With so much to learn in the world of keyboarding, we recognize that not every student is equally capable of its physical capacities. This is why we find it very important at Typing Agent to ensure that each and every keyboardist is adequately instructed in a manner that suits their individual needs. At Typing Agent, we have designed our platform to meet the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), to assist students who may be Hearing Impaired, Visually Impaired, Physically Impaired, or dyslexic.  These accommodations can be set by the student or the teacher.  ADA features include:  
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- Varying Audio volumes, voices and speeds
- Varying light and contrast formatting for those with limited sight
- Font easily communicable to those with dyslexia
- On Screen Keyboard Reader/Voice Over with adjustable settings
- One-handed keyboarding settings
- Closed captioning for video and audio

How to Set Accessibility Options from the Teacher Dashboard

Teachers can make accommodations for the whole classroom at once or for specific students. (Click here to view how to make these changes for individual students.) Once the teacher clicks on a classroom, they can customize the font, hand, contrast, audio settings and on-screen keyboard model to meet the needs of all students in that classroom. Once the classroom is chosen, click Settings then Accessibility Options to select the changes to be made for the classroom.

Teacher Dashboard View of Accessibility Options
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From here teachers can select from a variety of accessibility options for their students including font family, font size, whether one or both hands are needed, skip the keyboarding placement test to force students to begin with home-row key lessons, turn on high contrast, text-to-speech, closed captioning, turning off the on-screen keyboard, stopping students from hiding their on-screen keyboard, permitting students to use the Play button to have text read to them in the Type Your Own Adventure curriculum, and use their own more advanced accessibility controls.

We discuss how these specific features work for students below so do read on so you can understand if or for whom you'd want to select enable this accommodations.

Students may customize their interface to suit their own wants or needs, this includes their audio preferences. Settings include the option of setting the voice narrator to a range of voices and languages, adjusting the speed and volume of which it is spoken or disabling it altogether. To do this, students select the initials or avatar in the upper right-hand corner. In the drop down menu, select “Voice Over”.

Student View of Voice Over Settings
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We recommend the use of headphones when students use audio in their lessons so they won't disturb other students in the classroom. Students may want the text read to them using a specific accent so they can make that selection. Also, they choose how quickly they want the text to be read to them and how loudly. Once they've

made their adjustments they must slide the Enabled button on to save them before closing this area.

Note, this works only for navigation only. From within a lesson, should a student need to adjust the text to be read to them on the screen, they will select the icon with the speaking person from within their lesson.
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How Students Turn On Closed Captioning

Should students want to enable closed captioning, they select the “CC” at the bottom of your video player to immediately activate it on the video that is playing. This is what the videos will look like if closed captioning is selected:

Typing Agent offers a variety of font choices to assist students.  Students can increase the size of the font, choose the typeface of how they want their text to appear, and what contrast should be used for the keyboarding text. Although the teacher can make these accommodations for their students, students have the ability to customize their areas themselves so that it makes them more invested in doing the lessons.

Student View of Tutor Accommodation Settings
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From here, students can select their font size and family of choice. This is particularly important for dyslexic students because they can choose the Open Dyslexic font to differentiate the letters that tend to be problematic for them.

Default Keyboard Interface
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This is the default interface of a student’s lesson when no accommodations are made:

Large Font Keyboard Interface
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This is what the font will look like if the size is customized to “Low Vision by either the teacher or student.  

For a student, select the underlined “A” above the lesson, as shown here on the far right hand side.

High Contrast Keyboard Interface
This is what the lesson will look like if customized to “High Contrast” by either the teacher or student:

Again, the student selects the underlined “A” above the lesson to make these personal changes:

From here, you can select the option for high contrast.

Some students get anxious when there are timers or statistics tracking what they do such as these that automatically appear at the top of their keyboarding lessons:

Should they not want to appear, they simply uncheck the Show Typing Stats box and click Save Settings and those data go away from their screens. Rest assured Typing Agent is still keeping track of that important information behind the scenes so both students and teachers have access to the statistics in their Progress areas.

Typing Agent offers one handed (right or left hand) keyboard option. This is what the lesson will look like if customized to “Left Hand”.

Again students click that underlined A on the far right and select the option that meets their needs under the Keyboard Hands area:
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Don't forget to save the settings to make any of these modifications take effect.