Universal design – The Learning & Applied Innovation Digital Garden

February 2, 2023

Accessible AND Inclusive Course Documents

I recently read an Association for Talent Development article, Should Our Learning Content be Accessible or Inclusive? What caught my attention in the article was the analogy the author, Susi Miller, used for describing the difference between accessible and inclusive. “…a person who uses a wheelchair [is] having a meal out with friends. When they arrive together at the restaurant,...

How-To/Teaching

December 2, 2022

Open source: for more than just applications?

In looking around for some new stock footage with which I could teach, I rediscovered a concept I first encountered years ago: open source films. You might be familiar with open source projects, or the concept of open source. Many popular pieces of software are created, distributed, and maintained by using this principle: Firefox, VLC, Blender, and most of the...

Articles of Interest/Digital Life

November 1, 2022

Exploring the benefits of text-to-speech and speech-to-text tools

There are many situations where text-to-speech and speech-to-text tools can be very beneficial to you or someone you know. Text-to-speech technology reads text on your computer or mobile device out loud. You may find text-to-speech tools beneficial if you are experiencing eye strain from looking at the screen for too long or have low vision. People who are learning English...

How-To/Resources

October 24, 2022

UDL and Student Wellbeing

The Dartmouth Center for the Advancement of Learning provides some terrific resources. I was especially intrigued by the resource titled Wellbeing in Course Design which starts out stating that “faculty members play an important role in proactively supporting student wellbeing… and can help create the conditions that support wellbeing.” They follow with a list of best practices grouped into four...

Resources

October 14, 2022

Google Docs and Accessibility

Google Docs can create accessibility barriers for some users. The people most affected by the limitations of Google Docs are people who use screen reader technology. People who are blind and people who have a significant visual disability often use screen readers which use computer-generated speech to read aloud the text on the screen and unique keyboard combinations to navigate...

How-To

September 29, 2022

Think of UDL as a Learning Buffet

CAST, a nonprofit education research and development organization, created the Universal Design for Learning framework in the 1980s. CAST’s mission is to transform education design and practice until learning has no limits. CAST.org I’ve been reading and learning about Universal Design for Learning (UDL) for many years and have often found it difficult to explain UDL to others. I recently...

Learning/Resources

September 26, 2022

Choose your preferred document format using SensusAccess

SensusAccess is a self-service, web-based tool that automatically converts documents into a range of alternative formats including MP3 audio, searchable PDF, DOCX, EPUB, HTML, RTF and digital Braille. Anyone with a Colgate.edu email address can use SensusAccess to convert documents into these alternative, accessible formats. SensusAccess was implemented at Colgate in the summer of 2021. Since then, use has increased...

Resources

September 14, 2022

Helping students who struggle with executive function

Executive function and self-regulation skills are the mental processes that enable us to plan, focus attention, remember instructions, and juggle multiple tasks successfully. Just as an air traffic control system at a busy airport safely manages the arrivals and departures of many aircraft on multiple runways, the brain needs this skill set to filter distractions, prioritize tasks, set and achieve...

Resources

Tag: Universal design

Accessible AND Inclusive Course Documents

Open source: for more than just applications?

Exploring the benefits of text-to-speech and speech-to-text tools

UDL and Student Wellbeing

Google Docs and Accessibility

Think of UDL as a Learning Buffet

Choose your preferred document format using SensusAccess

Helping students who struggle with executive function