What it is: Select and Speak uses iSpeech’s human sounding text to speech to let you select text from almost any website and make it talk.
What do you need to know: Even though this Chrome extension works on most websites, it doesn’t work on Google Drive Apps (Docs, Presentations, etc.).
2. Read&Write for Google (Google Chrome Extension)
What it is: A powerful human sounding text to speech extension that supports features of the web and common file types such as Google Docs, PDF, epub, Kes, etc. Read&Write is more than just text to speech it also provides Google Doc word prediction, color highlighting in read alouds, vocabulary list builders, and image dictionaries.
What do you need to know: All features last for 30 days, after this you will still have read aloud features but all the premium features will require a paid subscription.
3. Voice Recognition (Google Chrome App)
What it is: You can use your Google Chrome browser for voice recognition to type documents, emails, and essays without touching the keyboard. The app can save to Google Drive, Dropbox, you computer, or email.
What you need to know: you will need a mic for your computer for this app to work and prior to recording you will have to press an allow button (pop up window) before each recording.
4. Clearly (Google Chrome Extension)
What it is: Evernote Clearly is a way to make all the text in your web browser easy to read by removing distracting imagery, ads, and other stuff that you may see. It also will read the text off the screen for yo.
What you need to know: clearly is a product of Evernote, which means you will need to have create an Evernote account. If you want the text to speech option, you will need to sign up for a premium Evernote account.
5. Google Voice Search Hotword (beta) (Google Chrome Extension
What it is: allows you to Google Search by speaking to your web browser. It uses the same keyword functionality as Google Glass by first saying “Ok Google” then you tell google to search.
What you need to know: for now the only way for this to work is to be on Google’s home page or on a Google search page.
Classroom Integration: Assistive technology is any device or program that helps a person with a disability complete an everyday task. There is a strong need for such help within our K-12 schools for any student who needs a bit more help. Using assistive tech whether Chrome apps/extensions or others you will do your students a great service by supplying them such helpful tools.
Hansen's Link to Tech 