[nobe-l] accessibility of Google products

Wed Aug 31 16:42:08 UTC 2016

Just a quick note. There are quick commands to navigate all parts of google
docs, sheets, drive etc. You do not need to tab around

*Dr Denise M Robinson*
Denise M. Robinson, TVI, Ph.D.
CEO, TechVision, LLC
Specialist in Technology/Training/Teaching for blind/low vision/virtual
instruction for schools
Also Private training to your needs
423-573-6413

Website with hundreds of informational articles & lessons on PC, Office
products, Mac, iPad/iTools and more, all done with
keystrokes: www.yourtechvision.com

On Wed, Aug 31, 2016 at 12:09 AM, Geogie via NOBE-L <nobe-l at nfbnet.org>
wrote:

> Hey there,
> I have some experience with Google tools that I can share. I just finished
> working at a Public Charter School as a literacy tutor/teacher for sixth
> grade. I'm also blind and have been all my life, and I was the only blind
> person working there. We used Google Drive, Docs, Forms and Sheets all the
> time. I struggled for the first few months, because I honestly couldn't
> find
> any blind folks who used Google stuff extensively who I could discuss it
> with. But here is some of what I picked up from trial and error.
> On my PC I used the latest version of JAWS at the time with FireFox. There
> is an accessibility mode in the different Google tools that you should turn
> on right away. And you'll want to keep it on, because it doesn't work well
> at all without it. Google Drive is accessible, but you'll need to tab
> around
> a whole lot. Same situation with Google Docs. I also found that the speech
> will lag a bit, especially inside of a Doc or Sheet. It's not much of a
> lag,
> but it's enough that it drove me crazy. But you can use the same commands
> from Word when in a Doc, and the same ones from Excel when in a Sheet, so
> aside from the lag it's not bad. Google Forms is very accessible most of
> the
> time, but if you run into trouble with something in a Form, one great
> work-around is to have the form sent to you in the body of an email. This
> is
> one of the options when you make and send a Form, but it's not the default
> I
> don't think. I never had any trouble with Google Forms once I had them sent
> this way, and I received four or five every week.
> I would definitely recommend using the iPhone aps. I found them very
> navigable with VoiceOver. I liked the Docs and Drive apps, but did not find
> Sheets to be accessible. If you open a Google Sheet in Safari, then it's
> pretty easy to navigate by moving by rows. For some reason I can't get the
> roter to give me the rows option when in the Sheets app, and that was a big
> drawback. Also, one very important feature for me as a tutor was the
> comments feature. Unfortunately, after a recent update, the comments
> feature
> is not accessible at all in the Docs app. It's a shame, because it used to
> work very well, and I would type comments to my students about there work
> using a Bluetooth Keyboard. Another useful feature when teaching that is
> missing in the Docs app is the extended time breakdown of recent edits. On
> a
> computer, a teacher can pull up a list of when all of the changes were made
> to a document. Great way to keep an eye on a student's progress on an
> assignment. The app doesn't allow for this detailed time log, but it will
> tell you what time the most recent edit occurred.
> Sorry if this is too much Google info! I just want to make sure you don't
> have to figure it out from scratch like I did!
> Georgie
> -----Original Message-----
> From: NOBE-L [mailto:nobe-l-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of David Andrews
> via NOBE-L
> Sent: Tuesday, August 30, 2016 10:30 PM
> To: National Organization of Blind Educators Mailing List
> <nobe-l at nfbnet.org>
> Cc: David Andrews <dandrews at visi.com>
> Subject: Re: [nobe-l] accessibility of Google products
>
> Google has been doing a great deal of work on the accessibility of these
> products. While not perfect, they have improved a lot.  Use Google (LOL)
> and
> search for accessibility topics with the products, there is stuff out
> there.
>
> Dave
>
> At 08:38 PM 8/30/2016, you wrote:
> >Thank you for asking this. Whoever answers, please share wisdom as far
> >as both jaws and window eyes. We are heavily into google this year too,
> >and I am struggling a bit.
> >
> >Kathy Nimmer
> >Even in the valleys, keep believing in the mountains.
> >
> > > On Aug 30, 2016, at 9:01 PM, Craig Cooper via NOBE-L
> > <nobe-l at nfbnet.org> wrote:
> > >
> > > Greetings,
> > > Today, during our teacher meetings, we had an extensive discussion
> > > on using various Google products, including Google Docs, Google
> > > Sheets, Google Forms, and Google Apps.  These products are widely
> > > used in schools, as they allow teachers to be able to do a number of
> > > creative and interactive lessons, along with making it easy for
> > > teachers to collaborate on documents.
> > > It can be a bit overwhelming, learning the products and determining
> > > whether they are accessible with screen readers.
> > > I would love to hear your experiences with these various Google
> > > products.  Do you use them in your teaching practice?  Are the
> > > iPhone apps or PC Google products more accessible?
> > > Thank you so much.
> > > Craig Cooper
> > > Teacher: U.S. History, World History, and English III Brookings
> > > Harbor High School
>
>
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