Easy Ways to Bring Assistive Technology Into Your Classroom

Closed-captioning in videos: Adding or turning on closed-captioning in all videos, including YouTube and GoNoodle, assists students in making connections between text and audio representations of language. Captioning is an assistive technology tool that is free and easy to use: simply push the CC button underneath a video. Closed-captioning provides missing information for individuals who have difficulty processing speech and auditory components of visual media. It is crucial for students who are hard of hearing and can support students' reading skills. Graphic organizers: Graphic organizers are a no-tech AT tool that offers a simple, effective way to provide writing support to elementary, middle, and high school students who have dysgraphia, executive function challenges, and other learning challenges. Students with executive function challenges who struggle with organization, for example, can benefit from the visual organization of their thoughts and ideas, and graphic organizers "clarify implicit relationships contained in the text in a way that text alone may not."