Easy 1, 2, 3: Create Your Own Accessible Book with Slides

Did you know that you can make your own accessible online textbook for students using Google Slides? Whether you are using it for a day, week, unit, or entire year, it's pretty easy. Check out the content below or watch my helpful video. 

Step 1: Add Content

First, open up Google Slides and begin adding text to your slides. It may be helpful to use a slide format that would reduce the amount of text on your slides, such as a single or double text format. 

Step 2: Accessibility Tips and Tricks

Next, you will want to begin thinking about making your book more accessible to all types of learners. Here are some ideas:

• Adjust the Font! Consider increasing the font size to make text easier to read. It may also be helpful to use formatting tools like bold, italics, highlights, and different font colors for text to stand out!
  

• Use emojis as a way for text to stand out! This is great for making information or important instructions to stand out. The Joypixels Emoji Keyboard  Chrome Extension is a great tool to use! 

• Use Hyperlinks! Hyperlinks are great for providing additional resources to understand ideas and vocabulary words. Plus they are helpful for navigating through your presentation! Did you know that you can use hyperlinks to navigate to different slides in your presentation? 

TIP: Make links stand out by using the highlighter and increase font size!

• Think about Navigation! Consider adding navigation symbols like arrows. You can use the drawing tools to draw the shape and hyperlink it to any slide in your slideshow. You also might want to consider using an Add-On like SlideContents to create a table of contents for students to use!

• Add Audio! Many of our students with IEP's may need additional supports, such as text being read aloud. Use the Mote Chrome extension to record audio. Not only is this helpful for students with learning difficulties, it might be helpful for all students. 

• Add Multimedia! Google Slides makes it easy for you to add video recordings, images, and animated GIF's to further illustrate ideas and processes. Remember that you can insert any YouTube or Google Drive video! Consider adding additional videos of yourself reviewing content, expanding upon ideas, and even creating a screencast demonstrating a math problem. 

Step 3: Publish and Share Your Book

Finally, it is time to share your book! To make things easy to navigate and access, you will want to publish your presentation to the web. I know that this sounds scary, but only people with the link will access. Simply visit the File Menu and choose Publish to the Web.  Share the generated link with your students via Google Classroom or another platform of your choice.

Conclusion

In conclusion, it doesn't take much to create an accessible book for your students. If you know the learning barriers that they may face, then you can design a book that will meet their needs. The best part is that your book is always up-to-date! Anytime that you make revisions or updates, your book will automatically update for students!