Universally Designed

I just finished doing a session on using technology to motivate writers and came across this cool website. It’s called the Newspaper Clipping Generator. It’s purpose is to generate what looks like a newspaper clipping out of whatever you have your students write. They can choose the title of the newspaper and download an image of the completed product to print off and hand in or include in their blog or website. It does have a couple of shortfalls, namely it’s inability to show the full text of the newspaper title or the article itself. But then again it is a clippings generator, not an entire newspaper generator. My colleague, Lisa Shaw, mentioned how this is a great strategy for teaching students how to generate leads for feature articles.

For those that aren’t aware, a podcatcher is a software application used to collect and play podcasts. By far, the most popular podcatcher is iTunes. However, not everyone wants to rely on only one software application. In addition, there are many schools or entire districts that do not allow the use of iTunes. So what exactly is a podcast and are there options for those wanting to subscribe to podcasts other than iTunes? That is what this post hopes to answer.

To start with, a podcast is simply an audio or video file that is syndicated, which means people are able to subscribe to it using a podcatcher. Why would you want to subscribe to a podcast? Let me use an example that I think will help. Imagine there are 5 podcasts that i am really interested in. They are on various topics, maybe Spanish lessons, technology, financial information, music, and math strategies. All of these podcasts contain great information, but it is a time consuming task for me to visit each site every day just to see if a new podcast has been posted. If I find that there is a new post, I then have to download and store it somewhere before I can listen to it on my computer or on a portable media player like an iPod.

Now let’s look at using a podcatcher, such as iTunes, to make this process more efficient. Instead of visiting each site everyday, I only visit it once. While there, I find the feed information for that podcast (usually by clicking on a link that says “subscribe to this podcast”). I take that link and copy and paste it into my podcatcher (if using iTunes go to Advanced – Subscribe to Podcast) and viola, I am now subscribed to that podcast. I do the same with the other four sites and now every time I open my podcatcher it searches to see if any new posts have been made. If so, it automatically downloads and organizes them for me. Is that cool or what! iTunes also offers an extensive list of podcasts you can search and subscribe to without ever leaving the application.

So moving on, are there other podcatcher options than iTunes? The answer to this is yes, but you may need to spend some time exploring the options to find which works for you. Below is a list of a few options you may want to try:

• Doppler
• gPodder
• Juice
• MediaFly
• myPodder
• NewsFire (mac only)
• NIMIQ
• PrimeTimePodcast
• QuickNews (for PalmOS)
• RSSRadio
• SmartFeed (for Windows Mobile)
• ZiePod
• Zune (Microsoft’s Version of iTunes)

I figure this list will do you for awhile. I personally use iTunes, but if I didn’t I would probably give Juice, MediaFly or ZiePod a try.  If you have tried one of the options above feel free to leave a comment and let us know what you think.

I know that I am not the first, and will surely not be the last to do a post on Jott, a free web based tool to convert speech into text, but I still feel the need to mention it here for my readers.

So what exactly is Jott, and how can it be used in your toolkit of Universally Designed activities for students? Well, to access Jott all you need to do is go to www.jott.com and setup an account. Once setup you will receive a verification code to use when you call 866-JOTT-123. After dialing the number and entering the code, you can choose to Jott yourself or someone in your contact list (which you can create after signing up for an account). To Jott is simply to speak a message. Once spoken, you can set up a reminder to go along with it if you wish. When finished, Jott will sent you an email or text message with the text of that voice note. How cool is that! You can use Jott to send yourself reminders while driving in the car, create lists, and even add dates to your Google calendar or make a blog post.

So how can this be used in Education? It just so happens that a colleague and I did a session titled “Ugh, I Hate to Write!: Innovative Ways to Use Technology to Motivate Reluctant and Struggling Writers” yesterday. A major component of it was using services like Jott to motivate writers. For example, one critical part of writing that is seldom done these days is writing to learn. These are the kind of things students do to help digest information. They are not graded, and the main audience are the students themselves. Activities typically seen in writing to learn activities include writing breaks (stop talking for 2 minutes and let students write what is on their mind), exit and admit slips, brainstorming or clustering, drawing and illustrations, write arounds and much more. So imagine next time you want your students to participate in a writing break you allow them to call Jott and speak what’s on their mind! This not only increases engagement, but is also much more accessible for students who may struggle with writing due to cognitive or physical disabilities.

The above is of course only one example. I can see students using Jott as an organization tool, a method for delivering admit and/or exit slips to teachers (remember that students can Jott to teachers and other students, not just themselves), brainstorming, and to take notes among many other things. Have an idea for using Jott? Write it in the comments section below.

The Center for Applied Special Technologies (CAST), the number one resource on Universal Design for Learning, has released version 1.0 of UDL Guidelines. According to cast:

As the UDL field has grown, so has the demand from stakeholders for Guidelines to help make applications of these principles and practices more concrete.

These UDL Guidelines will assist curriculum developers (these may include teachers, publishers, and others) in designing flexible curricula that reduce barriers to learning and provide robust learning supports to meet the needs of all learners. They will also help educators evaluate both new and existing curricula goals, media and materials, methods and assessments.

You can pick up your own copy of the guidelines from CAST’s website at http://www.cast.org/publications/UDLguidelines/version1.html

This post is part 2 to my introduction to video self modeling (VSM). Part 1 is only a few paragraphs long so I recommend you read it first to gain a better understanding of what video self modeling is. You can access the post BY CLICKING HERE.

So now the fun part… What do you need in order to successfully use video self modeling? Well, first you will need a video camera. This is typically the most expensive part of the process. Go into any electronics store and you will likely find several different models of video cameras all saying they are the best. First, know that the price doesn’t always equal the best. It all depends on what you are wanting to use the camera for. For example, a popular video camera might allow you to burn your footage directly onto a DVD. This allows you to immediately take the DVD out of the camera, pop it in your DVD player and watch it. Sounds great right? Maybe, but probably not if you are wanting to use the camera for video self modeling because you need to be able to edit the video before you burn it on a DVD. Most other video cameras will work fine for VSM, but you need to be cautious and make sure it will work with whatever editing software you choose to use. I take the easy route and use a FLIP Video Camera that runs about $100. See it at http://www.theflip.com/. You can get a 30 minute or 60 minute camera that runs off AA batteries and plugs directly into your computer via usb just like a flash drive. It doesn’t get much simpler than that.

Now that you have your camera you are ready to start recording. I’m not a professional video person by any means so I only have a couple of pointers on this part. First, remember that you can get creative with your video when you get to the editing process. Many times I see a person go in and follow a student around for two days trying to catch them doing something for the tape. Instead, maybe you can piece a few things together later that gives the appearance of the student performing the behavior you are looking for. Second, don’t worry about getting the perfect shot. Some people try and shoot the whole thing over because they got someone or something in the video for a few seconds. You can just edit those kind of things out. Also remember that these videos do not need to be high quality. You are not making a major motion picture here, just a self modeling clip.

Once you have your video, it’s time to get to work on editing. This part is going to require you to do a little self learning, but I can give you information on the basic software you may want to look into using. If you are a PC user, Microsoft Movie Maker is free and comes installed on your computer by default. Just got to Start – All Programs – Accessories – and choose Windows Movie Maker. It will take you through the process of capturing and editing your video.  I use QuickTime Pro ($29.99) for most situations. It allows me to make quick edits and save them in different formats including an ipod format. QuickTime Pro will also work with a MAC, but MACs usually come with iMovie, which is also an excellent choice. Finally, I should mention that if you use an older video camera that takes VCR tapes, you can create most of your video editing either on the fly while you are filming (by rewinding and recording over bad parts) or by using two VCRs (one to play the original and the other to record only the parts you want to keep).

Once you have your video filmed and edited you will want to put it in whatever format you need for final viewing. This really just depends on how you plan on viewing it. If you have a DVD player, you will need to use your video editing software to put it in a DVD format (you will also need a DVD burner on your computer). If you’re editing software doesn’t allow for this, you may find that whatever software came on your computer for burning DVDs will convert to the proper format for you. If you are going to watch it on a computer you can put it in a .avi or a .mov (QuickTime) format. I occasionally like to use a .wmv or .avi format and imbed the video segments into a PowerPoint. Then I can set it up to where students click on a picture and the video will automatically start playing.

Hopefully this will give you enough information to get started with Video Self Modeling. I’ll try to put some specific tutorials up in the future on how to use some of the editing software.

Oddly enough, I don’t get asked this question enough.  I find that most people believe they already know the answer and see no reason to ask or don’t care and assume if they ignore it long enough it will go away.  Whatever the reason is, I figured I should go ahead and create a post with a basic explanation of what Universal Design for Learning is.

For starters, the term Universal Design for Learning comes from Universal Design, an architectural term.  The idea behind Universal Design was to create things to accommodate the most users from the beginning.  Think of curb cuts as an example.  They help people in wheelchairs, right?  But who else uses curb cuts?  I know I do.  So do people with luggage, baby strollers, and bicycles.  This is an excellent example of designing things in the beginning with the end in mind.  Other examples include Closed Captioning and automatic doors.  Can you think of anything else?  If so, post in the comments section below.

Moving from architecture to education, the term Universal Design for Learning came about.  Its purpose, similar to Universal Design, is to make learning accessible to the largest group of students possible from the start.  The Center for Applied Special Technology (CAST) describes UDL in the following terms:

One important thing to keep in mind that is often confusing for people is that UDL is not something you can touch.  I remember in Kentucky for example, when UDL was really gaining support, the state took the initiative of getting a special contract with a text reader software company to help make text more accessible in KY schools.  The text reader of choice was Read&Write Gold from Texthelp so for the next 3 or 4 years I think half of the state thought that UDL and Read&Write Gold were the same thing.  This of course was not the case, so during trainings I always started off with an explanation of each.  I’m not sure if this helped or not, but I always referred to UDL as a theory.  I believe CAST described it as an “educational approach,” which I always thought sounded good too.  CAST also laid out three principals to help people understand UDL.  They are as follows:

1. Multiple Means of Representation – provide students information in multiple ways (lecture, audio, video, learning centers, etc…)
2. Multiple Means of Expression – allow students to demonstrate their knowledge in multiple ways (instead of paper and pencil tests for example, allow students to create a powerpoint, make a blog post, etc…)
3. Multiple Means of Engagement – motivate your students.

One misconception of Universal Design for Learning is that you must have technology for it to happen.  This is not always true.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m a technology guy and technology really helps, but don’t think that you have to spend thousands on a smart board to have a universally designed classroom.  There was an article in CEC back in 2005 titled “Using Universal Design to Unlock the Potential for Academic Achievement of At-Risk Learners” by Cynthia Acrey, Christopher Johnstone, and Carolyn Milligan.   It had tons of useful information in it, but the main take away for me was that you don’t always need expensive equipment.  It talked about what paper color to use and how you should use bolded text instead of underlines because it is easier to read… Things that all of us can take note of and start implementing today. 

Ideally new technology will make its way into your classroom over time and you can begin getting more creative with how you make class accessible for ALL of your students.  I’ll post ideas and resources as time goes on to help with this, but just wanted to give you a quick overview for now.