UDL Tip #1
Living the digital dream
UDL-IZE your ELA and CALS classes with Rocket Lit!
Embedded supports? Highlighting and annotating? A screen reader? Leveled, nonfiction selections? LEXILED? Adaptive supports? Online open-ended response journals? Does one digital library have all of the UDL tools anyone needs? A BIG UDL Heartbeeps to Rocket Lit! Go get it! Assign reading! Link it to Google Classroom!
Illustrate through multiple media.
Classroom materials are often dominated by information in text. But text is a weak format for presenting many concepts and for explicating most processes. Furthermore, text is a particularly weak form of presentation for learners who have text- or language-related disabilities. Providing alternatives—especially illustrations, simulations, images or interactive graphics—can make the information in text more comprehensible for any learner and accessible for some who would find it completely inaccessible in text.
Activate or supply background knowledge.
Barriers and inequities exist when some learners lack the background knowledge that is critical to assimilating or using new information. However, there are also barriers for learners who have the necessary background knowledge, but might not know it is relevant. Those barriers can be reduced when options are available that supply or activate relevant prior knowledge, or link to the pre-requisite information elsewhere. You can anchor your instruction with anchor videos.
Use multiple media for communication.
Unless specific media and materials are critical to the goal (e.g., learning to paint specifically with oils, learning to handwrite with calligraphy) it is important to provide alternative media for expression.
- Compose in multiple media such as text, speech, drawing, illustration, comics, storyboards, design, film, music, dance/movement, visual art, sculpture, or video
- Use physical manipulatives (e.g., blocks, 3D models, base-ten blocks)
- Use social media and interactive web tools (e.g., discussion forums, chats, web design, annotation tools, storyboards, comic strips, animation presentations)
