“Accessibility isn’t only for people with declared disabilities,” says Amy Foxwell. “There is huge demand from all audiences — for instance, many younger viewers now choose to watch films with closed captions.”
As the marketing director at ReadSpeaker, Amy has seen firsthand how accessibility tools have gone from “nice-to-have” niche features to mainstream essentials for learners everywhere. With the European Accessibility Act now in effect, she believes organisations have a unique opportunity to make learning more inclusive — not just to comply with regulations, but to meet the real needs of today’s diverse audiences.
Recently, we sat down with Amy in advance of her session at MoodleMoot Global to explore how changing attitudes, new legislation and innovative technology are shaping the future of inclusive learning. Here’s what we learned.
Broadening access with technology
“One great thing about Universal Design for Learning (UDL) is that it takes away stigma,” Amy explains. “By providing accessibility tools from the beginning, you make content much easier to understand for everyone. Accessible design is just good design.”
While statistics vary from country to country, around 16 per cent of the world’s population — one in six individuals — report having a disability. But the real number is higher because many people either choose not to disclose disabilities or don’t realise inclusive learning features could help them.
Also known as the “curb-cut effect,” making content accessible is the technological equivalent of cutting a curb at a street corner—originally designed for wheelchair users, but ultimately useful for parents with strollers, travelers with luggage, and everyone else navigating the path. Everyone benefits from the extra space, whether they have a disability or not.
“With a text-to-speech solution, it’s also about engagement,” continues Amy. “Students don’t disconnect from coursework as much, and they can listen wherever they are. They engage with the content the way they want to, helping them complete their course, and ultimately be successful.”
Driving change, one voice at a time
Amy has been with ReadSpeaker for more than 10 years. In that time, she’s seen the company expand its education offering from a text-to-speech accessibility solutions provider to an organisation focused on UDL and inclusive learning for all in a learning landscape transformed by artificial intelligence.
“Looking back, I realise how incredibly innovative we were,” says Amy, reflecting on how ReadSpeaker’s voice-building process has evolved. “We used to create voices by piecing recordings together. Now it’s completely different — it’s about deep neural networks that learn as they go, assembling voices like a child learns language.”
Amy explains that because of this, AI-enhanced language output is steadily becoming more natural and conversational. This means ReadSpeaker can create distinctive voices for virtually any purpose — even language and dialect preservation.
“We work across industries and organisations with a 90 per cent client retention rate,” explains Amy. “If you need a plugin, a personal tool to upload your own content into, audio files produced, an on-premise solution, or something behind a firewall so it’s secure, we can do that.”
When it comes to Moodle, ReadSpeaker’s plugin is simple to install and speech-enables virtually everything on the platform, from the infrastructure to the content within it. Learners can listen and read along with highlighted content, while the ReadSpeaker toolbar offers translation, speed control, text enlargement, dictionary look-ups, and read-aloud features.
Looking ahead to MoodleMoot Global
At MoodleMoot Global, ReadSpeaker’s sessions will focus on accessibility legislation and tapping into neurodivergent talent, which are topics Amy feels genuinely passionate about.
“People are beginning to understand that neurodiversity can make a really strong team,” she says. “Neurodiverse employees who feel understood and have the tools they need tend to be highly loyal and perform exceptionally well.”
Amy is also excited about the possibilities that legislation — including directives like the European Accessibility Act — and principles like Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) bring for creating more inclusive learning experiences.
“Just the fact that these standards exist is huge,” she says. “From my personal experience, there was a time when people didn’t even know what these were. And now it’s the opposite. So, this is a really exciting moment, not just for us, but for education as a whole.”
We can’t wait to see what Amy and her colleague, Jarno Aantjes, share in September. If you’d like to join us and hear them speak live, now’s the perfect time to register for MoodleMoot Global in Edinburgh. We’ll see you there!
