Today we had Kaori Lau and Tracy Humphries from BCEdAccess come to our class to discuss inclusion in education and how technology could help improve the learning and social experience of disabled students. This was so incredibly useful. As teachers we will be encountering all sorts of students with all sorts of support needs, we need to know what tools are available for us to offer them.

We recently discussed offering accessibility options to students with learning disabilities, the question was: should you offer students with dyslexia accommodations when performing reading assignments? The text we analyzed focused on the introduction of text-to-speech, which allowed students who struggled to read a text to listen to it instead. The author claimed that this was a disservice to the students as it robbed them of opportunities to practice their reading comprehension skills. While I agree that every student should be practicing reading, we do need to recognize how big of a barrier certain learning disabilities can be. We do not want students to become discouraged from learning at the very first hurdle, especially if they are already interested in the content. As teachers we need to recognize that there is a balance: students can work on practice skills without accommodations when the goal of the lessons is, say reading, but if the goal of the lessons is analyzing allegories or researching history, then there is no reason to bar student for engaging with these topics through accommodations.

In my educational practice, I want to always be collecting tools that will help make my classrooms more accessible. I believe it is possible to build lesson plans and classroom cultures that make all students feel welcomed and safe. This is what I will strive for.