Inclusive Higher Education during the Covid-19 Pandemic

Cutting-edge communication and learning assistive technologies for disabled children: An artificial intelligence perspective

“…Speaker and speech recognition identify words spoken aloud and convert them into readable text presented with written or Braille alphabet (Benzeghiba et al, 2007 ). They implement almost all AI algorithms to develop various assistive technologies, such as AVA, Jaws or RogerVoice (Zdravkova and Krasniqi, 2021 ). Assessment of speech in TabbyTalks (Shahin et al, 2015 ) implements (VAD, Sohn et al, 1999 ).…”

“…Screen readers are a compulsory part of all the popular learning management systems: Blackboard Learn, Brightspace D2L, Canvas LMS and Moodle (Zdravkova and Krasniqi, 2021 ). JAWS is embedded in all of them with Chrome, NVDA, TalkBack, ORCA and VoiceOver as alternative text-to-speech plugins (Oh et al, 2021 ).…”

“…Urgent need to transform traditional in-class education to remote education was an inspiration for many AI researchers to start creating cutting-edge assistive technologies and support massive inclusiveness at all levels of education. AI-based assistive technologies played a significant role in supporting them to learn and study remotely (Zdravkova and Krasniqi, 2021 ; Zdravkova et al, 2022 ).…”

“…Blackboard Ally enables speech recognition via screen reader Read Speaker, while Brightspace D2L uses Dragon Inspection. These two learning management systems provide the opportunity to present learning content with a Braille display (Zdravkova and Krasniqi, 2021 ).…”

“…Video-teleconferencing tools, including the most widely used Zoom, Google Meet, MS Teams, BigBlueButton and Blackboard Collaborate have many features supporting students with motor, vision and hearing impairment. They all incorporate screen reader JAWS, as well as different AI-based plugins (Zdravkova and Krasniqi, 2021 ).…”