Our Commitment to Accessibility
We recognize that all students have different learning needs and ensuring that our website supports all learners is important to us. That is why we are passionate about building products that provide an inclusive learning environment for diverse voices.
SpacesEDU supports personalized learning by allowing students to showcase, reflect, and celebrate their learning, strengths, and experiences. We believe in building student agency by providing students the voice and choice to add work using their preferred medium (photo, video, voice, text, and more) - using any device.
Teachers can celebrate growth for all learners with differentiated learning instruction and adapt assessment practices based on student needs. For example, teachers can scaffold activities based on students’ support requirements, interests, and strengths, providing instruction and feedback using a variety of media types (including audio and video). To provide a window into classroom experiences, teachers can invite families and share and celebrate the process of learning.
For more on how SpacesEDU helps cultivate equity and inclusion in the classroom, visit our Equity & Inclusion overview.
Technical Accessibility Details
From a technical perspective, we strive to ensure our web application is substantially compliant with Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 AA Standards.
Accessibility is embedded into our Product Development process, from preliminary designs, validation, and software engineering. We invest in staff training with courses such as the Certified Professional in Accessibility Core Competencies (CPACC) and Web Accessibility Specialist (WAS) certifications. Team objectives include regular internal reporting on WCAG compliance and the timely implementation of updates to address compliance gaps.
Accessibility features include numerous considerations, such as decorative images that are marked to be ignored by screen readers, content images with embedded descriptive text, or input elements (text boxes, drop down lists, checkboxes, etc.) having associated labels and text to describe what they do.
To ensure the following accessibility features are available, please use the SpacesEDU web app via a web browser on any device.
Screen readers: web app supports screen readers to assist blind or low vision access to content. This includes titles on pages, descriptions for buttons, graphics, and form fields, and reading back text content.
Speech to text: web app supports speech to text to dictate text out loud.
Alt text: web app includes alt text for buttons, images, and other element
Keyboard navigation: web app supports navigating the website without a mouse.
Color contrast and font size: web app supports accessibility features built into the operating system or browser for adjusting color contrast, inverting colors, and zoom.
Printing: media within a post can be downloaded (and then printed, based on the media type) via the contextual menu in each post.
Audio and video instruction, evidence, and comments: the web and native apps allow adding audio and video instructions to Activities, posts, and comments/feedback.
Additional Accessibility Tools
Chrome Browser: Turn on translation with the Google Translate Plugin.
Chrome Browser and Chrome OS: Turn on Live Caption to get captions for any videos or voice recordings that were recorded in English. Follow these steps.
Chrome Browser: Increase color contrast with the Color Contrast Plugin.
Edge Browser: Try the Immersive Reader / Read Aloud tool in Edge. Right-click on the screen, and choose "Read Aloud" to read text aloud.
SpacesEDU and Special Education
Watch this tutorial video to learn how you can use SpacesEDU for Special Education.
Contact us with the messaging option at the corner of your screen, or via email at hello@spacesEDU.com if you have any questions, feedback, or concerns about SpacesEDU and accessibility.