What is UDL? Universal Design for Learning (UDL) is a way of thinking about teaching and learning that gives all students an equal opportunity to succeed.

The goal of UDL is to use a variety of teaching methods to remove any barriers to learning. It is about building in flexibility that can be adjusted for each student’s strengths and needs. That is why UDL benefits all learners. It can level the playing field.

There are many ways to provide UDL. Some curriculum must be digitized so that the technology can read text aloud. Teachers can simplify, modify or shorten the material for some students. or provide visual support such as high contrast, bulleted lists, and color coding. Using multiple means of presenting information such as text, audio, video, images and/or graphics is also critical.

With the use of the district-owned Chrome extension Read&Write for Google Chrome, students who need accessibility options will have them available on their school laptops and/or any computer using the Google Chrome Browser . These tools benefit all students and they should be encouraged to explore them.

Please do not feel that you need to become an expert with the accessibility tools today! We are exposing you to them so that you will understand why you may be setting up your lessons differently. You will also become familiar enough to be able to encourage students to use them this fall. You will have access to this information at any time and you can pass it on to students.

Our 4J Assistive Technology website will house this information as well, so bookmark this page (in progress) for future reference:

https://blogs.4j.lane.edu/atseugene4j/mac-accessibility/

For questions regarding this module, contact Jordan Gentzkow. gentzkow_j@4j.lane.edu or Kelley (Wilson) Moriarty wilson_ke@4j.lane.edu

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