Flat for Education supports music for ALL!

Noemie Aschenbroich -

Here at Flat for Education, we’re convinced that one similarity between music and education is that they are for everyone.

That’s why we work hard to make sure that our solution is inclusive and accessible to as many faculty and students as possible. From the beginning, we’ve been committed to having an affordable subscription plan and ensuring that our app can be used regardless of potential disability.

Recently, during our week at the ISTE conference in New Orleans, we had several teachers and principals asking about how Flat for Education could be used by students with special needs. So below, we outline some specific features that can help those members of the Flat for Education community to nourish their love of music and composing 🤗

  • Wherever possible, the app provides text alternatives for non-text content. One exception is that sheet music can’t be read by a screen reader; however, for sheet music, there is the ability to listen to audio playback;
  • The app is full of colors, including boomwhackers, but all information is also coded to be visible to any color-blind students or faculty;
  • For the vision-impaired, you can easily increase the display size to make notes more visible;
  • Kodály notation is a visual tool that, together with the activities it can inspire, can be used to help deaf and hard-of-hearing students learn music notation and enjoy the music classroom;
  • The chord grid provides another visual reference for understanding music independently of hearing ability;
  • All functionalities in the app can be operated via a keyboard;
  • Some students have anxieties related to performing in front of others; with our performance assignments, they can get the practice they need without feeling anyone else’s gaze;
  • Personalized worksheet assignments can provide additional help to students needing more practice with music theory-related questions;
  • All of Flat for Education’s various assignments can be used with specific students using the “assign individual students” option;
  • Collaboration tools are a way to reduce distances, both physical and social, helping students connect with each other and interact;
  • All features are highly adaptable to students of any age and any level, allowing teachers to meet the needs of each individual student;
  • As a general rule, the whole point of Flat for Education is to help teachers spark students’ curiosity and engagement via music. And don’t forget to use the annotation tool and inline comments to give feedback and that little bit of extra encouragement! 🎼👥👥👥​​👥👥👥👥🎼

Of course, there’s always more to be done: we, unfortunately, don’t yet have special features for fully blind students, and fully deaf students can only participate in the read-only exercises.

Still, based on your feedback and our conversations with educators at ISTE, we think we’re on the right path - and we look forward to continuing along it with you!

—----------

If you’d like to see Flat for Education’s full accessibility report, just click here. And if there’s anything we can do to help make our solution better for you, don’t hesitate to get in touch.