Microsoft Immersive Reader in Canvas
Microsoft Immersive Reader is an accessibility and reading experience tool integrated into Canvas. The tool can be used to help students read and understand course pages, assignment instructions, and the syllabus. It is not available for discussion boards, quizzes, files, or other Canvas content at this time. To use the Microsoft Immersive Reader, select the Immersive Reader button in the top-right corner of the page. This will reload the page's content using the Immersive Reader's settings. This button will only be visible when looking at a course's pages, assignment instructions, or syllabus.
Features
The Microsoft Immersive Reader displays a variety of tools and options. To hear the page text read aloud, select the teal/green play button at the bottom center of the page. To adjust the speed that the text is read aloud, or to change between a male or female voice, select the voice settings button next to the play button.
There are three additional icons in the top-right corner that allow you to manage text preferences, grammar options, and reading preferences.
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You can adjust the text size, line spacing, font style, and page color, as well as remove potentially distracting source formatting.
- Change the Text Size by adjusting the slider to the left (smaller) or right (larger).
- Add more white space between lines and reduce overcrowding of words by toggling on the Increase Spacing option.
- Select the round "radio" button to change the Font to one of three options: Calibri (a sans-serif font), Sitka (a serif font), and Comic Sans (a distinctive font).
- Choose a color Theme to reduce eye strain or improve the readability of content by selecting one of the six pre-made themes, or by selecting More colors for a customized theme.
- Remove or show a page's original formatting (like bold, italics, underlining, etc.) by toggling on or off the Show Source Formatting option.
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You can break up words to show syllables or highlight parts of speech to help you better understand the words and sentences that you're reading.
- Break up words into their syllables by toggling on the Syl-la-bles option.
- Highlight Parts of Speech by selecting each toggle next to nouns, verbs, adjectives, and/or adverbs.
- Customize the color for each Part of Speech by clicking the color box to the left of each option and selecting the new color.
- Label each part of speech by toggling on the Show labels option.
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You can focus on specific lines, define words with a picture dictionary, translate specific words, or translate the whole document. Many of these features may be helpful if English is not your primary language.
- Focus on a limited number of lines at one time by selecting the toggle for Line Focus.
- Switch between one, three, or five displayed lines by selecting the horizontal line icons below the Line Focus toggle.
- Close the Reading Preferences menu to access scroll arrows that will move you up or down the page.
- Select a word while the Picture Dictionary toggle is enabled to see an image that can help readers understand an unfamiliar word.
- Select the speaker icon above the picture to hear the word pronounced.
- Translate a word into your native language by selecting Choose a language and then selecting your language.
- Translate a single word by toggling on the By word option, then selecting a word.
- Translate the whole document by toggling on the Document option.
- Keep in mind that Microsoft Immersive Reader translations are a simple aid to assist in promoting accessibility in classrooms, especially for students who are not native English speakers but are learning in English. The Immersive Reader translate function is not robust enough to help English speakers taking a foreign language at FSU.
For more information about the Microsoft Immersive Reader in Canvas, please visit Instructure's Microsoft Immersive Reader article or Microsoft's Immersive Reader documentation.
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