning how to use Google Classroom, as many of you know, Google Classroom is a web-based platform. So it's helpful for students to have some knowledge of how to use JAWS to navigate the internet, including having an understanding of what web elements are, and I'll discuss that a little bit further in the next section. So even just having one or two prerequisite lessons will increase students' understanding of navigating the web and by extension Google classroom. It's also very helpful for students to have keyboarding skills and understand how to execute keyboard commands. So for those of you who don't know what I mean by keyboard command, it's when you use a modifier key such as alt or control or shift or caps lock. When you use one of those keys, with either an alphabet, number or a function key and the function keys are those at that top row of your keyboard, it's when you -- do one of those combinations of a modifier key and one of those other keys to execute or make an action happen on your computer. So one that a lot of people are familiar with is -- is control plus C to copy. A lot of folks with vision, without vision, use that one a lot in Microsoft Word or to copy and paste something from one area to another. So that's an example of a keyboard command. A lot of the keyboard commands that students end up learning when they learn JAWS are actually just windows keyboard commands that we can use whether we have JAWS running or not. So if students have a Braille display, then they don't necessarily need excellent keyboarding skills. For those of you unfamiliar with what a Braille display it. It's a device that you can sync with your computer that displays Braille characters when screen readers navigate the screen. An example is the focus 40 blue, which Freedom Scientific is the company that produces that one. And there's also the Bralliant which Human Ware sells. Even if a student has a Braille display I will say having knowledge of the keyboard is important, just in case the Braille display malfunctions and students need to rely on the keyboard. So it is helpful for students to program their typing skills as part of their technology instruction, but the way that the Braille display can help is that students can bypass it initially to get those computer concepts while they are building their Braille skills and then they can add in that piece, the typing and keyboarding as they continue down their technology journey. So for some ideas on how to help students practice keyboarding, I have provided some typing programs -- in the resources at the end of the handout. Next I'm going to talk about JAWS internet navigation strategies. Students who use screen readers benefit from very explicit instruction in web elements and what web accessibility means so they can employ the most efficient strategies to navigate web pages. First, what are web elements exactly? So web elements are used to create the structure of a web page and are used to present information in different ways. As visual users that some of us may be, we may not be aware of what all of these items are called. Most of us are aware of major elements like links and headings. But there are a lot of other web elements that may not be -- we may not know the words for them because we're not listening to a screen reader read them to us. As a screen reader navigates a web page, however, they're going to use specific navigation keys in order to use by those elements more efficiently. Some common web elements include links, headings, lists, tables, images, regions, and then there are form controls, like edit boxes and buttons. So, for instance, when you go to the Google search page, that area where you enter your search item, that's called an edit box. And kids will encounter those all over the web. As I just mentioned in a previous slide JAWS provides easy to use commands called navigation quick keys, so that users can easily move from one web element to another such as H for headings or E for edit boxes. JAWS also provides a way to compile a list of elements, that makes it easier for student to navigate. For instance JAWS key plus F7 is a links list, all of the links on a particular unique web page. Also a helpful cool called JAWS find that allows you to search for a particular word or phrase on a web page. What I'm going to do now is turn JAWS on, I'm going to just show you a little bit about how this works on a website. I have chosen this website time for kids because I think this is a fun way for kids to get current events and you can choose different age levels and it's pretty accessible with JAWS. That's another reason why I picked it. Okay. So here I am on time for kids and so let's say I want to navigate by heading to kind of figure out what are my headings on this page, what are the different article categories and articles. So I'm just going to press H right now. >> Articles heading Level 1. >> Nina: So I heard articles heading Level 1. JAWS very clearly told me that is a heading. So I'm going to move to the next one. >> Editions heading Level 2. Science heading Level 3 link. >> Nina: Now I heard science heading Level 3, so science sounds like a category of articles. >> Observing the outdoors heading Level 2 link. >> Nina: Observing the outdoors, that is the title of an article. And if I press H again, I'm off heading Level 3 link. >> Nina: Notice that I move past that article and I jump to the next heading. So something that I notice with students is -- they want to keep using that same quickie to -- then they accidentally might jump past an article. If the student wants to hear or listen to the article, and I'm going to move backwards by pressing shift and H to go back to that article. >> Observing the outdoors heading Level 2 link. >> Nina: Okay. In this case I would remind the student that once they hear the heading that they are interested in learning more about, they can use their down arrow to get a preview of the article. So down arrow is actually going to take me to content underneath that heading. >> March 19th, 2021, link look outside. What do you see? Are there birds in the trees or bugs crawling around? What can you discover about these creatures by watching them? With -- >> Nina: Okay. Then if I want to open this article, then I'm going to press enter. >> Enter. Time for kids vertical bar articles, link look outside -- >> Nina: That's how I actually will jump to what I call the main -- the meat of what I'm looking for. I really want to listen to the article. So then once I'm on this page, I can then again press heading. >> Observing the outdoors heading Level 1. >> Nina: But then after that, I will stop -- I will press my down arrow if I want to get to the content of the article. >> Look outside -- [JAWS]. >> Nina: All right. That is a little bit about how to navigate by heading. I'm going to go back by pressing alt and left arrow. >> Look outside, back, time for kids vertical bar articles -- [JAWS]. >> Nina: All right. Now let's say I want to navigate to that search for articles, which visually we can see there's a little search for articles section. If I want to get to that, that's an edit box. I'm going to press E for edit box. >> Wrapping to top, search for articles edit. >> Nina: In order to jump into that edit box and start typing my search item, I press enter and JAWS will make a little sound to let me know that I've entered it. >> Enter, main region -- >> Nina: Then I type my search item and press enter, it would activate the search. If I want to back out of that edit box, I can press escape. I heard that little -- that little beep again. That's kind of my you're in an edit box, you're out of an edit box mode that JAWS is clueing me into. Lastly, to demonstrate how that JAWS find feature works, if I press control plus F. >> Virtual find, JAWS find dialogue, find what -- >> Nina: Okay. It opens up this -- this is called a dialogue box, which is such a funny term, but that's what the screen reader reads. So the way I describe this to kids is this is a dialogue is like having a conversation and right now you are in a dialogue box, which means that you are having a conversation with the computer. So that's how I describe that little -- that term to students. Okay. So now let's say I want to find out -- if there's anything about the weather on here. [JAWS] >> I can type in weather and press enter. >> Weather enter, type and text, link wants us to remember the story of how -- >> Nina: Weather the pandemic. Okay. Didn't take me to the category weather, because I don't think there is one. But it did take me to the word "Weather". So this is kind of a helpful tool when searching for very specific phrases or words. So let's see. United States. Category here. Okay. [JAWS in background]. >> United States. Okay. >> JAWS home manual, Coffee Hour -- >> Nina: Let me turn off my JAWS for a moment. Okay. So that's just a little snippet, a little taste of internet navigation with JAWS. The next thing just to close this piece out. I want to just say a couple of things about the term web accessibility. This is a term that I teach my students as part of a self advocacy lesson. So web accessibility means that websites, tools and technologies are designed and developed so that people with disabilities can use them. It also means that people with disabilities can perceive, understand, navigate and interact with the web as well as contribute to the web. So if a user is on a website and a screen reader commands and strategies such as the ones that I just demonstrated aren't working, there's a possibility that the website may not be accessible. It could also mean that the student needs additional instruction in how to navigate that website or use the tool. That's just an important thing to note that -- that students really need to understand that -- that if their tricks and strategies aren't working, we don't want them to get super frustrated. It's not always their fault, right? Sometimes the websites just aren't accessible. Many of them aren't. However, that has improved greatly over the past few years. I have noticed many mother websites are more accessible than they used to be. All of this brings me to Google Classroom, I'm going to spend the next chunk of time demonstrating how to do things in Google Classroom, if you are signed into Google, finding your class when you are on the cloorm dashboard, navigating between stream, schos and people, navigating to post and stream, navigating to topics in class work, navigating to opening assignments and we will talk about what kinds of assignments are generally accessible. So I'm going to navigate. Over to -- Google Classroom. And then I'm going to turn my JAWS back on. Okay. So I am already on my classroom dashboard. If you have a student that needs to navigate to Google Classroom, you can open up a new web window, or if you are already in a web browser you can open up a new web tab. The command is control T. And I'm already in my -- so then I would just type in -- classroom, Google.com, enter. [JAWS]. >> Nina: All right. And so that's -- most students that have their own laptop are probably already going to be assigned into Google because they are accessing their classes a lot or their gmail. If for some reason they are not signed in, you can sign in through gmail or just -- if you go to classroom.google.com, students can get to their dashboard this way. There are other ways to get to Google Classroom like through a joint class link if they get one from their teacher in the email or through the Google apps menu. I'm going to go ahead and close this tab. And go back to this main -- this main dashboard. Okay. So there are a couple of ways to find your class when you are on the classroom dashboard. The first way that I'm going to show you is by going to something called the main menu, which visually there's nothing on here that says main menu. This is something that students will listen for. So the very first thing that I need to do is make sure that I am at the top of the page. So to get there, I'm going to press control and home. >> Classes. >> Nina: Notice I heard classes. That's -- visually if you are tracking visually, you may notice that there's like a red box over three horizontal lines. And then I'm going to press the down arrow and listen for main menu. >> Navigation region. Main menu intob. >> Nina: Okay. So I heard main menu, then I'll press enter to open it. >> Enter, menu, classes, one of 23, to move through items press up our down arrow. >> Nina: Okay. Notice that JAWS gives you helpful information. He says that you are on classes, you're in a list of one through 23 items, so I've got 23 different options in here or classes. Some of them are classes and others are options. Then it also told me how to navigate it. He said you can use your up or down arrow. Something I also remind student, if they are unsure how to navigate an area, go ahead and listen very carefully to JAWS. Because most of the times JAWS is going to tell you what to do next. I'm now going to press my down arrow. Before I actually go to the classroom, I want to show you one area in here helpful to show students. All the way at the bottom, I'm going to move kind of quickly through these classes because I have a lot of classes in here. [JAWS]. >> Nina: Okay, I'm at the bottom, JAWS told me that you are at 23 of 23, at the bottom, and he said the name of the item which is settings. So then I press enter to go to the settings page. >> Enter, leaving menus, help and feedback button -- >> Nina: Now once I'm on my settings page, I'm again, what's really nice about Google Classroom, a lot of these are formatted with headings, so I can use that H for heading to get to some of these major categories. So I'll press H. >> Profile level heading 2. >> Nina: Okay. Let's say I don't want to change anything there. Maybe I want to go to the notifications category. >> Account settings heading Level 3, change name heading Level 3, notifications heading Level 2. >> Nina: Okay, I've been pressing H and I got to notifications. Here's where I need to stop and say, okay, I heard the heading I want, now I need to use a different strategy to navigate. The strategic that I'm going to use is I'm going to press my down arrow. >> Heading Level 3 email. Receive email notifications. >> Nina: Okay. Let's say I want to make sure that I'm getting email notifications from my classes, then I want to go here and make sure this is checked. >> Receive email notifications check box checked. >> Nina: Okay. Now I'm at the option to check or uncheck it. The way that you do that is you press your space bar. Right now it's checked. I'm going to press my space bar. >> Space, main region, receive email notifications check box checked unavailable. To clear -- >> Nina: It told me now unavailable, unchecked, so I'm not going to receive any notifications. But I really do that turned on. >> Space, check unavailable. Updating. >> Nina: Okay. Then -- other categories in here, so now -- that of the just H and down arrow, that's all that I really used so far. I'm going to press H again to get to the next category. >> Comments heading Level 3 sneens comments. >> Classes you're enrolled in, heading Level 3. >> Nina: Classes you're enrolled in. Let's say that I want to make sure that I'm going to get notifications for work that's been returned to me. So then I hear the heading I want and again I'm going to press my down arrow to get there. >> Work and other posts from teachers, work and other posts from teachers check box checked, returned work and grades from your teachers, returned work and grades from your teachers, check box checked. >> Nina: That's just a little bit about the settings. If you have students that are new to Google Classroom and don't know about this section and maybe they are not getting notifications or maybe in some cases they might want those notifications turned off. This is the area where they can come to and they can select notifications per unique class. So it's not just global settings they can change here. This is a good thing to show them. Okay. So if I want to jump back up to my main menu, again I'm going to press control and home. >> Classroom settings. >> Nina: Then I'll down arrow until I hear that main menu. >> Navigation region, main menu button, enter, menu, classes, one of 23. >> Nina: Okay. Puts me back at the top, now I'm going to listen for that Google Classroom accessibility Coffee Hour class. >> Calendar to review, Google Classroom and accessibility hour. >> That's what I want, I will press enter. >> Enter, leaving menus ... >> Nina: Now I'm in the class. Before I dive into this, I want to show you one other way that you can get to this class. So I'm going to alt and left arrow, which takes you back by web page. Going to make me headings first [indiscernible] back at my dashboard. Another way that kids can get to classes is just by pressing H and they are going to get to the headings of their classroom. >> Okay. >> Introduction to Braille and tactile graphic production ... >> Nina: All right. Notice I pressed H once it took me to that first class, pressing H again took me to the second class. And if I want to move backwards, again, I can press shift with that navigation key H. >> Google Classroom and accessibility -- >> Nina: Takes me back to that class. Then I will press enter to open it. >> Enter. Main region, Google Classroom and accessibility Coffee Hour. >> Nina: Okay. I'm going to show you how to navigate stream. Before I do that, I'm going to show you how to navigate between the different pages, stream, Classwork and people. Okay. So if I press -- go to the top of the screen by pressing control and home. >> Google Classroom and accessibility Coffee Hour. >> Nina: I can get to those options by then pressing the tab key, tab. >> JAWS. >> Okay. Then I can press enter on Classwork. >> Enter, help and feedback button menu ... >> Nina: Okay. That's one way that I can get there. I'm going to go back to the other page. >> Back. Main region. >> Nina: Press alt and left arrow to get there. So another way that I can do this is I can pull up a list of links on the page. So when I pull up a list of links I'm pressing my JAWS key, which in my case is caps lock for some students it might be the insert key depending on their JAWS settings. But I'm going to press caps lock and F7, function 7. >> Links list dialogue ... >> Nina: Okay. So again he lets you know how many links are in this links list. Tells you which one that you are on and then how to navigate. So I can press my down arrow. >> Stream [indiscernible] Classwork three of nine. >> Nina: Or this is another cool little trick. Let's say that -- you can use something called first letter navigation which means navigating to the items that start with a certain letter. So if I'm looking for class work, what this means is I'll press C and what that will do is it will jump to everything that starts with a C. And that will get me to my target faster and then, again, I would just press enter for this links list. And it would take me to the class work page. So that -- those are a couple of ways to move between those pages. Stream, Classwork People, you will notice I have grades in here because I'm in a teacher account. Students typically wouldn't that that option. So I'm going to be back to my stream by pressing at and left arrow. >> Main region -- >> And I do want to say that teachers are going to -- they are going to have different ways that they set up their classroom and it's entirely possible that a student might have seven different Google Classroom courses and each one of those may be designed differently, which is unfortunate for a screen reader user because you've got to get a little bit used to the diversity in the teacher architecture, if you will. So what we recommend or what we do with our classroom courses is we typically don't utilize the Stream very much because the Classwork offers such a nice way to organize. You can organize your lessons into topics and then have your materials nested underneath the topics. And it's just a really great way to organize Classwork. As we know in the real world teachers are going to use both Stream and Classwork, so students are going to need to know how to navigate all of it. So in Stream, what's nice is, again, you get to press H for heading. >> Announcement: Welcome to the Google classroom -- >> Nina: What that did, again, visually we can't see the word announcement. But the screen reader recognizes this as announcement. All I did was press H. If I press H again, I'll jump past the content and it will take me to the next post. >> Material: JAWS and Google ... >> Nina: Okay. There's another heading. >> Assignment Google Classroom -- >> Nina: Then there is the last. I think that was an assignment. I'm going to jump back up by heading because I want to marry that initial announcement. So then I'll press shift and H to move backwards. >> Material announcement -- >> Nina: Now if I want to hear what the teacher actually posted I'll use my down arrow. >> Nina Wibbenmeyer created Feb 12 ... Please go to the class work tab to locate -- >> Nina: There I have given instructions, let's say that I'm asking for a student to post something and it's directly underneath here. I can just press my down arrow. >> Add class comment. >> There I'm at the add class comment, edit box, I'll press enter. And then -- I can start -- if I want to post it, again, I can either press tab or down arrow. >> Typing -- >> Nina: And post it. Okay. So that is how I can utilize that post feature. And if I am at the top of my screen, I'm going to go ahead and just quickly delete that, if I want to jump to that edit box, I'm going to press E. >> Add class comment -- >> Nina: It jumps there. Okay? So again notice that I have really primarily been using H, down arrow, and E for edit box so far. And occasionally I have used tab. All right. Then I'm going to skip over now to the Classwork section. I'm going to use that links list, so I'm going to press my JAWS key and F7. >> Links list dialogue ... >> Nina: Then press C for Classwork to get me there faster. And enter. . The reason I like the links list because there are fewer things that the kids will have to move through, fewer actions to do before they get to the Classwork page. If you go to the top of the screen and press tab, I think it's like seven steps before you get to Classwork and then with the links list it's like three. So it cuts down the amount of time. It's just -- it helps them be more efficient. Okay. So when I'm on my Classwork page, again, I'm going to utilize that fantastic H for headings and that's going to take me to my topic headings. >> Google Classroom and accessibility activities heading Level 2. >> Nina: That's the first one. >> Google Classroom and accessibility heading Level 2. >> If I press it again, wrapping to top ... >> JAWS told me wrapping to the top, so that's it for headings, we are done. So then I know, okay, there's two major headings on here. And I'm going to explore that first one. >> Google Classroom and accessibility activities heading Level 2. >> Nina: Then I need to press my trustee down arrow. >> Link Google Classroom and accessibility activities, topic option button ... list of one items nesting Level 1. Expand Google Classroom and accessibility button collapsed. >> Nina: I'm not sure if you heard, but JAWS said the word expand, then the name, Google Classroom accessibility agenda. This is what I want in order to get to my assignment. I want to expand this. I'm going to press enter to do that. >> Enter, list, topic Google Classroom and accessibility activities region list ... >> Nina: From here I can use my down arrow to get to that assignment. [JAWS]. All right. Here we are. Finally at the assignment. This is a Google Doc. I feel probably there could be a whole separate presentation on Google Docs. What I want to say very briefly, I realize there might be questions about this, is that Google Docs and Google Drive function a little bit different than Google Classroom. So notice how my H and my E for edit box, those things worked really nicely, my JAWS commands were kind of seamless in Google Classroom. When I enter the Google Docs environment it's a little bit more complicated. There are some ways to use some JAWS commands. But you have to turn on something called a layered feature. So a lot of the time kids are actually going to be using Google command when they are in Google Drive. In order to function on the internet, JAWS utilizes something called a virtual PC cursor. I'm sorry if this is in the weeds. It's a lot. I totally get it. I'm happy to follow-up if -- for anybody that wants more explanation about all of this. So when that virtual cursor is activated, that's when you can use JAWS commands. Because they don't play very nicely in Google Docs, you have to make sure that feature is turned off. With the newer versions of JAWS, once you enter the Google environment like a Google Doc, if you have done it a couple of times and then JAWS will recognize. So it becomes easier for students to toggle between the -- the virtual internet experience and then the Google experience. And do not ask me why Google Classroom functions differently. I'm not sure. This is how Google, the Google folks have decided to convey their products. So when I go into Google Docs, I'm going to let JAWS talk so you can hear a couple of things. What you are going to listen for what you want to hear is screen reader support enabled and Braille support enabled and virtual PC cursor turned off. If those things stars are aligned then your student is going to be able to work in Google Docs. >> Google Classroom and accessibility agenda and resources-Google Docs. Edit. Use virtual PC cursor off. Document content. Document content [indiscernible] type and text. Screen reader support enabled. Screen reader support enabled. >> Nina: Okay. I didn't hear Braille support enabled. I don't need it right now. If a student has a Braille display attached, that does need to be on. But I heard the main one which is screen reader support enabled. And for those of you who are visual learners, you will notice in the toolbar there's an accessibility menu. That's not normally there if you don't have the need to have a screen reader on. So that's a feature that -- that works with JAWS. Okay. So now if I press my down arrow. You will notice that I can hear the things that are in this Google Doc. >> Google Classroom and accessibility. New line. Presented by, link start Nina Wibbenmeyer, link -- >> Nina: Okay. So it is accessible. There is a learning curve. Those are the main things that I want to share. Google Docs are accessible. It's just we need to teach our students some strategies. Okay. Let's say I'm finished with my work in here and I want to go back to that main screen. What I typically teach students is just to go ahead and close this tab by pressing control W. >> Close document window. >> Nina: Then you are back in your main Classwork page. Now I want to jump -- I'm running short on time, I'm going to move a little bit quickly here. I'm going to press H to get to that next area. >> Again, I will press down area until I hear the option to expand it so I can access my assignment. >> Link Google Classroom topic options button ... >> Nina: I pressed enter. Okay. So the other assignment that students get a lot of are PDF files. Again that could be a whole separate presentation. I'll talk a little bit more about PDF after I show this. I will go down to that. [JAWS]. Now I'm going to open it. >> Enter, attachment, PDF and JAWS in Google Classroom. >> Opened in a thing called a virtual viewer. JAWS cannot read it this way. It's not designed to read in this little viewer system. So there are a couple of ways that I can deal with the PDF. If the PDF is designed with accessibility in mind, which means it wasn't just like a picture that somebody took and scanned or whatever. If it's not just an image like obviously Freedom Scientific they are going to create their accessibly. If it is an accessible PDF, one way that I can open it is by opening it in a Google Doc. So I'm going to tab until I get to that open with option. [JAWS]. >> Nina: All right. I pressed space bar to open my menu, I'm going to down air to get to Google Docs. >> Menu, copy, Google Docs, enter, leaving menus, Google Docs, Google Docs, page has no links, Google Docs, to get missing image descriptions open -- >> Nina: Okay. >> Screen reader support enabled. >> Nina: Now, this is -- always seems like a little bit of a miracle to me because PDFs have been challenging for so long. But -- >> Introduction ... >> Nina: JAWS is reading it, it's amazing. I don't know if this excites anybody else as much as it does me. This is actually a fairly recent discovery and I think because the newer versions of JAWS, the most recent one is JAWS 2021 they have come out with better PDF capabilities. So I can now open it up in a Google Doc and it's going to read it to me. So again I'm going to close this tab to get back. [JAWS]. And then I want to show -- one other trick in here. Let's say it's a PDF that's not that accessible. So then the best tool is to have Adobe Reader installed on the student's laptop and then you have to download your PDF and open it up in that program. Then JAWS can do some wonderful things even if it's a scanned PDF. However, this is another trick that I learned recently, that's quite helpful, is you will see there's not like any parent way to download this. That looks obvious. So -- that little -- option is kind of hidden in this -- [indiscernible] menu so if I press my space bar, and then -- go to the open a new window option. >> Enter. Leaving menus. Loading JAWS and -- >> Nina: Now for those of you using your vision, there is now a download icon. To get to it, I'm going to press tab. >> Fit to widths button: Add a comment, print button, download button. >> Nina: There is a download button, that's how to download your PDF from Google Classroom. I know that's fast, but I do see that the time is drawing near. I'm going to close this tab. [JAWS]. Button -- [indiscernible] on my page. Okay, that's a little bit about how to navigate classroom. Notice that I primarily used H for heading and then that down arrow. I used enter to activate. And I occasionally used E for edit box, also used that links list. So not very many commands that a student has to learn to navigate Google Classroom. They are going to need support when opening some of those assignments. And I realize that there are going to be other assignments that teachers post as well. It's just Google Docs is a very common one as our PDF. So that's why I chose to cover those. I'm going to turn my JAWS off. Navigate back to my presentation. Okay. So just to chat a little bit more about less accessible classroom assignments. So the first thing that I always recommend, if something isn't working, is just double check that all of the software is as up to date as it can be and make sure that your browsers are up to date. What I mean by that if a student has JAWS 2019 on their computer a lot of this may not work for this. That's two years old. Every time JAWS comes out with a new version of JAWS, I highly recommend that you upgrade the student to that latest version. Because there's a reason that they come out with new versions and that makes it easier for students to navigate the latest -- the latest Google environment and -- and internet environment. So -- so that's the first thing that I would do, then periodically throughout the year JAWS always comes out with updates to whatever their latest version is. That's another helpful thing to do is just make sure that everything is updated. Then, again, to talk about PDF files, so I showed you that this was a very accessible PDF file. Not all of them are going to be. So I have had success downloading PDF files and then running them in the Adobe acrobat system, so without getting too deep into this, JAWS has expanded its optical character recognition or OCR capabilities. So even images can now be read in aid dobie act cross bat, described images. That's really helpful, they have come a long way with that. Adobe Acrobat. There are a lot of educational apps out there being used. If a teacher links an assignment to an app that truly is not accessible, it doesn't really matter if Google Classroom is accessible, the student isn't going to be able to complete that assignment. However some apps do work better on different devices. iPad some students say Braille note takers work well for certain apps where JAWS and a PC does not. In some cases it actually might depend on the web browser being used, depending on the coding of the app and who created it. So essentially, the ability for our students to be successful when navigating all of these web-based tools is really going to depend on their ability to troubleshoot and access resources. And all of that reinforces the need for us to provide our students with multiple tools in their toolbox including the ability to be independent and resourceful. It also reinforces the need to advocate for our students and help gen ed teachers and administrators understand what web accessibility means and how a lack of web accessibility impacts our students. All right. So just to cover a couple of the resources that are also in your handout, Freedom Scientific has come up with a new training page in the past couple of years that I feel is pretty comprehensive and pretty helpful. What I especially like are the YouTube video tutorials because they are really short, so the other day I needed a refresher on how to navigate the Google calendar with JAWS. And I found about five videos that were six minutes or less that just kind of covered the main points that kids would need to know. So those are really helpful. They also have much more extensive training that you can access there. And then in the fall, for those of you that have heard of the APH virtual Excel academy, that's a fabulous webinar resource. There was -- there's a woman named. [indiscernible] she did something in the fall that I thought was really helpful. You would be able to access that through the APH virtual Excel academy archived webinars, kind of like here in outreach, we archive all of the Coffee Hours, if you want more of a deep dive than what I was able to do today, that will be another good webinar for you. Elizabeth Whitaker. Then there's the Perkins School for the Blind, Paths to Technology site is an excellent resource for all kinds of technology. And then I've got several links to different typing programs, many of them online, that are helpful for students. And lastly, web accessibility, if you are trying to explain that concept to either your students or to gen ed teachers and administrators, WebAIM is a fabulous website that is a really good introduction to web accessibility and is a good one to share with those that you're working with. And that -- that concludes my presentation. I hope it wasn't too fast and furious. I'll open it up to questions now. >> Kate Borg: If anybody has any questions, we have maybe like one or two minutes we can -- please go ahead and put those in the chat. Thank you I'm finding this extremely helpful. For those attendees who may have students still learning commands, you may find the JAWS song helpful. She shares the link to the JAWS song, at the TSBVI media library, yeah, it's great. [Laughter]. It is great. What I will do, I will keep an eye on the chat and see if any questions pop in while I give closing announcements, I will give that closing code to y'all. Please take note that we will not have a session on Monday, the 15th. But we will have a session Thursday the 18th . Using an active learning approach with infants and toddlers. That's going to be with Charlotte Cushman and Kate Hurst. This is part -- as you register for that, you will notice this is part of the western regional early intervention conference. So it will be a two-hour session that will start at 11 Central Time instead of noon Central Time. So please make sure to note that. Then there will be no session on the 22nd because of the deafblind symposium, but we will be back that next Thursday on the 25th with Kerry who will do the advanced level of VoiceOver on iOS. We also -- because of inclement weather when we had no power or water or internet, we had to cancel the OT review of sensory processing session. But that has been rescheduled for May 24th. That's going to be with Lisa Ri Dr kets. I know many of you have registered for that. That will be open again. Let me give you the closing code. 031121. And also, take note I put the Coffee Hour website there. So that you can find a recording this, up in a few days. And then also all of the resources and recordings from our previous sessions. We also will include a transcript and -- in the -- and the chat as well. Please don't lose track of that closing code when you get the evaluation for the session, you will enter that in and get your CEU certificate. I do want to make note of and share one last thing. April 22nd, and 23rd, from 1:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. each day is the mental health symposium for students who are deaf and deafblind. This is hosted by Texas mental health initiative for deaf youth as well as Texas School for the Deaf and Texas School for the Blind. I will put that information in the chat if you are interested in registering for that as well. All right, thank you, everyone. Let me give you that code one more time. No opening code. Only this one closing code. That is 031121. All right? Thanks, everyone. Happy Friday eve. [Laughter]. [End of webinar]. Worgz thanks so much, Nina. >> Nina: My pleasure.