How does Education Perfect support accessibility?
At EP we take accessibility seriously and are always looking to improve our platform in this area. The following article has information on how we currently cater to various learning needs.
In this article
Customisation options
Our content is fully customisable. You can use EP Studio to edit existing lessons to improve accessibility or create your own lessons to use with your students. Some of the things you can do when creating or editing your own lessons are:
- Enlarge and bolden the font.
- Change colour schemes.
- Add sound files to narrate instructions to students.
- Add an Audio Recorder component so students can record a verbal answer instead of a written one.
Hearing support options
Custom videos that we have created have open captions.
Unfortunately, we cannot control captions for any of our embedded videos that are hosted on YouTube. These captions are reliant on the person who uploaded the video adding the option. We are moving away from using YouTube videos in our newer content.
If users are using Google Chrome as their browser, there is an in-built live caption setting. Chrome will automatically generate real-time captions for media with audio on your browser.
Visual support options
- EP has an inbuilt text-to-speech feature that can be used to read our question slides aloud. Find out more about text-to-speech.
- This feature does have some limitations for students who are fully blind as the button to activate this feature can be difficult to locate. The text-to-speech function is also not available for Language subjects, however, language teachers can customise the lesson and insert the Audio Recorder component to record themselves reading the content. Students can then press play to listen to the recording when they open the slide.
- EP can be zoomed in to 200% viewing to make text and icons easier to view or read. You can zoom in further than 200% but this can cause issues in some select areas of the platform.
- When leaving feedback on a lesson for a student you can record verbal feedback instead of written.
- Students can use keyboard navigation to answer multi-choice questions by selecting numbers on the keyboard rather than clicking the option on the screen. They can also move to the next Information Slide using the Enter key.
- At this stage, EP does not have a dark mode feature. However, you can try dark mode options on your device or enable plugins/extensions on your browser.
- You can also use full screen readers with EP such as Dragon NaturallySpeaking or Jaws. Our Content Team now includes titles and alt text for all our images so that they are screen reader-friendly, however, older EP experiences may not be compatible. We are investigating ways to evolve our older experiences as part of our accessibility transformation.
Please keep in mind that external plugins may not work as expected with EP. We recommend testing out a series of plugins and seeing what works best for you and your students.
Reading support options
- EP has an inbuilt text-to-speech feature that can be used to read our question slides aloud. This feature is not available for Language subjects. However, Language teachers can customise the lesson and insert the Audio Recorder option to record themselves reading the content. Students can then press play to listen to the recording when they open the slide. Find out more about text-to-speech.
- If you have access to Microsoft Immersive Reader, you can copy the contents of an EP page and paste it into Microsoft Immersive Reader to format the content for easier reading.
- When leaving feedback on a lesson for a student you can record verbal feedback instead of written.
- You can also use external plugins such as OpenDyslexic font to change the font as it appears on EP.
Please keep in mind that external plugins may not work as expected with EP. We recommend testing out a series of plugins and seeing what works best for you and your students.
Learning Support
Under the EP Library and Discover sections of your Dashboard, you'll find content organised by year level. If students are struggling with work, it may be a good idea to have them work on or revise material from earlier levels.
To find appropriate work, navigate to Libarary or Discover and browse resources arranged by subject, year level and topic.
For full details about finding and assigning work from the content library see How to find content for the topics we're covering and How to assign work from the content library.
Assigning Recommended Tasks
After completing certain assessments, you can assign recommended work to your students based on how they performed. This can be particularly helpful as it enables students to identify and improve on their development areas.
Recommended work can only be assigned after particular assessments. To find out how to assign recommended tasks see our article on manually assigning recommended tasks to students.
Turning off Countdown Timers
Both students and teachers have the ability to turn off countdown timers in the Student Zone. This can take the pressure off of some students.
As a student, navigate to Account from the drop-down menu and tick Turn off question timers.
As a teacher, if you want to disable timers for an entire class, scroll down to Options when assigning the task and toggle Question timers to remove the countdown timer from the questions.
More information on our learning support options can be found in our article How can Education Perfect assist with inclusion?
Making tasks manageable
Tasks can be cut into smaller chunks and assigned to your students in sections. This can make tasks more manageable and less overwhelming. This feature can also help to remove content that individual students may find challenging to ensure the lesson is best catered to each individual. Find out more in our guide on how to assign specific sections of a Smart Lesson.
Other support options
For other learning needs, feel free to experiment using EP with extra plugins and programs such as eye-gaze machines and see how things work for them. You can also contact us to discuss the specific needs for your students. Please feel welcome to send through feedback on how we can improve our program to promote accessibility.