TRANSCRIPT
Touch, Listen, Learn: An Introduction to iOS VoiceOver
8/31/26 

>>Kathi: Today we're gonna talk about VoiceOver, Touch, Listen, and Learn. We're gonna do an intro to VoiceOver, and I'll say that this is gonna be very, very much an intro. Um, so I'm curious to know, um And, you know, I have slides here, but I know that we will, um you know, there may be room for some questions, and also because we'll archive the chat, we can offer support after the fact if we don't address everything, but I'm curious to know what brought you guys here today. Um, if you want to share in the chat a little bit about. like, where your students are with VoiceOver, if you have a student who you think you might start using VoiceOver with, and so you want to get a little bit of a of a foundational knowledge, or just kind of what what you're here to hopefully learn today. Um While you're putting that in the chat, I'll just share a little bit about what we're going to talk about today. We're going to talk about some of the relevant terminology that you and your student need to know prior to getting on VoiceOver. We're going to talk about some different ways to enable VoiceOver on your iPhone or iPad. or your iPod Touch. We'll talk about the gestures that are required. And infused into all of this, there will be some kind of teaching tips or strategies to consider. And then at the end, we'll talk a little bit about resources. And within those resources, I wanted to, um, point out that I'll share an assessment that, um, was shared with us through, um, from Annie Biondi in short-term programs, and so I don't know if any of you guys are doing individualized instruction with her, but she's, uh, been teaching VoiceOver over there recently. And, um, and so she graciously shared, uh, the, uh, the kind of the assessment that she uses when she teaches, like, a week-long class. And it's really, really nicely scaffolded for student learning. And then she also shared another resource that has information about the different gestures and commands and things that you can. ways you can use VoiceOver. So, I'm excited to share this stuff with you today, and I hope that everyone has something they can take and use with them tomorrow. 

>>Kaycee: Perfect, we have it. 

>>Kathi: Casey, did anything come in yet just to get a feel for the audience? 

>>Kaycee: Yeah, absolutely. We've got, we've got, um, a few folks who are just here for, kind of, general knowledge. Um, Jill shared she hasn't taught it in quite a while, so she's wanting a refresher. Um, Tyler is interested in looking at, um, alternatives, since phones are, quote-unquote, outlawed. Um, looking at how to support that. Um, and then, um, a few people, this is brand new, too. They don't know VoiceOver at all, and so they're, um, wanting to help their help learn so that they can help their students learn. And yeah, I think that covers what we've got so far. 

>>Kathi: Well, that's good. So everybody honestly came in here for an intro, it sounds like, and we don't have to kick anybody out because they know more than the presenter. So this is great. We're all on the same page. All right. 

>>Kaycee: Perfect! 

>>Kathi: So, we'll start with, um we'll start with that relevant terminology, and I will say, too, to the person who was talking about phones being outlawed, yeah, I, you know, I'm with you on that. I know that that has caused, um, a lot of difficulty for some of our students, and. I know that some places they've worked, worked to get that, you know, in their accommodations and things. But if anyone, that's not something that I have a ton of experience with, to be quite honest. And so if there's anyone in the chat who is has. navigated that that process in their district, or or navigated, um, kids who have typically relied on phones for accessibility, um, I'd be I'd love for you guys to share in the chat and support each other. Um, you know, I don't know, some schools are still, you know, their kids are still using iPads in the younger grades. Um, and so I don't know if that is something that could be, like, an alternative option, because a lot of this stuff, VoiceOver would work on an iPad as well. Um, and so when we're talking about it today, we'll kind of be talking about that, um, that as well. All right. So we're going to break down this terminology into some kind of different sections. And I think that this is very, very basic for our students. And so I like this because this is you can actually take this and start, you know, with really young kids, or with older kids who are new to having a device. So, some of the core physical and screen, um, and screen concepts device, uh, terminology are includes iOS device, which would be an iPad, iPhone, or an Apple Watch. Um, iPod Touch could also be a part of that. The home button, um, so, you know, some of the newer phones now don't have a physical home button. Um, they have a virtual home button that's used to kind of return to the main. the main screen. Um, and so, you know, that's one way to kind of help. That's what we one of the things that we kind of consider for, um. you know, like a safety net, like that escape button on your computer, you know? And so, um So, you know, um orientation of the device. How do you have it laid out? Is it in landscape? Is it in portrait? Some of these are important in computer concepts as well, like when you're accessing a computer. You can teach a lot of this stuff with like, you know, you could make on the Wheatley, you could make a little map of the iPhone screen or the iPad screen and have the different applications and what would be the home button or a little strip at the bottom where the virtual home button is. You can practice turning pages or pictures into portrait and landscape. So there's quite a bit that you can do with this beginning terminology to get kids to help them build their concepts. in these terms before they ever even have a device or before they ever even turn VoiceOver on. So, for those of you who have very little to no experience with VoiceOver, um, like me, this is where I would start, you know, like these, all of these kind of really concrete things. Um, so, you know, apps is another term, application, it's a software program installed on the device. We, we are all familiar with using apps, um, and our, our students are too, and, and I think they're familiar with that term, um, you know, as well. And then app icons is kind of an extension of that. So it's like the visual or touchable pictures that represent apps on the screen. And I'll tell you, as a low vision user, I sure do hate it when they change the app icon on me because then I can't find my apps because I'm used to looking for certain colors or shapes to help me as a cue. I guess if, you know, those O&M instructors would say, well, then that's a clue, not a landmark, because it can be changed, so So that's some of the basic, uh, fundamental, like, foundational, uh, terms that we, that we want our kids to learn before we start using VoiceOver. Also feel free to type any questions that you have or clarifications that you need in the chat and Casey can read them out to me as we're going along. I don't mind. So, some of the terms that you need, that we would consider to be essential, uh, essential terminology to understand or to be working on as you venture into VoiceOver, uh, using VoiceOver are gestures, which is the I think we're kind of familiar with that, but it's the specific physical finger touches. like taps and swipes and twists, um, that execute different actions when you're using VoiceOver. And, um, and they can get tricky. I mean, I'm familiar with using them for different magnification features on my phone, and so sometimes it's like trying to remember, is it a triple tap, is it a double tap, and how many fingers do I use for that? And so, um, practicing those with kids can be a lot of fun, too, because you can do this in a you can do this in a way that's not even on the device. Um, I'm just envisioning, like, kids tapping on a on, you know, colored dot stickers, or some tactile stickers, and then you hitting a funny sound button when they tap correctly, when they execute it correctly. Then there's focus, and I love teaching about computer focus, um, you know, but the same definition really applies to what we're talking about here with an iDevice. It's the specific screen element that's currently being highlighted or spoken by VoiceOver, and I would extend that to it's also it's the thing that's either ready to. receive input, or give, or provide output, right? So, um, you know, if you double tap on something, then you're, you're inputting that, that you're making that selection, and then it provides the output to you. So, when I taught this, uh, computer focus for kids, I used to ask them, you know, what does the word focus mean? If the teacher says, you know, what are you supposed to be focusing on right now? It's, you know, and they could usually tell me, well, it's what we're paying attention to. Well, yeah, so we would do this exercise all over the room where I would have them, like, orient their bodies. put their hands, like, in a big arrow shape in front of their bodies, and orient themselves to the direction of whatever the prompt was. So I'd say, focus on the door, or focus on the clock, or focus on the sink. Um, and they would pivot their bodies very quickly, and it was kind of a really kinesthetic way for them to understand that it's you put your attention on whatever you're going to say something to, or whatever you're going to hear something from. And so that's one way to kind of, um. Teach them about focus, and that whatever their phone is, or device is focused on, is where you're ready to execute an action. So, a page is rows and columns of app icons arranged on a home screen layout. So, many of you, you know, may have multiple pages. Oh my gosh, when I turn on my mom's phone and she asks me to help her with something, like. I she doesn't even have most of her pages aren't even full, but then she started another page and another page, and so I'm like you know, I'm always wanting to organize it for her, but then I know she won't be able to find anything, so, um, I have one page, and I keep everything in little folders, so I don't have to be scrolling so much, but but when we say page in this context, we're referring to the different, um, screens on on your iPhone or your your iPad. Um, so page adjuster is the VoiceOver element that's used to jump between different home screen pages, and then the dock is, it's, um, it's a designated row at the bottom of the home screen where you can keep, I say where I keep all my favorite things, the things that I use most often. Um, so frequently used apps. And that is important for kids to know that that transfers across all of their pages. So that may not be a good landmark for them to determine what page of their device that they're on, because it's going to be the same every page they go to. Whether they have their YouTube app on that screen or not. Also, I am following up with my speaker notes. Yeah, so this VoiceOver Essentials is basically just the core vocabulary that's needed to understand how it interacts with the main interface of your device. And so now we'll move into I'm just gonna cover these, uh, very quickly, because this, um Here's these are some advanced system hubs and configuration terminology that are used to monitor, control or customize your device behavior. So this to me is not is it would wouldn't be outside of that intro category. And so you've got the status bar, which is the top bar that displays the quick reference info like the time and date. the Wi-Fi signal, um, and your battery level. Um, those things are all probably important to our students, but it's just a higher level, um, navigating that is a bit of a higher level skill. Uh, control center. you know, where the quick access panel is for adjusting your active system settings, like your volume and your brightness and your connectivity. Um, and that's, like, when you pull down on your screen and that control center comes up. And then your settings, which is, um, is an application on your phone where you can control. all of your accessibility options and VoiceOver preferences. So, I'm gonna, um now, I wanted to show, and this is in the resources, this is a video from the Apple Support channel on YouTube about how to navigate your iPhone or iPad with VoiceOver, and we're just gonna watch the very beginning of it, the first, like, 2 minutes or so. Um, and so we can see, kind of, what VoiceOver, uh, sounds like and how, how, um, you interact with it. VoiceOver reads everything on your screen aloud, so you can use your iPhone or iPad without seeing the screen. Settings. VoiceOver. Switch button. On. If you are blind or have low vision, this feature helps you navigate your device. Here's how to get started. We'll show you how to turn VoiceOver on or off. Then we'll show you how to use VoiceOver with specific gestures to navigate your iPhone or iPad. First, let's turn VoiceOver on, which is also how you turn it off. We're going to turn VoiceOver on in Settings, but you can also ask Siri to turn it on or off instantly, or add it as an accessibility shortcut. In Settings, scroll down. Tap Accessibility. and then tap VoiceOver. Here, you can adjust the speed of the speaking rate for VoiceOver, review the commands and keyboard shortcuts, and select a custom voice, like the one we're using. Plus, you'll find customizations for the rotor and gesture commands, and you can access additional tools for braille devices and specific navigation controls. When you're ready, tap to turn on VoiceOver, and it will begin reading what's on your screen. Settings. VoiceOver. Switch button. On. While using VoiceOver, you'll navigate your iPhone or iPad with unique gestures. For example, to scroll in any app, swipe up, down, left, or right with three fingers. Row 6 to 18 of 18. To go to the home screen, drag up from the bottom of the screen until two rising tones play. FaceTime. Double-tap to open. On an iPhone with Face ID, you'll also feel a haptic response. On an iPhone or iPad with a Home button, you can press the Home button. All right, so that's just a little bit of that. And actually, I, I was kind of wishing just now that I had played that a little bit because it kind of, they kind of spoiler alerted my next. my next theme. Um, Casey, do we have anything in the chat that we need to address before I move on? 

>>Kaycee: Uh, I think you're good to move on. 

>>Kathi: Okay. Awesome. All right, so let me just get rid of these, uh, floating controls so that I can see my screen better. Okay, so enabling VoiceOver is kind of the next section that we're gonna, um, that we're gonna talk next topic that we're gonna talk about, and we've already kind of, um, the video showed. a little bit of that already. And so, there's a couple of different ways to do this, and I have them organized in accordance with how with their complexity, right? Okay, so what we would be teaching students. So, using Siri to turn on VoiceOver is a great is a is a really easy it's the easiest way for students to be able to turn on turn VoiceOver on and off. Um, now there is a prerequisite task to this for the, you know, on the teacher or parent end of it, the grown-up end, is that Siri has to be enabled in settings. Um, ahead of time, you know, by you or the parent. So you have to walk through that with your students, um, to make sure that their Siri is available for use. Otherwise, you'll be saying, hey Siri, hey Siri, and she won't do anything. Um, because she doesn't recognize your voice. So, once that's done, or you've checked on that with the parents, um, the student action that's needed is for them to just voice command, and it's just, hey Siri, turn on VoiceOver, or turn VoiceOver on. And then they can also, you know, turn VoiceOver off. And so that's one way, um, that you can do that. Now, and I it's also interesting to note that even if you're in so in the video, they were talking about the VoiceOver switch button. which toggles it on or off, and you just click the button, and it goes green on one side if it's on, or it's grayed out if it's off. That does not have to be on in your settings. You don't have to worry about that. You only just have to when you're, um When you're going through this Siri method, you don't have to worry about that button because Siri is actually controlling in that menu for you. So one of the reasons why we would start with this is because it requires zero gesture knowledge or visual screen navigation from the student, right? So they don't have to be able to navigate their screen. In order to with gestures, in order to be able to, um to access this, which is awesome, because obviously, if you're teaching them how to use VoiceOver, they they may not actually have that navigation or understand how to use it in order to turn it on and off. So that's the first way. Um, with the teaching, you know, one of the teaching tips that we think about when we're talking about using Siri is making sure that our students, um, we can either support their development of their listening skills and or we might look at their listening skills as a prerequisite. to whether or not they can do this, right? Because you know, we all know that just because our students are visually impaired does not mean that they are their listening is just perfect, right? Like, they have to be taught how to listen, and what to listen for, and so, um You know, you want to emphasize the importance of active listening right away and how we need to know what we're going to be listening for and what Siri is going to be listening for. So when we're talking to Siri, how can we be effective communicators to get what we want from her, the prompting? Um, in the AI world, you know, they call it prompting, but, um, and then also listening to what she's saying, because if we're not listening to what she's saying, or we're not paying attention actively, then we're gonna, it's gonna be easy for us to get lost on our device. So, for practice, you can have the students use Siri to toggle VoiceOver on and off. They can practice this over and over, um, repeating back the exact phrases that VoiceOver's speaking as it activates. I would also, you know, I'm I got my teacher mind on, and I always think about literacy and. and comprehension, and so, you know, having navigating through these things, um, menus and apps and things, and just when they are saying, you know, VoiceOver switch button on, what does that actually mean? What do you, what do they think it means? And then kind of backtracking to build that concept of what it, what it means, right? You know, or like when in the video it said line 8, you know, 12 to 18 of 18, what does that mean? What is it, what is, what are they trying to tell us? And I might actually use some sort of tactile, either like the Wheatley or some manipulatives to build that menu out and say, this is what it means. There's a list of all these things. Or type it out in Braille and have them navigating it with their fingers. and seeing if they can find which lines are 12 of 18 that Siri was talking about, or that VoiceOver was talking about. So, there's a lot of ways to support that concept and teaching those listening skills. So, um, the another way to enable, uh, VoiceOver is with an accessibility shortcut, and that's a triple click. And so, um, and it's a triple click on the button that's on the right side of the cell phone, or kind of like the I always call it the on-off button, even though I know it doesn't by itself turn it on or off, but the thing that makes the screen go black. or that makes the screen light up, that's the button I'm talking about, because there's lots of buttons on these devices. So, um, so one of the if you're going to use this method, or when you're ready to teach this method, um, you would need to, uh. have configured this in the Settings app already. So, in order to be able to do this, you have to go to Settings, and then Accessibility menu, and then Accessibility shortcut, and you can select VoiceOver and turn it on. Once it's turned on, um, or once it's no. Once you have selected that in the accessibility shortcut, then your device knows, oh, this is something that they want to access very quickly with a triple click. Then the only thing you have to do is triple click on that button. on the side home button, and then and then VoiceOver will turn on, and if you do it again, VoiceOver will turn off. And so, you'll see in this image here that I've it's an image from my own screenshot that I took in the accessibility. My accessibility shortcut is set to the magnifier. I have it kind of bracketed out here in yellow, but I'm just showing you where that. where that is. So, um, so when I triple-click my button, I have the magnifier app come on, because that's the thing that I use the most, um, often, in terms of accessibility for me. So, why do we want to do this? Because it gives the student instant independent hardware control without needing to speak aloud. So this is helpful if you're in class, um, and you have and I know we talked about phones in schools, but if you're in a public setting, and you've got, um, AirPods or earbuds in, and you don't want to have to speak aloud to Siri, you can just triple-click that, and your VoiceOver will toggle on and off. For you. So, one of the things that we, uh, that we want to teach with, with this, these strategies, too, is the, the safety net exit plan, and we talked a little bit about this earlier. Um, kind of like those basic troubleshooting things that you teach when you're teaching computer skills or computer concepts. and key commands, you know, what are the things that, that can help you, uh, reset yourself if you get lost. Um, and so, um Yeah, so what we want to do is we want to make sure that we know how to teach our students what the exit strategy is when they get lost. How can they figure out where they are? How can they kind of restart? And so teach the home gesture, which is either pressing the home button or, you know, dragging one finger up from the bottom edge. Until you hear those two distinct clicks and then that is going to reset everything to get you back to your home screen. So if you get into some menus and you're not sure what to do and you don't know how to get out and you can't find the back arrow, which that's another strategy is you can teach them to navigate to the top and how to get out of that back arrow, you know, using your back arrow. But you can always click that home, uh, home button or, or swipe up from the bottom and, and get back to your, um. To a home screen where you can kind of start over. So, this is just another, um on this slide, I just have more pictures of the path to the triple-click, and so it's the, you know, first picture is in the settings menu, when you just click settings and you scroll down, um, and then you would click accessibility, which I have inside yellow brackets. inside the accessibility menu, you would click that accessibility shortcut, which, right now, mine says magnifier, but then once you're in there, I show you how my magnifier is checked, but there's a whole list of things, like live captions, live recognition, reduced transparency, reduced motion, etc, etc. where you can connect those to that side home button, that side button for that triple click. And so it can be, you know, it can be anything. It could be dark mode, it could be bold fonts, anything that you. think your students would want to toggle on and off quickly. Like I said, mine is the magnifier. Which is different than Zoom. I just want to say, like, the magnifier is an app that comes with the iPhone, and so mine is actually opening up an app. It's not opening up an accessibility function like Zoom. Um, that, I use a different, uh, triple click, triple tap. Um, so it so the settings menu path is another way you can turn on VoiceOver, um, and and this requires the most complex navigation for students, and I don't actually think that students would be doing this every single time they want to turn on VoiceOver. Probably, you know, from a functionality perspective, the other methods are gonna be quicker. Um, but what's interesting about this menu is, so you go, again, back into settings, into accessibility, you click VoiceOver, and you click on, you toggle it to on, and I was playing around with this so I could get a screenshot, and then it was, like, going off in the office, and I'm like. What is happening? How do I turn this off? It was so I was having to put all of this knowledge into practice to just get my phone back to the way it was. So, you know, this is a, like I said, a more complex skill, and I think it requires the reason you would want to do this is because it requires full sequential navigation through the menus, and so you're really getting you're also incidentally going to discover what other accessibility features your phone has, or your iPad, and it's typically we would use this after they understand basic gestures, because you're gonna need some level of understanding to be able to get yourself out of it, which. as I just said, I didn't have, so I wasn't able to get out of it quickly. Um, and I put some little celebrating emojis on this picture here, because I wanted to point out that there's VoiceOver practice, which I think, um I think, you know, those of us who are teaching VoiceOver, or who may be teaching VoiceOver, this is a really good thing. Um, for us to be able to, to go through ourselves before working with students and then let, encouraging them to go through and, and supporting them as needed. And then there's also a tutorial that you can access built right into your phone so that you, um, or iPad so that you can, um. get experience with that and see some of the more intricate things that you can do with it. For this teaching tip for the settings menu, we're going to work on spatial awareness, and there are so many ways to teach spatial awareness regardless of whether you're using a device or not, and then hopefully we generalize those skills to these devices. as you know, as you're maybe you're navigating these menus to set up the controls, emphasize how to teach those non that non-visual spatial orientation right? So you could set up. You could get magnets and set them up on a cookie tray to make it look like an iphone. You could set. You could use, again, the Wheatley, you could make lists, um, that you put frame you could have a little paper frame that you move from one braille line to the next when you're thinking about focus. What are we focused on, and what is the VoiceOver reading to us, and how is it navigating. you know, that left-to-right, top-to-bottom search patterns. All of those kinds of activities are going to support your students in understanding how these menus are set up. And I think sometimes I think sometimes being able to give that to our kids instead of just expecting them to listen to everything, like, it really helps them build their concepts of what they're doing. So, um, you can teach them to anchor their hand at the top left corner of the device to establish an origin point, um, before they, you know, explore the rest of the screen. You could use Dyson or some sort of silicone, um. You know, to help them. Keep the device steady so that it's not moving around or spinning around. I know sometimes when you have like a case on it or a pop socket or anything like that, it kind of, you know, they can spin and our students can get disoriented with those as well. So there's a lot of different strategies. get clips, things that can hold the phone that are attached to a table, um, or an iPad so that you're kind of maintaining that orientation and helping them understand, um. how it is in space. I'm going to pause here and check in with Casey. Anything? 

>>Kaycee: No questions. I, of course, shared a deaf blind consideration. I know you're shocked. But. 

>>Kathi: Shocker! 

>>Kaycee: I shared in the chat for students who are deafblind. They may or may not have the residual and functional hearing to be successful with VoiceOver. So be sure that you're partnering with the teacher of the deaf and hard of hearing to evaluate that before recommending VoiceOver instruction. so just be mindful about that. And you guys. 

>>Kathi: Yes, absolutely. Yeah. Okay. So we'll move into gestures. Um, talking about some of the gestures that are required when we're thinking about these. And again, these kind of also come at different levels, um, and, and so I'm gonna focus more on these introductory gestures, um. Let's see. As I check my handout, as I check my speaker notes, okay, so I'll focus more on these introductory ones and then we'll talk about some of the other ones, but I'm not going to go as much into detail because these here are your core navigation and selection gestures. And so these are really. Conceptually, these are going to be the ones that are easier for students to learn and also the most common. As it says, these are some of the essential first steps to help students master single finger movements to explore the screen. So we're going to start with one finger first. Now, again, if you are teaching Braille, you know how important finger isolation is in Braille. If you have a student who's really struggling with that, that may transfer over to this. task as well. And so you really want to take that into consideration when you're brainstorming with the instructional team or with the family about what tools and accessibility is going to be important for the student to use, or what is going to be considered for them to use in that moment. Because if finger isolation is a challenge in Braille, it's probably going to be a challenge here too. Um, so, you know, you've got the touch-and-drag, um, gesture, where you're just kind of dragging with one finger to explore the screen spatially. There's a flick and a swipe. where you swipe right to left to move the focus sequentially by item by item. So it's like, you know, just swiping through your photos is basically what that is. And so when you swipe through your photos, you see them quickly come across the screen from, you know, either forward or backwards, right? And so. Um, we're not gonna go into the left-right swipe on dating apps, that's a totally different coffee hour, but I would be happy to step in and do that one, too. Um So, when you're on the home screen, and you have your VoiceOver on, and you're you're flicking and swiping left to right, it's gonna it's gonna advance, um the application names, or your choices, in that order. And if you go backwards, it's going to read them in reverse order, so that you can decide what it is that you want to actually interact with. So, to make a selection, you take your one finger and you double-tap it. It's like double-clicking a mouse, or clicking the Enter key. Um, it's different for those for those of us that are using it, um Um, using the apps on our phone where we just click it once, um, but that's because it's, it's making doubly sure that that's actually the selection we want to make, so it's, it's, they'll have to double tap it to open that, or to activate a button, to toggle a button on or off. And then your adjust when you adjust a slider or the page adjuster, when you you can one finger swipe up or down, uh, when the focus is on a slider or a page adjuster. And I want you guys to know that all of these are in the handouts, so I hope that you're not feverishly writing, um, because this all this slide text is in the handout for you, so you'll have it as a reference. So the next couple of slides are a little bit more advanced. And so here's some audio and media controls. You can manage the voice and your media by using multi finger taps to control their speech and device audio. So to pause or resume speech would be a double finger single tap. mute or unmute VoiceOver is a three-finger single tap, and then, um, it's, you know, and then you've got your start-stop action, two-finger double tap, but. It's important for kids to know that they need to pay attention to what gestures they're doing, because if they if they do one of these, then to undo it, you need to do the same gesture. So sometimes you can get stuck there, because, um Because of that, you know, so you want to make sure that it's like, what did you just do? So it's having them slow down and really pay attention to what gesture they're doing, so that if they accidentally mute or unmute if they mute VoiceOver. they're not going to be able to unmute it with a double finger single tap. They need to go back to that triple finger. And so, um, it's also, for me, personally, because I don't remember stuff like that very often, sometimes when I'm doing key commands. So, like, when I'm doing my key commands on my computer. I've got that Ctrl-Z memorized, because if I do something I don't like and it messes up my whole page, I don't know what I did, but I'm going to Ctrl-Z, so it's going to undo it right away. So it's just teaching them that problem. So for students who are, you know, using VoiceOver for more complex tasks, we've got a slide here with some reading and informational gestures that you can read from the top of a page, from the very beginning. You can read from the current focus. So, your focus might be halfway down the page, and if you start there, you're going to miss everything at the top if you've already scrolled, and so that's when you would want to choose between the two-finger swipe up that reads the whole thing versus the two-finger swipe down. Then you can also have it speak any additional info. You know that that's that's within the page as well, the help information and things like that. 

>>Kaycee: Hey, Kathy, we got a question in the chat. 

>>Kathi: Uh-oh. Okay. 

>>Kaycee: Um, Rebecca asked, um, they've not been able to figure out how to navigate to and click the skip ad button in YouTube, and wondered if you or anyone else has any tips for that. 

>>Kathi: Oh, that's yeah, I don't my guess would be that flick and swipe until you get to there, because that's what, like, on a computer, you would tab through until you get to that button, and then you would activate it, but I would be curious if anybody in the chat. could help out. If not, I can research that and get back to you on it. 

>>Kaycee: I'll throw Kathy's email address in the chat, and I'm sure it's on the handout as well. But that way you. 

>>Kathi: Yeah, so you can email me and bug me, and if and I if I I don't know it right now, but I know people who would know it, and I can ask them. Um All right, so this is this is even this slide scrolling and system privacy is is a lot more complex too. So these will help you. You can scroll to the next page or the previous page and then you can bring your you can enable your screen curtain. Um, so that people aren't looking over your shoulder at what you're doing on your phone. So, I have found lost phones on campus before when I had students in short-term programs, and I would try to turn them on so that I could, uh, figure out whose phone it was and get it back to the kiddo. And yeah, those screen curtains, I wish I would have had this, uh. three-finger triple tap, turning off the display so that I could actually get into the phone, because then I just couldn't see anything, I couldn't get into it. I could hear VoiceOver, but I couldn't actually see what I was doing, so You can combine some of these concepts and gestures to access structured areas of the screen, like the dock, or the status bar, or the control center. And so, again, those are, you know, those are going to be more complex, um. Um, gestures as well for students to learn how to get up to where the, the date and time are or the battery power or the, your control center with your volume and brightness and some of those things. And then the dock is that area at the bottom that has those, those. Select few apps. So there's lots of ways to customize VoiceOver, and this is something that I would definitely play with, um, as a TVI prior to working on this with students, because it's something that you can help set up in their VoiceOver for them. So, um, in terms of navigating your iOS settings, you, um You know, you can teach that the settings layout is organized into two columns. The left is the category list and the right are is the adjustment options. And so that's how they're going to navigate through that. We've already talked about the navigation path where you go to settings. and then accessibility, and then go into VoiceOver, and you have your, your basic list navigation that you'll use in there to set up, um, the things that you, that you want. Um, so swipe right with one finger to move down the left column, and then double tap an item to move. the VoiceOver focus into the right-hand column, where you can then review and adjust the parameters that are being set. Some key settings that you might consider looking into are the speaking rate, the speech. So speaking rate, a lot of people that I know who use VoiceOver, who are avid users, their speaking rate is very fast. For our kids, we may want to start a little bit lower if they have not had experience. Um, with using speech output, like, and some kids who are using braille note takers, they may have experience with that, and so they may be able, um, you know, to pick up everything, but in terms of practicing listening, like we were talking about earlier, you may need the speech to be a little slower so that they can really understand what's being said. You can change the voice selection, the pitch, and the language options. You can control the settings to pair Braille devices. That is like very, very next level for me. So if you have questions about that, you're going to have to email them to me and I'll get you those answers later. Um, but you can, because you can connect braille displays and things to your, um, your iDevices, and that can help some of our students who, who choose to navigate, or who are more successful navigating that way. Um, the verbosity, I always tell my students when I taught when I used to teach ZoomText, there's a verbosity setting on there. And it customizes the speaker details. So basically, verbosity is how verbose is the device gonna talk to you. And I always tell them, like, you're gonna have to leave yours at Miss Kathy's setting, and Miss Kathy's very verbose, and she gives way too many details. that probably nobody cares about, but there's Miss Kathy setting, and then there's, like, the bare minimum, and there's something in between, so you can choose to set, um, you know, how how verbose, how much information is VoiceOver going to give to your student? And there's pros and cons, right? Like, you can have it read the entire file names, or entire document names, or folder names, or everything on the page, and that really helps our students. get that concept of what that page is like. But it may not be as functional. So you kind of just have to pick and choose what's best for your student if you think they need more information. so that they can, you know, embrace it and navigate and learn, or if they need less, because. It's going above their skill level at that point or whatever. Um, so there's audio, um, ducking, which can lower the background media volume so that VoiceOver audio remains clear. So this would be, like, if you're if, you know, an ad comes up, or you're watching a video, or you're, um, listening to music or an audiobook, and then you have to navigate to another site, your VoiceOver will. Voice will take priority over everything else. There's also typing feedback. And there's always speak the notifications. So anytime your student gets a text message or any kind of notification from an app, then VoiceOver would automatically read that. Navigating images, you can set this for your web images. Again, I feel like. Um, kids who are using VoiceOver and getting on the internet with it, that's a little bit more of an advanced skill. And then large cursor, um, encloses the focus area with a thick black outline. Um, so if you have students who are low vision. they can combine some of that visual and auditory feedback to support them as they transition into using VoiceOver. All right, so assessment and learning resources. So. In terms of assessment considerations, we've already talked a little bit about, this is just kind of a recap, that auditory processing and focus. So, these can all be things that you consider prior to teaching VoiceOver, or that you start with in teaching VoiceOver. Um, and it just depends on where your student is. If your student has recently lost vision and they desperately need to be able to access their phone, you may not start at the very beginning. You may start with whatever is meaningful and functional for them to be successful. right now, or to have access right now. If you're starting from the beginning with a very young student who maybe doesn't even have a device, but they will probably get one in the next couple of years, then you would really you could start with this auditory processing and focus, and having them listen to VoiceOver speech. Um, while following the verbal instructions, or you can have them practice listening to a variety of things and really picking out that salient, important information. Spatial awareness and hand anchoring. So, we talked about that, um, being able to, to find a place and, and be able to orient from that place. Um, you can get the O&M involved in that. Independence and recovery. So what are the students' coping strategies and recovery skills? You know, we talk about this with students who sometimes who are early communicators. and or who have trouble with speech. And so do they have recovery skills when somebody doesn't answer, doesn't understand what they're saying like, how do they cope with that? And how do they get people to understand what other strategies do they have? And so that applies here as well. What other strategies does your student know how to use? You know, to get to where they need to go, or to kind of reset their orientation within this device. And really, I think that, you know, independence and recovery strategies are important in every aspect of what we're teaching our students, but it applies here as well. And then gesture accuracy. So this is this last one is really going to impact is really going to, um be a testament to how successful they feel with executing these VoiceOver commands, right? So, they're gonna need a lot of practice with that accuracy and identifying one finger versus two fingers versus three fingers, and then the tapping at the same time, and Um, you know, those kinds of things, so any opportunity we can get them to practice that, um, even in Play-Doh, you can practice double tapping in Play-Doh, and then they can check to verify, do I have two fingerprints two times, you know, or whatever, and so that, those are some fun ways to kind of. Uh, to kind of do to build that in. And then, um, I'll show you at the end, um, I know I have just a few minutes left, um, so these resources are in the handouts, so I'm gonna sh- I'm gonna just go through this real quick so I can show you that assessment real quick. Um But there's some structured training and curriculum that you can explore on VoiceOver through Hadley Institute for the Blind and Perkins, and then there's also several articles on Paths to Literacy about VoiceOver. So those are some structured ways that you can help build your own capacity. Uh, for this content as well, outside of this, uh, coffee hour. And then there's also some video tutorials and tech guides with the Apple support, um, and the Blind Life is a, is a YouTube channel, um, with assistive technology reviews, and then Apple Viz is a community-led resource. where people are providing answers. I almost say it's like the Reddit of Apple accessibility, because it's all these people with visual impairments who are talking about Apple, and man, whenever there's a new update to the operating system, oh, those words go crazy. Um, so There's that, and then I have my contact information here, which is also in the handout. Um, but I want to show you real quick what I got from short-term programs. I'm so appreciative. This is in your handouts folder. This is an assessment here, um And I don't know if I need to make this bigger for anybody, but you also will have a copy of this. I just want to talk to you a little bit about the layout. Um, so it's an assessment, it's broken to different sections, so there's it starts off with navigating VoiceOver using gestures. And it goes into, you know, it does single finger, two finger, the three and four finger gestures. And then it's got different features like the app switcher and the rotor. And then there's another category here for sending a message using VoiceOver. So that would be like a text message. Um, navigating VoiceOver using refreshable braille display commands, so there's all kinds of stuff in this assessment. Um, sending emails, that's very complex. Uh, compose written work, they're also very complex, so there's, you know, this kind of starts at the, at the beginning, um, and with that turning VoiceOver on, you could break this down even more if you wanted to, but the way this is designed is, um. for students who come to short-term programs for a week-long class in VoiceOver, we do a pre-test on Monday, and then on Friday, they do a post-test to see so that we can identify exactly what they learned. in the class, and then what they need to be working on going forward. Like, where did they kind of tap out? And here are some next steps. So, you can click the drop-down when you're doing this with your student, and select that they demonstrated the skill, or they they did not demonstrate, they couldn't do it. And then or maybe it's not applicable for them. And then for the post-test, you could do, like, at the end of the year, or your unit period, or whatever you are, you could, um you could even do this for progress reporting, like, beginning of the year, mid-year, and end of the year. Um, you know, did they did they demonstrate it? Did they demonstrate some awareness? Um, that was for the pretest. Um, did they show some improvement in learning it, or were they just exposed to it and they haven't really tried it yet? And so this is a really cool, uh, way to. to be able to kind of track the skills that your student is learning. You guys can download this, you can add any columns or rows that you want. You could also use this as a teaching guide for yourself. If you know, like, hey, I'm gonna have a kiddo and I'm gonna have to do VoiceOver next year when he's in sixth grade, right now he's in fifth grade, I'm gonna go through this checklist and learn all of these things myself, independent study style, so that I'm ready to teach him next year. And I'm going to turn it back over to Casey. So she's gonna close us out, and if anybody has any last-minute questions, I can Uh, look at that. 

>>Kaycee: Thanks, Kathy. We just had a comment from Amy that when she clicks on it, she's not seeing the dropdown. So I was just frantically navigating there. But I do see the dropdown when I get to it. So I wonder if it's blocking for some reason. But if anybody else is having issues, let us know in the chat. 

>>Kathi: I wonder if it's because it's in because they only have the ability to view it? And so maybe when they save their own copy. They will have edit access to that copy, and then they can because that's technically an edit field. 

>>Kaycee: Oh, I see. Okay, okay, so maybe if they make a copy, somebody try that real quick, make a copy of that and see if you can have drop-downs on your copy. 

>>Kathi: Yeah, and you're supposed to have view only, because we don't want these to get edited, and then it messes it up for someone else. But yeah, you can make a copy to your Google Drive, or you can download it, and then upload it back into your Google Drive, and then I think you would have access to those boxes. 

>>Kaycee: Perfect. Yes, making a copy works. Thanks, Melissa. Um, and then, yeah, some people have Google blocked. I know some districts and some agencies, a couple of you have, uh, emailed me, and I have downloaded and then sent them to you, so if that's the case, you can email me, bennettk at TSBVI.edu, it's in the chat. Um, and I can send you the ones that I downloaded. And it looks like making a copy worked for everybody else. Perfect. Awesome.