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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt">Last year, I took a course that used Perusal, an online tool which lets students annotate text. The textbook, or course reader is contained within the web-based app, and students highlight text and comment
on it.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt"><a href="https://www.perusall.com/">Perusall | Increase Student Engagement with Social Learning</a><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt">It’s a very social-media-oriented interface with loads of keyboard shortcuts. So theoretically, it’s supposed to be accessible.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt">But using it with a screen reader, I found it was very difficult to highlight text. Though a sighted user could hold the shift and press the arrow keys to highlight text, just as one would do in a word processor,
if this was done with a screen reader it didn’t work. If the screen reader’s virtual cursor or browse mode was on, then highlighting text was taken over by the screen reader, and the browser and underlying web app was unaware that text was being highlighted.
If the user turned on forms or focus mode, then they could highlight text, but the screen reader would not give any feedback, so the user wouldn’t know what was being highlighted.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt">NVDA has a new keystroke, native selection mode, which is toggled with shift-f10. I haven’t tried it because I no longer have access to Perusal. That might work, but I’m not sure.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt">Anyway, I have two blind students who are now required to use Perusal in an online class.
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt">I’m wondering if anyone else has tried it with a screen reader and has a solution. Specifically does the NVDA native selection mode work?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt">Thanks.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt">--Debee<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
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