UNIVERSAL DESIGN FOR LEARNING
This eBook looks at different tools that teachers can use to promote Universal Design for Learning in their classrooms.
You'll notice that there is a penguin cartoon at the bottom left of the page. Click on him to hear extra little blurbs about each page.
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Universal Desgin For Learning:
1. Inklewriter
2. Educaplay
3. Quizlet
Review of UDL BookBuilder
1
Inklewriter is a free website that lets you create and publish interactive stories. You basically create choose your own adventure books.
http://www.inklestudios.com/inklewriter/
3 ways I could use this tool:
1. I think that this could be a fabulous tool to make tutorials for students.
They could read my description or example of each topic then choose whether or not they wanted to move on to the next subject or get another example. The tutorial that the Inklewriter site gives for how to use Inklewriter is exactly like this, and it is really easy to work through.
2. When teaching history I could get students to work through a historical timeline, choosing how they would react at each juncture. For example, I might write:
“You are the Monarch of a European country and an explorer has come to you to request that you pay for them to take a ship to find a new, faster route to China by sailing around the world.”
If they pick “Yes, fund the expedition.” I tell them that they are the Monarch of Spain and because of their generous funding Christopher Columbus completed four voyages to “the New World”.
If they pick, “No, Instead we should focus on finding a way to sail around Africa faster.” I tell them that they are a Portuguese monarch and the history therein.
I think that this would be a great way for them to see that the decisions that each country made helped shaped the way our world is structured today.
3. The students themselves could create a book like this and work in English to establish alternate plot points, chart character development, or understand subplots. For example we could use it to compare how the movie version differs from the book, but still hits the same central plot points. Or, we could choose to focus on one character in one set of choices but another in the other option to show how Point of View is conveyed. The choices are endless!
This tool will help students to be more engaged in their learning, will allow them to actively participate and move through the book, and can be adjusted for font size etc, to enhance read ability.
According to the website: “inklewriter is a free tool designed to allow anyone to write and publish interactive stories. It’s perfect for writers who want to try out interactivity, but also for teachers and students looking to mix computer skills and creative writing.”(Inklewriter, n.d.) So no age limit necessary! You don’t even have to sign in to get started.
Educaplay
Educaplay is “a platform to create multimedia teaching activities” and can be integrated into LMS platforms. Using this free online tool you can create (these links should be clickable):
I would use this tool in my class to create crosswords for vocabulary study guides in English, Interactive Map activties in Social Studies, I would use the Dialouges activity for either teaching Shakespeare in English or in Drama, and Video quizzes for students so that those who had trouble reading could still do a quiz in the same timeframe that other students do.
This tool would reduce barriers for kids who are visual or auditory learners, would add a feeling a “gamification” for students who need to be more entertained to be engaged, and the dictation option offers an option for talk to text.
There is no mention of an age limit in the terms of services. However, anything created by this site cannot be used for profit and must be shared alike as it is protected under a creative commons license.
Quizlet
Quizlet lets you create online flashcards and tests, but what is even better is that you can study these cards in two different games.
Even though most teachers are moving away from memorization, for an english teacher this tool would be an excellent way to broaden my students vocabulary, as well as to help them learn Literary terms and devices.
In my drama class, I think that I would use the game function to help my students learn to be prompted quickly with their lines and to help them memorize them more easily.
This tool has the option to add images which will help the visual learner, is interactive, which is great for a kinaesthetic learner, and using a talk to text function can really help out an auditory learner.
I would most likely have my students build the cards themselves as part of a class assignemnt, or as an alternative to taking notes, and then they could use them to study.
Even better news is that the website's terms of agreement does not set an age limit for their user. Also, there is a databank of cards other people have created, so the students would not always have to start from scratch.
My final UDL site is not a reccomendation, but rather a reflection of this UDL book builder as a tool.
Pros:
This site is free and signing up was a breeze.
I love that there is an option for students to highlight text and have it read to them, and to have highlighted text translated to either French or Spanish. This is certainly a very UDL friendly option.
I really like the interactive guides, however, I wonder if secondary students would find them lame.
Cons:
I feel very limited with my ability to customize the pages. I would love to add backround colors, manipulate the size of my photos, and have transitions between pages.
Although this site does have an instruction page, I do not feel like the set-up is intuitive enough. I struggled for awhile before I got the hang of working with this. I worry that my students would waste too much time formatting this tool to really benefit from learning if they were to build their own books.
Bottom line, I would probably use this tool in the classroom to provide students with my own version of cliff notes guides for the books we were reading. I would offer it as an option for students who wanted to try making a book of their own, but I can't see many of them taking me up on that. This tool, for me, seems best used as a teacher directed supplement.