Accessible Instructional Materials: Seeing, Hearing, and Feeling the

Content of Our Curriculum

Cynthia CurryAugust 26, 2009

Outcome

Each participant will learn at least one new way to make an existing

curriculum more accessible.

Where We Can Go!

Universal Design for Learning (UDL)Digital Text

Public Domain Online LibrariesText-to-Speech SoftwareText-to-Audio Conversion

BookshareVoice Recording

Image Searches on the Web

Universal Design in Learning

Environments

Improve Best Practice

Best Practices Accessibility, Usability, Flexibility, & AIM

Clearly defined & communicated objectives

Constructivism

Appropriate use of collaboration vs. competition

Appropriate use of formative vs. summative assessment

Descriptive feedback

Accessible Instructional Materials (AIM)

Learning technologies that are compatible with assistive technology (AT)

Accessible multimedia (transcripts, closed captions, described video)

Oral descriptions of visuals

Classroom ImplementationWith funding from the Davis Family Foundation

Project Goals:

Stimulate an interest among all students in pursuing STEM-

related disciplines

Create a science classroom model of universal design

Steps to UDL in a Science Classroom

Evaluated the curriculum and laboratory experiences

Introduced instructional and learning technologies

Identified accessible instructional materials and video

Curriculum and Lab Evaluation

What will students know and be able to do?

What will be the evidence of student learning? What are the corresponding means of expression? How

can we diversify and vary these means?

Teaching & Learning Technologies

Accessible Instructional Materials and Video

Technology Alone: No Elixir

Technology Effective Teaching Strategies

Successful teaching and learning experiences

TPCK

What we know technology can do

•Motivate students

•Provide highly individualized instruction

•Promote positive attitudes toward learning

•Facilitate cooperative, collaborative, and positive social behavior

•Provide learner-controlled instruction

•Support active learning experiences

Silver-Pacuilla, Ruedel, & Mistrett (2004)

Start with digital text.

What is “digital text?”

.odt (Open Office Text Document)

.doc (Microsoft Word Document)

.txt (Plain Text)

.rtf (Rich Text Format)

.html (Hypertext Markup Language)

.xml (Extensible Markup Language)email

Any text that you can create and edit.

Digital Text vs Image of Text

Image captured at the International Children's Digital Library (The Blue Sky by Andrea Petrlik Huseinovic) www.icdl.org

Why Digital Text?

•Malleable•Transformable

*Center for Applied Special Technology (CAST)

Size Font

Style

Malleable

Color/Contrast

Transformable

Photos collected at Flickr (l-r):•Photo by Dan McKay, available under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.•Photo by kingfal, available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.0 Generic license.•Photo by cobalt123, available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license.

Text to Speech

Speech to Text Braille