Making Individualization Work with Flexible Media and Tools
Teaching through these varied paths would be daunting or perhaps even impossible if our instructional tools were restricted to print materials alone. Analyzing the potential barrier inherent in current curriculum materials can help us plan for the additional media and tools we will need in order to reach all students. UDL Classroom Template 2, available in the Appendix (p. 184) and online, provides a structure for analyzing these barriers in light of particular learning goals and students' learning profiles.
Once you have an understanding of the barriers to learning posed by available materials, you can investigate the digital media and networks available to support differentiated teaching approaches. The growing collection of adjustable software tools, digital content, and World Wide Web resources includes
- Multimedia composition tools such as HyperStudio, Kid Pix, and PowerPoint.
- Web-capable electronic graphic organizers (see Figure 6.2) such as Inspiration and Kidspiration.
- Programs that support the translation of content from one medium to another (e.g., text-to-speech and text-to-image) such as CAST eReader, Pix Reader, Pix Writer, and Intellitalk II.
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- Figure 6.2 -
A Web-capable Electronic Organizer
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This diagram created by Kathy Basile, Lakeland Copper Beech Middle School (Yorktown. NY) using Inspiration®Software®, Inc. |
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In many schools around the nation, teachers are finding that collections of digital tools and resources such as these expand their options for presenting information, scaffolding students, and offering choices for student expression.
In the following sections, we consider the kinds of learning each of the three brain networks specializes in and recommend corresponding UDL-based teaching methods and uses of digital media. We then present more classroom examples to demonstrate how you might apply these methods and materials.
