Thinking about Relationships...

Anyone who has been around education knows that there are always initiatives....always. Some make sense while others don't. I have the privilege of working with a number of different future and practicing education professionals in helping them understand the role that technology could - or should - play in the education of students with disabilities and other diverse learning needs.

About three years ago, I was invited by a colleague, Dr. Maureen Angel, to do a guest presentation in her class. The class was comprised of future special education administrators and schools psychologists and focused on technology applications in special education. I was asked to help paint the 'big picture' of technology use with relation to the education of students with disabilities. My viewpoint is (albeit, perhaps a biased one) that technology has the potential to be beneficial in almost every aspect of educating students with disabilities. However, as I was presenting, questions started to arise as to how technology - specifically assistive technology - fit into various initiatives and mandates - Response to Intervention (RtI), Universal Design for Learning (UDL), Accessible Instructional Materials (AIM) and the Assistive Technology (AT) mandate within IDEA. We had some lively discussion about these but I decided to put together a graphic to begin fueling the discussion and think about the relationships between these various initiatives and mandates. The graphic has been revised several times as my thinking has changed over time.

Let me see if I can break this down.

UDL is predominantly made up of, in my opinion, two components - differentiated instruction and universally designed materials. I am using the term differentiated instruction loosely to refer not only to Tomlinson's concept of Differentiated Instruction but also to the concept that there is a pedagogical side to UDL. A teacher needs to know how to design and implement the tenets of UDL - multiple means of expression, representation and engagement - across a variety of learners. These strategies and techniques should be grounded in research based practices that have been shown to be effective with students.

UDL cannot be accomplished without access to universally designed materials. Universally designed materials are based not only accessibility guidelines and standards - leading to accessible instructional materials - but are flexible to provide multiple means of representation and engagement.

Assistive technology, by its nature, is a compensatory intervention that allows a student to do something that he or she would not be able to do without the assistive technology, ultimately resulting in enhanced performance on a given task. Universally designed materials and accessible instructional materials, by their natures, are ready to be use by individuals with a variety of needs. However, while universally designed materials and accessible instructional materials will meet the needs of many individuals, some individuals will still need to use additional assistive technologies to access these materials. The design elements of these materials are such that assistive technologies are able to work well with these materials. It is the difference between using assistive technology to approximate access and using assistive technology actually achieve it. I maintain that there continues to be a need for AT and that UDL does not, in itself, replace AT but make it easier for a user to use AT to interface with instruction and instructional materials. It is the combination of fully realized UDL (grounded in good pedagogy using materials that are truly universally designed) and the use of AT that provides access to the curriculum.

So what about Response to Intervention? Well, if the thought process behind RtI is to provide levels of support that are grounded in scientifically valid interventions to specifically target areas in which students are having difficulty, doesn't it make sense that those interventions also take into consideration UDL? In some way, UDL has an influence on RtI....but I am not sure the full picture of this influence has yet been realized or understood.

Now...some disclaimers. There is - or should be - a relationship between RtI and AT. However, again, this relationship, I think, is still not yet well defined. There is also a relationship between RtI and the curriculum. I just didn't note it here. UDL, as pointed out by Edyburn (2010), is a construct - one that is still being conceptualized and brought into practice. There is a lot we still need to learn about UDL (and that holds true for AT as well) before we can realize its full implications or understand its effectiveness.

This representation of relationships is one that is in constant development. I welcome thoughts and ideas to allow this continue to grow.

Towards A Checklist Manifesto for Good Instruction

Every once in a while, in between coding and writing for my dissertation, I actually have time to work on cleaning off the DVR. Actually, the DVR many times threatens to explode and take my house out with it unless I clear some things off. Well, anyway, I was watching an episode of John Stewart and he had a guest - Dr. Atul Gawande - who authored the book, The Checklist Manifesto. This book, which I am in the process of reading, describes the process of developing the checklist to be used by surgeons and a study that evaluated the impact of using checklist within the operating room. The idea for the checklist was borrowed from the aviation industry referencing the checklist that pilots use to prepare the plane for takeoff. The idea was to develop a checklist that surgeons could use in the operating room to ensure that key steps were not omitted. After the checklist was developed and implemented, the study to examine the effectiveness of the checklists found significant drops in postsurgical complications and deaths. For more information on this book, I will refer you to the New York Times article entitled, A Hospital How-To Guide That Mother Would Love.

After watching the interview and beginning to read the book, I began thinking about the instructional planning process that teachers go through as they prepare their lessons. I believe that all teachers want their students to learn. I also believe that there is a pragmatic aspect to lesson planning and that, sometimes, even the best teachers may fall into a routine of using certain strategies or techniques repeatedly due to comfort, the pace of planning and implementing learning experiences, etc. I know, at least, that from time to time I have fallen into that trap. I have also experienced putting together and executing really good lessons where all students were engaged and 'got it' and other lessons that I felt 'if I only did these things differently' the precious time I had with the students would have been better spent. As I talk with other teachers, this phenomenon seems to be a shared experience.

In addition, teachers are bombarded with so many, well intentioned initiatives and models - Response to Intervention, Differentiated Instruction, Universal Design for Learning, Understanding by Design, Direct Instruction, 21st Century Learning, and so on. These initiatives and models have both similar attributes and some differences. Some have greater degrees of efficacy research supporting the initiative/model and others have less. Teachers also have different awareness and understanding of these initiatives and models and may or may not ascribe to one or more of these. Put in the words of one of my K-12 teaching colleagues as we were sitting in the start of the year meeting, "I wonder what the model for instruction will be this year?"

Suffice to say, the instructional planning process for teachers is complex.

So, that brings me to thinking about what a checklist might look like for good instruction. Would a checklist - say no more than 5-7 items - that teachers would consult every time they plan be a good thing? The checklist would contain the 'must haves' for each and every learning experience for which they are planning. The items on the checklist would result in learning experiences that allow every student to learn and be successful.

What would be the components of such a checklist?

Technorati Tags: instructional planning, checklist, UDL

What happens when innovation outpaces accessibility?

I was presenting to a group of higher education faculty the other day on Universal Design for Learning and how they could move forward on creating creating course that were more aligned with the principles of UDL.  The morning was presented largely by a colleague of mine and she worked to establish the foundation of UDL in higher education settings specifically focusing on Multiple Means of Expression, Engagement, and Representation.  The afternoon was my part and focused on using technology-based tools to help integrate these principles within courses and discussions ensued as to how each of these tools could achieve multiple means of expression, engagement and representation.  As part of the discussion, we also talked about accessibility.  We talked about accessibility for two reasons.  First, part of being 'universal' is ensuring that everyone can access and interact with the content being provided.  Second, Illinois passed the Illinois Information Technology Accessibility Act whcih requires Illinois agencies and Universities to ensure their various information technologies are accessible to people with disabilities.  This law extends ADA and Section 508 compliance within the state of Illinois.  The point of discussion that ensued thereafter is what really got me thinking.  A number of the tools that I presented are accessible and/or increase the accessibility of content only in part or only for specific populations.  For example, I spoke about using the tool VozMe, which is a little widget that can be put on a page and, when a person highlights the text of a web page and clicks on the button, there is a speech equivalent version generated.  However, when we tried to work this through a popular screen reader, the tool was not accessible.  I know this sounds redundant (using a screen reader tool to access a tool/service that provides text to speech) but similar cases could be made for embedding audio, video, VoiceThreads and many other tools/services as well.  If only partial accessibility is provided by the use of these tools, can they be considered to be 'universal'?  I would suggest that they are not.

I would propose, at this point and time, that UDL is a philosophical construct...a vision of 'what could be', if you will.  There are a number of things that are preventing UDL from being truly realized currently.  Copyright law prevents standard print from being truly accessible to all.  To access print in an accessible form, individuals often need to be 'certified' as being eligible to access the print in a form that meets their individual needs.  The explosion of user generated web content has left a plethora of online resources with limited or no accessibility.  There are a number of concerns with the degree to whcih Web 2.0 technologies are meeting the standards of accessiblity.  Even emerging technologies such as the Kindle DX are not exempt.  Truth be told, accessibility is still an afterthought of innovation.  Until accessibility is proactively integrated into tool development,  UDL can not  be fully achieved.

Until this time, however, we are left to approximate UDL by using a number of different tools to move towards multiple means of expression, engagement and representation, some with more accessibility than others.  The questions that I am left with, however, from both an ethical and legal perspective, are:

1. Do we use a variety of tools, some fully accessible and some partially accessible, to approximate UDL or do we only use those tools that are currently accessible to all? 
   
2. If we only use those tools that are fully accessible, knowing that in doing so we are placing limits on the use of other innovative tools, do we limit the degree to which UDL can be provided?  Is this an acceptible practice?

What do you think?

Why aren't all schools using Firefox?

I was just reading an article written by Steve Lee enititled "Mozilla Firefox helping to make the web accessible to all". It discussion many different accessibility features that are built into Firefox that are aimed at providing access to the web as well as different extensions that can be added to Firefox (at no charge) to improve the accessibility of the browser. There is ongoing committment by the Firefox developers to increase the accessibility of Firefox as well.

Firefox is not only free and working towards good accessibility, but just like the extensions (also called add-ons) mentioned above, there are a number of extensions that can support students in a variety of ways. Here are a few of my favorites beyond those that can be added for accessibility:

• Clipmarks - Allows a person to clip all or part of the web page and organize into various collections while retaining URL info. Great for research!
• Duplicate Tab - A person can duplicate a current tab along with its browsing history.
  
• Del.icio.us - A quick access to posing links to one's own del.icio.us account.
  
• Diigo Toolbar- A quick access to posting links, organizing links, highlighting and annotating web content through one's own diigo service.
  
• FireShot - FireShot is a Firefox extension that creates screenshots of web pages.
  Unlike other extensions, this plugin provides a set of editing and
  annotation tools, which let users quickly modify captures and insert
  text and graphical annotations.
• Image Zoom - Allows images to be viewed independenly of the webpage and enlarged.
  
• Google Notebook - Great tool for quickly creating and sharing Google Notebooks.
  
• Hyperwords - Select any word or words on any web page. A menu pops-up. Choose from
  any one of the many powerful commands. Fully customizable menu and
  behavior.
• PicLens - Allows browesing of online photos and videos in a very unique way! Much easier than standard browsing methods.
  
• Scribefire - ScribeFire is a full-featured blog editor that integrates with your
  browser and lets you easily post to your blog. You can drag and drop
  formatted text from pages you are browsing, take notes, upload images,
  and post to multiple blogs.
• Tab Catalog - By hovering over an icon, the user get a thumbnail array of all of the open tabs. Nice way to find the tab for which one is looking!
  
• WOT - Warns users about risky websites that try to scam visitors, deliver malware, or send spam.
• Zotero - Great for those of use doing research. This tool allow for the collection and organization of many different content types. It will even capture the necessary information for correct citations and produce those citations in the correct format (e.g., APA, MLA, etc.).
  

There are so many more extensions that can be used to help students explore and interact with web content. When I have had the fortune to present and work with educators, I often speak highly about different ways in which Firefox can be used. I am shocked and amazed how many times I am told that their schools have policies that prohibit Firefox from being installed on school computers. I hope more teachers will advocate for access to Firefox within schools.

Given all of the power and flexibility of Firefox...why aren't all school using it? Talk about Universal Design....

Thinking about UDL...

I was approached by an administrator the other day who asked me to explain 'UDL' to him. I began explaining that UDL is a shift in thinking and curriculum material design that allows teachers to meet students at the individual level and offer tailored scaffolded instruction while hooking into those things that engage the each student. I gave some brief examples, all of which, involved some integration of technology and spoke to the UDL tenets of Multiple Means of Expression, Engagement and Representation. He listened intently and then said, "Well UDL is basically a rehash of differentiated instruction with technology, right?" I paused, sighed (I have heard this perception before) and tried to explain it again. However, I'm not sure that I was successful.

Since that experience, I have been sincerely thinking about Universal Design for Learning (UDL) with respect to bringing it from a theoretical level to a pragmatic level that is easily understood by teachers to implement in their classrooms. In thinking about UDL, it struck me this morning (in the shower...where the best thinking occurs) that the problem with UDL is that it is a goal, a state of being, that has not yet been reached and, consequently, has not been experienced. This, I think, or at least is my thinking at this point, is the crux of the issue. We are in the process of moving towards this UDL utopia and, therefore, filling in the blanks. So, please indulge me as I ramble and try to add some thoughts to those blanks.

UDL, I believe, has two major components: universally designed materials and universally designed instruction. I will try to speak to both in turn.

UDL, as many people know, came from UD, or Universal Design. UD comes from the field of architecture. No new news there. However, this piece, I believe, plays a crucial point in realizing UDL. The key here is that curriculum materials used in the provision of instructions must be designed in a way that meets students 'where they are at'. A couple years ago, I heard Dave Edyburn describe UDL as a built in control panel for curriculum materials where teachers would just have to choose the right setting based on the student (e.g., readability, prior experiences, degree of pictoral support, etc.) and the curriculum material with automatically adjust to meet the student's needs. Well, I think it is safe to say that we have a long way to go here. However, steps, like NIMAS, are being taken to move in this direction. This 'design' level has much to do with establishing and setting policy as well as law. But since we do not currently have UDL designed curriculum materials, that leaves us in a sort of UDL primordial ooze.

In the interim, we look to existing and emergent technologies to adapt existing materials to, hopefully, approximate UDL designed materials. Text readers and the addition of picture supports to text, multimedia adaptations or integrations into various academic experiences add depth and provide differentiated experiences for students. The incorporation of various Web 2.0 and other digital technologies allow students to express themselves in a multitude of ways.

However, regardless of whether teachers are using UDL designed materials or attempting to approximate UDL designed materials through adaptation, there is a pedagogical component to UDL. Specifically, a teacher needs to:

• Differentiate instruction for diverse learners.
• Know strategies, resources and tools that can be used to differentiate instructional experiences for students.
• Know how to use these strategies, resources, and tools.
• Know how to teach the students to use these strategies, resources and tools.

To this end, there is an interesting line of study that discusses the relationships between technology knowledge, content knowledge, and pedagogical knowledge. Quoting from www.tpck.org:

Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPCK) attempts to capture some of the essential qualities of knowledge required by teachers for technology integration in their teaching, while addressing the complex, multifaceted and situated nature of teacher knowledge. At the heart of the TPCK framework, is the complex interplay of three primary forms of knowledge: Content (CK), Pedagogy (PK), and Technology (TK).

I believe that it is only with universally designed curriculum materials and the use of the those materials within sound pedagogy that has been influenced by UDL tenets that UDL will be realized.

Just some thoughts...