Using digital tools to build literacy skills across the curriculum

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Access to tools that can support literacy across the curriculum are increasingly at student’s fingertips. As part of a Universal Design for Learning approach, choices and supports for all students are built into the learning design at the outset. Consequently, students should have access to tools that personalise learning and match their needs and preferences across the curriculum. Here are three ideas teachers and students can use to support this approach.

1. Get familiar with Text-to-Speech

Text-to-speech (TTS) software enables a student to select and listen to text in a document or on a webpage. The software usually highlights a paragraph at a time as it is read aloud and often tracks each word as it is spoken in a second colour.  TTS software is usually free and built into most devices or can be enabled in a web browsers. It is also possible to purchase more sophisticated TTS tools bundled with other features such as word prediction.

Although the synthetic voices in TTS can take a little getting used to, students can use TTS to:

  • listen and read along to unfamiliar texts to develop fluency
  • increase comprehension and access to texts beyond reading level
  • rest tired eyes and access the text via audio
  • listen to the text whilst doing another activity such as exercise, travelling on the bus or walking home from school
  • listen back to written work to assist more accurate editing of text.

To get a sense of the potential impact of making text to speech available to students, take a look at this video of US high school students describing the difference having access to text-to-speech has made to their independence, their confidence as learners and to their increasing achievement.

2. Turn on the closed captions on YouTube videos

When using YouTube as a teaching resource, build in learning supports at the outset by selecting video that has closed captions, identified by the cc icon rather than machine captions “guessed” by YouTube. Using closed captions can boost literacy, reading speed, and vocabulary for readers who need additional support.

By turning on the closed captions, students can choose to:

  • watch the video, and/or
  • read the captions separately or at the same time
  • access the interactive transcript posted below the video.

The transcript is really useful when a student needs to find a quote or wants to scan a video to find a specific piece of information. Visit Media Access Australia for more information.

3. Demonstrate how to declutter web pages to support concentration

Introduce students to tools, such as Readability on the Chrome browser or the Safari Reader function on i-devices that strip away the clutter on web pages, so that students can focus more easily on a particular article.

Dig deeper

For more information on Universal Design for Learning and the tools above, check out the following links:

Universal Design for Learning (UDL)

Text to speech tools

  • Natural Reader download: Floating toolbar. Selected text will post into toolbar window. Text highlighted in short sections and read aloud. Can sync with Google Docs.
  • Natural Reader Online TTS: Upload document. Text highlighted in short sections and read aloud. Can sync to Google Docs.
  • Mac “Speak selection”: Built-in text to speech program. Speaks selected text in all applications including text on internet pages.
  • Read and Write for Google Docs: Toolbar opens at the top of a Google Docs page. Selected text highlighted yellow, each word tracked in blue as read aloud. NB Trial version has more features. After 30 days you are left with the basic TTS tool
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Universal Design for Learning at CORE

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Stephen and Nicole on Project Runway at CORE staff retreat

Universal Design in an engineering or architectural context is about creating solutions to problems that meet the needs of the most people possible at the outset. It is about avoiding the need for retrofitting. In the context of curriculum, how might the same principles impact on the way in which we design and organise learning environments and resources?

Practical opportunity to apply the principals of UDL

At our recent CORE retreat, focussed on, “Where are we now?” and, “What next?”, 120 staff unknowingly participated in an event that gave us first-hand experience of the potential of underpinning environments with a universal design approach.

A small team of us had been charged with creating a team building “social activity” that would be “fun” for everyone. Although our CORE whānau is predominantly made up of teachers and facilitators, we are also an eclectic bunch of developers, events managers, researchers, learning designers and administrators. So variability in people’s interests was a predictable given and we knew that a one-size-fits-all solution was not going to float.

Creative use of physical materials, goals, and ideas

An idea, all things being considered

In a rapid brainstorm over Skype, we came up with a design challenge based around the fashion show Project Runway. Now, at first glance you may think we might have missed our demographic, but as the photos attest, the punt we took captured the hearts, minds, “and hands” of our colleagues.

For those of you who might initially associate Project Runway with aeroplanes, the show is actually focused on clothing design. Each team is given a design brief and has to interpret it within a given time frame with a range of resources. Our teams were also required to give a commentary that reflected each team’s creative style and CORE’s commitment to Tātai Aho Rau – a concept related to weaving that illustrates our values.

And the outcome—it works

Creative use of physical materials, goals, and ideas on Project RunwayAs the social committee, we had hoped that we had built in enough options to capture people’s diverse interests, and we wanted each person to be able to fully participate and contribute. We thought through the potential barriers to getting stuck in, and tried to create some supports to nudge people along. What we hadn’t bargained on was the way in which everyone threw themselves into the experience with such relish, took full advantage of both hard materials and technology, and created intricate and experimental work both with words and with textiles. The result: a magical and hilarious celebration and a creative demonstration of our shared understanding of what CORE is about.

Revealed to all—why the activity was successful

The following day, the opportunity to highlight that our Project Runway event had been universally designed, was too good to miss. For many at CORE, it was a significant “a-ha” moment, and dispelled a few myths that had aligned “Universal Design” solely with “special education” or accessibility.

The Ministry's Universal Design approach

In a wider context, our shared epiphany also lines up with the Ministry of Education literature review, which identified Universal Design and the framework known as Universal Design for Learning (UDL) as an approach that can make a difference for all learners, and can be applied to “all facets of education: from curriculum, assessment and pedagogy to classroom and school design” (Mitchell 2010).

Hazel and Mark on Project Runway at CORE staff retreat

A framework for moving culturally responsive concepts into actions

As an educator who has been exploring UDL for the last few years, it is exciting to see conversations gaining momentum online, in workshops, and classrooms. At the international UDL Summer Institute at Harvard Graduate school, and whilst with Dr Sharon Friessen at the University of Calgary last year, discussions frequently revolved around the need for each country/community to take the learning around UDL and shape it for its own unique cultural context. As I, alongside colleagues such as Karen Melhuish Spencer and Janelle Riki, explore ways to underpin our own work with a UDL approach, we particularly see how the principles provide a framework for moving culturally responsive concepts into actions.

Also, hand-in-hand with a tool like the e-Learning Planning Framework, the UDL principles enable us to consider how technology can be used to provide options for the way in which we create resources, provide options for learners to demonstrate their understanding, and design environments to engage and sustain the interest of all learners.

Appeal: please share your UDL stories!

So, if you have dipped your toes in the water in this area of learning design and have a story to share, we’d love to hear from you. The more stories we gather, the more we can shape our own Aotearoa New Zealand UDL narrative.

And, if you are new to UDL, check out the links below, and watch this space—as here at CORE, we are intent on exploring how to design both physical and online learning environments underpinned by a UDL—there will be stories to tell.

And one last thing, huge thanks to Karen Melhuish Spencer for the first and last photos, and to Micheal Lintott for the middle two. Exquisite.

Useful links

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An alternative to retro-fitting learning environments

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Universal design - not retrofit

Making learning spaces and resources work for users is an ongoing challenge. Everyone has different needs and learning styles, and there is definitely no one-size-fits-all.

But one thing we can do, is raise the bar, so that from the outset, our ways of working and the presentation of our resources is the best that it can be.

Universal Design for Learning and Design for All

Two approaches to learning are gaining momentum in education. In the US, Universal Design for Learning is beginning to become a touchstone for education departments looking to underpin ways of working that are more inclusive. In Europe, a similar approach known as Design for All, is cutting a similar path, and which also places an emphasis on the need to collaborate with a cross-section of users in the design of environments, resources and services.

The retro fit

Underpinning both approaches is the belief that, if we consider the needs of all users at the outset, rather than an “illusory” group of homogenous mainstream users, we can avoid a massive effort in retrofitting environments and resources for individuals. This approach doesn’t negate the need to personalise environments for very particular needs, but we may have to make many less adaptations if we have planned for diversity in the beginning.

In education, one obvious example, in a property context, would be the inclusion of wheelchair access to all parts of a new school when it is first built, even if there are no members of the first cohort of learners who use a wheelchair for mobility. The rationale underpinning this design decision would be the understanding that parents, whānau, a staff member or visitor to the school, a new student or a current student following a sporting accident may at some point use a wheelchair.

E-learning and eAccessibility

Avoiding the retro fit is also applicable in the area of e-learning. Our use of ICTs in our classrooms and learning-communities is increasing, and there are great examples of schools using technology to improve outcomes for learners. Also, many teachers are confident in their ability to differentiate learning activities. But the concept of eAccessibility may still be unfamiliar.

Yet, if we are going to avoid having to retrofit resources, we need to collectively get our heads around new ways of thinking about access to learning. Again, it is the planning at the outset that makes a difference.

A tangible example of where we can make a difference and model eAccessibility in teaching and learning is in our use of video. When working alongside students or colleagues who are making a video, initiate a discussion around audience and purpose. If the intention is to share the video publicly, draw into the discussion the need to make a resource that will be meaningful to an audience with a range of access preferences. Some people can see but not hear; some people use only their hearing. Some people read more slowly than others. The video needs to work for everyone.

Use of captions and transcripts to assist users who have a hearing impairment to have access to the same material as sighted learners seems like common sense. But captions and transcripts also provide access to the video content in an alternative visual medium and provide opportunities for increasing understanding for all users. For learners who may have cognitive or second-language needs, a transcript provides an opportunity to access the content at their preferred pace, or pause on unfamiliar words. As a sighted user, I will often scan a transcript for a quote, or re-read something I want to clarify.

Both in and outside education, the awareness and the ability to create more inclusive video is increasing. In New Zealand, the Curriculum Stories on NZ Curriculum Online site provide a sophisticated example of how to provide a range of access options for users. Each video is captioned, and has the transcript placed below the video—the preferred option, so that users don’t have to jump backwards and forwards between pages.

YouTube and Blip TV also now enable video producers to add captions to uploaded movies. Both services are a little clunky, but it is worth honing some captioning skills now, and passing them onto your colleagues and students.

Useful links for further reading

Universal Design for Learning – the website for the National Centre for UDL in the US
UDL examples and resources – link to implementation support page at the National Centre for Universal Design for Learning (CAST).
Design for All – the website for the European Design for All e-Accessibility Network.

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Equity in practice: You don’t know what you don’t know

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Universal Design

Embracing the concept of Universal Design is taking the lid off my own understanding of equity.

Like many primary trained teachers, I came to technology bringing my aesthetic of making things look gorgeous to engage learners in my back pocket. Getting my first laptop was heavenly, and many hours were spent making work sheets and parent newsletters with wicked borders and multi-coloured, multi-patterned headers.

Jumping online just widened the playing field, as all of a sudden there were blogs and wikis to plaster with images and videos and animations and banners. The possibilities seemed endless. And initially, no-one whispered in my ear, “Do you think this is good practice?”, they just said, “Wow, that looks cool”.

Thankfully, as the years have progressed, my understanding around Inquiry and Digital Literacy has evolved, and I am much more attentive to the way in which I construct learning environments.

But only recently have I turned around to face my elephant in the room—the challenge to commit to a philosophy of Universal Design.

Universal Design

The thing is, you don’t know what you don’t know.

In my head and heart I have strived to practice equitably and I have always had a bit of yen for finding ways to create engaging learning environments for those learners that are labelled as “undeserved”.

But Universal Design is more than that. It is about the design of resources and environments created to meet the needs of everyone, to the greatest extent possible, from the start.

But getting my head around Universal Design has been like learning to live in a new country where the first language is the same as my own but the culture is distinctly different.

An illustration

I showed my partner a lovingly crafted document I had made, illustrated with coloured tables and graphics, photos and charts. It had been used to facilitate a very successful professional development session.

I asked him, if he thought the document could be accessed by someone who couldn’t see. He said he didn’t know, and what did it matter if no-one in the session was blind.

New thinking prompted by Universal Design principles:

  • Am I modeling to colleagues a way of working that has as it’s baseline the premise that everyone has a right to access learning resources?
  • Time is precious. If at a later date, I want to use this resource again and a participant in a session uses a screen reader, will I have to remake it?
  • Time is precious. If I want to share this resource online or on a staff intranet, will I have to remake it so that it is searchable and accessible?
  • Am I passing on inclusive equitable ideals to students in the classroom?

Until recently, it had never occurred to me that my practice could be more equitable, if at the outset I created resources and environments that made every effort to include everyone.

Text documents and best practice

MS Word and Pages styles feature

And I’m not re-inventing the wheel here. For example, the tools for making more accessible documents are built into software like Microsoft Word or Apple’s Pages. I just needed someone to tell me to use the Style guide to format documents, rather than making titles and sub-titles big, bold and underlined. That simple change of practice makes most documents more readable by a screen reader. Also, if I copy that text and upload it to a web page, the good formatting travels with it, saving lots of time editing online.

Also, pictures and images need captions, and, if possible, alt-text. It’s not a big job. In fact it’s really just a courtesy, but easy to miss if no-one has pointed it out.

PowerPoint and best practice

My other immediate learning curve has been around my use of presentation tools, such as PowerPoint. On the “making” front, it never occurred to me that the templates are there not just for beginners, or to create balance on the screen. They also provide hidden cues for a screen reader, allowing a person who is blind to listen to the text and the image descriptions.

PowerPoint templates

But the biggest change has been around my consciousness of what I say when I’m presenting. In the past, when I have used a slide with just a quote on it, I have heard myself say, “I won’t read out the text, I’ll just let you read it yourselves”. Great concept, but not if you can’t see. Instead, I will now put the best quotes up to see and say them aloud. Also, I am learning to use the same principle when sharing images in a presentation. I cannot assume that everyone has 20/20 vision and can see what I can see. So now I am learning to describe the important images that are integral to my story-telling, but pass over the visual description if the image is just there for decoration.

Conclusion

I feel very much the novice in this brave new world of Universal Design, but, actually, it is a huge relief to have this heads-up. At least now I have a renewed consciousness around my practice. Also the thought of sharing these ideas with young learners as they find their feet with technology is really exciting. At least they will have the chance to befriend the elephant in the room and who knows how that will shape how we learn and live together.

If you are interested in finding out more about Universal Design and following up some of the brief examples of ways to make a difference, check out the links below. Also, if you would like to chat about some of the ideas, just get in touch.

Useful links

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The merits of the professional punt – the iPad in learning

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The use of Apple’s iPad in learning environments is a topic that is already eating column inches. Yet pinning down why something new might be worth testing or investing in is often difficult.

Use of iPad in learning

So it is with much anticipation that I watch two groups of teachers pushing the boat out.

iPad tests by BLENNZ excites

Firstly in Wellington, two teachers from the Blind and Low Vision Education Network NZ (BLENNZ) have begun to document the use of an iPad with students who have low vision. They are at the “toes in the water” stage and have only facilitated taster sessions (the iPads are personally owned by the teachers) but the initial footage is raising enough excitement that the documentation was shared across the whole school. From chatting to the teachers, it is one of those scenario’s that when you know the student, and you see the level of attention and engagement, it makes your heart sing.

iPad research in literacy skills

At the other end of the country, the Royal New Zealand Foundation of the the Blind (RNZFB) is in the initial stages of a partnership project with BLENNZ where they are purchasing four iPads as a resource for an action research project around access to literacy skills. Again it’s a punt, the technology is relatively new, and there is no research base from which to draw evidence with any longevity.

But just as Toni Twiss committed her eFellowship to investigating “the use of mobile phones in classrooms“, someone has to break the ground, and the more that do, the more variables we can bring together.

iPad suited to the school environment

The iPad is a big step forward to the school environment

My own first impression on handling an iPad is that it is sleek, light and will fit neatly wedged behind a lunch box in a school bag. These may sound like flippant observations, but in the land of assistive technology, such attributes are a good start.

For those of us who spend much of our day trying to support the adaption of learning spaces, the advent of technology that is flexible, functional, and good looking is enough to make us cheer.

For so long, technology solutions have been clunky, weighed a ton, and often the learner had to sit apart from their peers because they needed an extra desk to set up all their gear. Plus, assistive technology is notoriously “specialist” and uncollaborative because no-one, other than the learner, knows how to operate it, and by default it becomes the exclusive domain of the learner with the disability, a great model for inclusion!

What other stories and thoughts out there?

So to anyone out there reading this, I’d love to hear if you are using an iPad in the classroom as a tool for you, and/or with your students, or if you have stumbled on interesting stories from colleagues or from reading around.

One of my current favorites, covered by the New York Times describes the the introduction of an iPad into the world of a young boy called Owen Cain. What I love about it, is that it demonstrates how if the adults alongside learners are bold and prepared to take a bit of a punt, all sorts of unexpected learning opportunities can happen – check out the video and see what you think.

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