Microsoft Learning Tools in Windows 10 (Narrator & Edge Read Aloud) and Office 365 (Microsoft Teams, Skype, Word – Accessibility Checker & Alternative Text Adding) offer inclusive and accessible learning experiences to visually impaired learners & teachers. Forging a stroıng alliance with Microsoft towards realising their goal of providing equal & inclusive learning experiences to the visiually impaired learners under the Turkey National Development Plan of 2020, the National Association of the Visually Impaired Learners experienced the ease with which they could leverage Microsoft learning tools in an effective and productive way to provide inclusive and accessible teaching & learning experiences in their education thanks to the train the trainer training provided by Microsoft Turkey Education & Accessibility teams. They are now scaling these efforts by extending the scope of the trainings to their remaining trainer body via face-to-face professional development efforts bolstered by Microsoft Turkey.
One of their trainers is the Mathematics Teacher & Microsoft Innovative Educator Expert Hale Uçuş from Bilecik City Ertuğrulgazi Vocational & Technical High School who remotely teaches Mathematics to visually impaired learners, also the arcitecht of the free Mathematics Education Platform initative whereby the Ministry of Education Bilecik City Directorate and Microsoft EDU team worked together to establish ENMEP (Border Free Mathematics Education Platform) protocol that seeks to enable students with visual, hearing, or physical disabilities to access weekly mathematics classes taught through Skype in the Classroom and Microsoft Teams. The lesson plans and course content developped together with Microsoft aims to help students and graduates prepare for both university entrance exams and for their high school coursework, enabling their mobile learning to continue outside the boundaries of classroom, anytime from anwyhere students like.
