Seemingly innocuous digital tools and features, such as text size and cursor color, can help students learn — or hamper the experience.
The elementary students that Kristin Oropeza teaches sometimes have trouble locating their cursors on the screen. A built-in Chromebook feature not only makes the cursor larger, but it also draws a red circle around the object, making it easier to spot.
Gendered voices are another example. While teaching a university course to teachers last spring, Karyn Fillhart noted an option to select a male or female voice when translating text to speech. A teacher in…