13 Accessibility

The Accessibility Resources offices on many college campuses have seen a huge increase in numbers over the last couple of years. In addition to offering accommodations like extended time on exams, preferred classroom seating, and food allergy or dietary restrictions, many offices also have technology for students as well. Some examples of assistive technology include smart pens, recording devices, and speech-to-text software.

AI tools have begun to make big impacts on digital accessibility (the practice of designing and developing digital content that people with disabilities can use). This means that people with visual, hearing, cognitive, or motor impairments can have access to these tools, which promotes inclusivity and more equal opportunities.  However, concerns about student use of AI tools to cheat and the policies that result could restrict the ability of disabled students to use AI tools to support their learning (McMurtrie, 2023).

Here are some examples of what AI tools can do (Alston, 2023):

• Create captions for videos
• Use speech-to-text or text-to-speech
• Test accessibility of various websites
• Offer language translation or transcription

More information on AI and accessibility is available here. Some of these tools are free (like Google’s Speech-to-text API and also Microsoft’s Azure Speech to Text) but many are still quite limited unless users choose to upgrade to a paid version.