Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Word 2007 and Universal Design for Learning

I am often asked to read tests aloud to students with I.E.P. and 504 accommodations. I usually find it difficult to find an appropriate pace for a group, and students rarely ask to have questions repeated.

One solution is to use the audio insert feature in Microsoft Word 2007 (the feature is also available in previous versions, but may appear differently). The feature is easy to use once you've set up a shortcut on the "quick access toolbar"

The screencast below walks through the steps for inserting audio in to a document. But why stop at tests? Inserting audio clips into your documents is easy, useful, and a nice alternative to the computer voices used in screen reading programs.