This past week, I presented at the Digital Learning Conference as one of their featured speakers. This conference is truly phenomenal. Cypress Fairbanks brings in speakers from around the country and the conference is not only FREE, but open to all educators virtually. I feel truly honored to have been one of their featured speakers this year.  Next week, I am once again presenting virtually- this time at BCSSTEAM. This is another example of a district sharing an amazing FREE virtual conference, with some in person options. You can register at https://bit.ly/bcssteam23reg .

Reviewing what are the ABCs of Transforming Learning are-

ABCs of Transforming Learning graphic

Two weeks ago, I shared a blog post called W= Wonder how AI Can Help You. As we approach another school year, it can be easy to feel overwhelmed by the amount of tasks you need to complete every day as an educator. Being an educator is harder than ever and acknowledging that is important. However, there are many tools at an educator's disposal to help them manage the overwhelm. This week's post begins to explore how we can use AI or Artificial Intelligence tools to do just that.

This week, we will focus on X = eXplore the Connection Between UDL and Tech Tools. This is not the first time that I have mentioned UDL or Universal Design for Learning in this blog series. So why revisit it, you may ask.  As educators, we can leverage tech tools to provide UDL for our students. This levels the playing field for our students and provides all of our students access to learning.

X = eXplore the Connection Between UDL and Tech Tools

When I attended the Upstate Technology Conference a few weeks ago, I got to attend part of Susan Aplin's session on Universal Design for Learning in PK-12. Since this topic is one of the sessions I regularly share about, I was curious to see how she presented it.  One of the things that I really enjoyed about her sessions was how she incorporated videos into her presentations and added some hands on activities. The  video to the right is one of those videos. It shares how education can not be a one-size fits all model and how we engage more of our students when we provide them UDL. When we find tech tools that help us provide UDL, we can better meet the needs of all of our students. Many times, educators feel the need to use tech tools but don't understand why they are using them. When we see how tech tools can help us  provide increased access to student learning, we are able to integrate technology in meaningful ways.

Revisiting Universal Design for Learning

During Susan Aplin's session, she also shared this amazing video. It explains the need for UDL in a way that is so very clear. It explains that if when we bowl, we throw the ball in the middle of the lane, we won't get all the pins down.  Many times, this leads to a 7-10 spilt and we need to determine which pin to go forward, which leaves one pin standing. If we instead put the bowl in a diagonal, it is more possible to hit all the pins down. UDL is just like that. If we provide UDL for all of our learners, we are better able to meet all of their needs. In other words, we can hit all the pins down.

Connecting Tech Tools and UDL

When I share my Empowering Student Voice with UDL and Tech Tools session, I always start by sharing each of the three components of UDL and how they can be present in tech tools.


Engagement:

Representation:

Action and Expression

Connecting Wixie and UDL

So how does Wixie provide Universal Design for Learning, you might be wondering. 


Engagement: To begin with, Wixie offers our students lots of choice.  Using the ability to hyperlink projects together, students can choose what is most engaging to them. In addition, in every project, students have the opportunity to choose from many different product options. They can choose from images, paint tools, text (including dictation), audio and video options.


Representation: Wixie allows our students to share using multimodalities. They can choose between images, paint tools, text (including dictation), audio and video options. As an educator, Wixie include a huge curriculum library from lots of templates that you can customize. Included in these templates are graphic organizers that help our students make connections between ideas. Lastly, Wixie includes read aloud options and video options so that all content is accessible to students.

Action and Expression: Students can use Wixie to share their learning in lots of different ways. Once we scaffold these options, we can promote student agency and allow our students to select the options that best meet their needs.


Use  the Settings to Your Advantage: Wixie also allows you to adjust settings to best meet the needs of your students. You can use these settings to help your students focus more on the tasks at hand. In addition, you can use the teacher dashboard to provide student feedback and support as needed.

Connecting Flip and UDL

Flip is a great tool to provide UDL for our students. Here's how:

Engagement:  Flip offers our students many ways to share their thinking. Students can choose between text, audio, images, drawing tools, backdrops and more as they communicate their ideas. In addition, Flip offers our students opportunities to collaborate as they share ideas and offer their classmates feedback.

Representation: Flip includes Immersive Reader which is truly a game changer. Immersive Reader allows our students to customize visual supports, read text aloud, and even translate to other languages. It is an amazing tool within Flip.

Action and Expression:  As you can see, Flip offers our students many ways to communicate. It allows them to choose to share their learning in the ways that best meets their needs.

Padlet and UDL

Another great tool to provide UDL for our students is Padlet. Here's how:

Engagement:  You might not know it but Padlet offers our students many ways to share their thinking too. Students can choose between text, audio, video, screencasts, autodraw, drawing and more. Like Flip, Padlet also offers students the opportunity to collaborate and use comments too.

Representation: Padlet offers many different ways to display information. From timelines to streams and more, there are so many ways for student to share their ideas.

Action and Expression:  Like Flip, Padlet offers our students many ways to share their ideas in the ways that best meets their needs.

 Connecting Pear Deck and UDL

Pear Deck is another great tool to provide UDL for our students. 

Engagement:  Pear Deck offers our students many ways to share their thinking too. Educators can offer students a variety of ways have students their thinking. From drawing to draggable and text options, there are lots of ways to choose from.

Representation: Like Flip, Pear Deck includes Immersive Reader too. Immersive Reader allows our students to customize visual supports, read text aloud, and even translate to other languages. 

Action and Expression:  As you can see, Pear Deck offers our students many ways to communicate. 

Next Steps

Take some time to see how the tech tools that you use connect with UDL.  


I would love to hear about it in the comments.