UDL & Building an Assistive Technology

UDL? What is it? UDL stands for Universal Design for Learning. The video I watched about UDL focused on the fact that all teachers have diverse students from gender, ethnicity, religion, special education, and etc. And a curriculum needs to be designed from the beginning to meet the needs of all students, hence the need for a Universal Design for Learning. A flexible design for students "in the margins" that include many more students as well. The video focuses on 3 UDL principles; representation, action & expression, and engagement. These principles focus on presenting content with varied supports, plenty of options for students to express what they know, and choices to fuel interests & autonomy.

To further engage in this topic, I read "Build an assistive technology toolkit". This article focuses on AT, assistive technology. It shares a variety of sources for teachers to work with the IT department at their school to install AT software. Assistive technology instills independence and confidence in students with special needs, for example online libraries with text to speech software that helps students that are visibly impaired. There are other sources for AT, like online concept map software, and online spell checkers. All of these tools can help special needs students, and also other students who might need the tools to help with their learning. These two topics tie together by the common thread of representation. AT helps meet the UDL principle of representation by presenting the material with varied support. AT gives students support for text to speech, magnification, on-screen keyboard, changing text size, mouse keys, and etc. All of these tools could help diverse students with their learning.

As for the ISTE standards for teachers, these two sources address Standard 4. It addresses the diverse needs of all learners by using learner-centered strategies and access to appropriate digital tools and resources (Standard 4b). The teachers learn from UDL to create a curriculum from the start that meets the needs of all students by creating a flexible curricula that has a variety of strategies that can be understood by everyone. And building an assistive technology at a school will give address the diverse needs of all learners.

As for the ISTE standards for students, the UDL video did not address any specific use of technology for students. However, the article did address Standard 6. Select and use applications effectively and productively (Standard 6b). The assistive technology gives students the opportunity to choose which software helps their learning experience and productively finish their assignments. 

(2015). Videos about UDL. National Center on Universal Design for Learning. 
 http://www.udlcenter.org/resource _library/videos/udlcenter/udl#videoO/

Ahrens, K. (2011). Build an assistive technology toolkit. Learning & Leading with Technology, 39(3), 22-24.