Contents:
I get it.
You've installed Accessible Classroom Board, you probably have a lesson to teach and you don't want to sit here reading a manual from beginning to end.
So here are the things you actually need to know to get going:
Accessible Classroom Board is a classroom presentation and board-building program designed so that a teacher can build and control a visual classroom board without needing to see it.
You can add text, tables, timers, images and interactive classroom components, arrange them on the board, present them to pupils and keep editing while the pupil view remains live.
The important bit is that the visual board is not the only source of information.
Accessible Classroom Board can tell you where an item is, whether text or table content fits, what overlaps, what pupils can currently see and whether something has wandered off the useful part of the board.
That means you don't have to choose between making something useful for sighted pupils and having something you can independently control yourself.
The main window is the teacher's working area.
On the left is the lesson boards list. Under that is the board components list, containing everything on the current board.
The visual preview is on the right.
Screen reader users can do almost everything from the two lists and the menus. Sighted users can also work directly with the visual preview.
The components list supports multiple selection for things such as alignment and matching sizes.
The Add menu contains the components you can place on a board.
These currently include:
The four most common items, text, table, timer and image, also have buttons on the main window and dedicated keyboard shortcuts.
You can save a component as a reusable preset from the Edit menu if you have something you use regularly.
Select a component in the components list and press Enter to edit it.
Different component types have different editors. Text gives you formatting controls, tables open in the grid editor and classroom components expose the options relevant to that component.
Press the applications key or Shift+F10 on a component to open its context menu.
This gives you quick access to editing, Properties, positioning, nudging, resizing, copying, duplication, deletion and layer order.
Properties is deliberately based around sliders for changing the component's left position, top position, width and height.
If you just want to move something, Alt+Left, Right, Up or Down nudges it around the board.
Alt+Shift plus an arrow resizes it.
The Layout menu also contains named positions such as top left, centre and bottom right, plus alignment, matching-size and distribution tools for multiple components.
For text, Control+[ and Control+] decrease and increase the font size. Control+Shift+F asks the program to find the maximum text size that fits the available area.
Press Enter on a table to open the grid editor.
The grid is designed to let you move around the table with the arrow keys without having every movement drowned in unnecessary speech.
Press F9 if you want a description of the current cell.
Press the applications key or Shift+F10 for cell actions.
Press Escape to save the table and close the grid editor.
If a table becomes too large for the board, Accessible Classroom Board can warn you and, where appropriate, offer to split the overflowing rows onto another board while repeating the heading rows.
Timers are both useful to you and visible to the class.
Select a timer and press Space to start or pause it, R to reset it, Control+Up to add a minute or Control+Down to subtract a minute.
The default speech behaviour avoids constantly talking over your lesson; completion is the important announcement rather than every passing second.
Control+Alt+T is the global remaining-time query, allowing you to ask how long is left without having to go hunting for the timer first.
Press F5 to show or bring forward the pupil view.
The pupil view is a separate window from the teacher interface. Put that window on the projector or classroom display and leave the main Accessible Classroom Board window on your own screen.
You can then change text, edit tables, move components, start timers and move between boards while the pupil view remains live.
Shift+F5 hides the pupil view. F6 shows or hides the private presenter console.
The presenter console contains teacher-only information and notes and is not part of the pupil board.
By default the board preserves a 16:9 classroom layout so that moving between different displays does not unexpectedly rearrange your lesson.
The Presentation menu also has an option to adapt the board to the display instead, as well as commands for choosing the pupil display, windowing the pupil view and maximising it.
This is one of the bits you should actually use.
Press X on a selected component for a description of that component, including its position, visibility and any overlaps.
Press F8 for a description of what pupils can currently see across the board.
Press Control+Shift+V to run the visibility and collision check.
The program checks things such as text clipping, table rows which no longer fit and components which collide with one another. Where possible, overlap reports describe which edges or areas are involved so that you have something useful to act on rather than merely being told that two rectangles have offended each other.
There is a small tolerance for insignificant font-rendering differences so that a couple of pixels of Windows weirdness do not automatically become a classroom emergency.
F7 provides a teacher-only summary of the current board.
The Accessibility menu contains an Editing overflow policy with three choices:
For normal teaching, Prevent overflow is the safest choice.
If text or a table is getting too large, the program can direct you towards changing its Properties, reducing content or splitting material onto another board rather than quietly letting half your lesson disappear behind something else.
A lesson can contain multiple boards.
Use Page Up and Page Down to move between them. Control+Shift+N creates a blank board, Control+D duplicates the current board and F2 renames it.
You can also use the Board menu to move boards earlier or later, delete them or add common board templates for starters, independent work, discussion and plenaries.
Private teacher notes can be edited with Control+Alt+N and are also available through the presenter console.
Control+F searches through the lesson.
Save your lesson with Control+S as you would expect. Accessible Classroom Board also keeps recovery information so an unexpected crash has a better chance of being annoying rather than catastrophic.
The File menu can export a lesson outline as text.
It can also export the current board as a PNG image, JPEG image or PDF.
Board exports use a clean pupil view, without teacher controls, selection handles, window borders or other editing clutter.
Excellent!
Accessible Classroom Board is built around the idea that blindness should not decide what you are able to put in front of your class.
If something gets in your way, if a screen reader says something ridiculous or if you have an idea that would make teaching easier, please get in touch.
Contact Nathan Tech
Nathan Tech website
Nathan Tech.
It's not disability,
It's ability!