Text-to-speech options for quizzes?

[ahauser]

We are looking for an option for students who need quizzes in Canvas read aloud to them. We know that Canvas is accessible with certain screenreaders, but we are specifically looking for something that just does text-to-speech (similar to the Immersive Reader) for quizzes (classic or new).

Right now, instructors are being asked to generate Word documents for their quizzes, that then can be read using a text-to-speech reader, while the student follows along and takes the actual quiz in Canvas. This is added work for both students and instructors. This is also only an option for students who take in-person quizzes with our SAAS team, which is not ideal.

We’ve tested some text-to-speech readers and have not found anything reliable. They tend to skip components, read aloud hidden text, can’t read back typed responses on essay questions, and do not work at all with New Quizzes. We do have ReadSpeaker, which we were told would work for this specific issue, but it does not.

We've tested Chrome extensions as well like Read Aloud and Natural Reader, but those are also inconsistent. With our previous Sakai-based LMS, these extensions worked well, but we aren't having any luck with Canvas.

We understand that this is a difficult engineering tasks but this is a critical functionality for our students.

Has any one found a solution?

[ryan_corris · Accepted solution]

Hey @ahauser !

One thing we have done in our district is utilize the accessibility features on the student devices.  Built into some device operating systems are a select to speech option.  This allows you to select a word, phrase, entire paragraph, etc. and have the the selection read to you.  If you search online, you should be able to find directions to turn this accessibility feature on for Chromebooks, Mac OS, iOS, and Windows for sure.  The best part about it is that it is free and there is nothing else to install.  You just have to adjust the device's settings.  

This should read pretty much any text that can be selected on the screen.  An example of where this does not work is text in images and PDFs that have been scanned. (PDFs that have not been scanned should work just fine.)  Since the text cannot be selected in these items, the text cannot be read.

Hope this helps.