UDL and Accessibility

1. What did I know and what did I think about UDL and accesibility before class?
2. What did I learn through my preparation for and participation in the UDL and accessibility activities? Explain what UDL is. Explain what accessibility is and how it is different than UDL.
3. Provide some examples of what teachers can do to design lessons keeping the principles of UDL in mind
4. Describe some of the key things that you can do, as a teacher, to ensure that your online resources are accessible to students with disabilities (you may want to include screenshots to illustrate these. e.g. a screenshot of a YouTube with close captions)
5. How did my understanding and thinking about UDL and accessibility change through this process?

1. I did not know anything about UDL and accessibility before class.

2. I learned from WebAim that there were laws governing accessibility for all people. I did not know there were things like screen readers or mouth sticks to help people who had various disabilities. I think the UDL differs from accessibility because it looks at all people not just people with disabilities. It aims to set up success in learning with every student by teaching to all learning styles. Accessibility is aimed more at people with some sort of disability like motor or visual impairment.

3. I think teachers can teach the same lesson more than once using different presentation modes, like a powerpoint one time and acting it out with costumes and props a second time. I think also that teachers should allow students to choose presentation styles to which best suits how they will learn and process the material.

4. As a teacher I would follow guidelines to make my websites easy for screen readers to read. I would always include captions on my videos, I would include pictures in the text. I Would provide assistance to those that might need extra time with the internet or might need help accessing pages that are not user friendly.

5. I became much more aware of how much room there is to grow on making the internet accessible for all. I also learned that teachers need to be more creative when setting up the classroom so that all students can have successful learning experiences.

link to google doc