Universal Design for Learning – Page 2 – Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning

Supporting Students with Disabilities in BC Postsecondary Online Course

Today, I’d like to take a moment, and a short post, to promote an online course offering, available for you, for free, from the Justice Institute of BC: the open, online course Supporting Students with Disabilities in BC Postsecondary . In addition, content in the course and associated resource site are Creative Commons licenced, so material is available for you to Retain, Reuse, Revise, Remix, Redistribute!

From the website:

“In collaboration with Selkirk and Camosun Colleges, Justice Institute of British Columbia (JIBC) has developed this course and a resource website to educate trainers on disability issues in the classroom. The purpose of the course is to increase the success of people with disabilities in a trades / technical program by dispelling common myths about students with disabilities and to address faculty’s concerns and questions about different disabilities. It will help each faculty member to obtain the appropriate knowledge and problem-solving skills to offer accommodations and select appropriate teaching strategies for their disabled students. The expectation is that the new techniques learned will help students achieve their full potential and success in their chosen programs.

This multi-modal course can be taken online independently, or in a facilitated face-to-face group. Throughout the course there are several engaging learning activities including scenarios with reflection questions, case studies followed by discussions, and simulation exercises aimed to trigger learner empathy.

This course provides practical information and easy-to-use strategies to help you to better support the learning of students with disabilities in your classrooms and campuses.

At the end of the course, you will be able to

Define what is meant by having a disability and become familiar with a wide range of disabilities and how they impact learning
Identify the concepts of duty to accommodate and understand the process of reasonable accommodation
Apply strategies and tools from Universal Design for Learning (UDL) to create an inclusive learning environment to accommodate your students
Develop personal goals, address institution-wide responsibilities and identify next steps for creating inclusive campuses”

Introducing ReadSpeaker (in the D2L Content tool)

ReadSpeaker “is a web-based personal literacy support tool that makes it possible for the user to listen to texts and documents using text-to-speech technology in a standard web browser”. We will be looking at the version of ReadSpeaker which is found in the Content tool of D2L. Some of you may have already seen ReadSpeaker in action, but for those of you who haven’t, this post will introduce you to how to access and use it in Content.

As noted above, one of the functions of ReadSpeaker is to read text-based content (HTML files, WORD documents, PDF files, etc.) aloud. This gives your students the opportunity to either listen to the content through headphones in situations where they might not be able to read easily (for example, while driving, or when using a phone), or to read and listen to the content at the same time (which is especially useful when trying to assimilate complex content).

There are two main ways ReadSpeaker can be accessed in Content, and we will look at each in turn.

First, for reading “web pages”.

Go to the Content tool in your D2L course.
Click on a page that is identified as a Web Page (if your course does not have “Web Pages”, see reading for WORD documents, etc.)
Click the Listen button at the top, left, and ReadSpeaker will start reading the webpage from the beginning, highlighting words as it reads them.
The Listen toolbar controls include: Pause or Stop buttons to pause/stop play, the Seek bar slider to move forward through the document, the speaker icon to adjust Volume, and the Download icon to save the audio file to your device as a MP3 file.
Click the little down arrow to the left of the Listen button to find additional options, including:
1. Settings: change the Reading speed, Highlighting (word and/or sentence, and colour options), Text Settings (font size, type, colours), General (scrolling, etc.).
2. Changing between American and Canadian English
3. Read on Hover: click then hover your mouse over the part of the document you want to hear.
4. Enlarge Text
5. Simple View: Highlight text first, then click Simple View. A box will open showing the selected text without any formatting.
6. Page Mask allows you to highlight parts of the text as it is being read (the mask is a light horizontal block while the rest of the page is darkened). Click + to make the block larger, and – to make it smaller, click X to turn off Page Mask.
7. Translation: Highlight text first, then click Translation (and the language you wish the text translated to). A box will open with the translation.
8. Word Lookup: Highlight a word, then click Word Lookup. The definition will open in a box.
9. Help (opens a Help box).

Second, for reading WORD documents, PDFs, and PPTs.

Go to the Content tool in your D2L course.
Click on a page that is identified as a Word Document, PDF document, or PowerPoint Presentation.
Scroll down to below the page that opens, and click the Open with docReader button.
The page will load into a new interface with a toolbar at the top, a left sidebar allowing you to view Thumbnails or an Outline of the pages in the document, and the document itself on the right.
In the toolbar, you can Show/Hide the Sidebar, jump to specific pages in the document, click Listen to hear it read aloud (using the Pause or Stop buttons to pause/stop play).
You can control how you view the document using the Layout mode or Text mode (which will show the text without formatting) options.
Under More tools, you can access Settings, Page Mask, Reading Ruler, Download mp3 of page, and Save document.Settings gives you the following options:
1. General: Change the Speed, change the menu language, change how you select your reading area, change how the pages flip,
2. Highlight settings: Sentence highlighting, Word highlighting
3. Text settings: Text Colours, Font size, Font type (all with a Preview window)
Page Mask allows you to highlight parts of the text as it is being read (the mask is a light horizontal block while the rest of the page is darkened). Click + to make the block larger, and – to make it smaller, click X to turn off Page Mask.

Reading Ruler allows you to move a dark block (like a ruler on the page) over the page, for example, to underline the text as it is being read. Click + to make the block larger, and – to make it smaller, click X to turn off the Reading Ruler.
To return to the Content area, use the breadcrumbs at the top of the page (you can’t move to the next page through the docReader application).

Walls Optional at Camosun College- May 2nd

I wanted to let you know what is happening at Walls Optional this year (on Thursday, May 2nd to be exact). For those of you who don’t know, Walls Optional is Camosun’s annual one-day conference celebrating the amazing work of the people at our college. Every year we have a different theme, and with the launch of the new Diversity, Equity and Inclusion policy, this year’s Walls is all about Inclusion through Universal Design for Learning.

“Our goal is to explore how we can develop and support teaching & learning environments that are inclusive to an increasingly diverse student population:

“The homogenous class made up of students of similar abilities, backgrounds, ethnicities, interests, learning styles, languages and expectations is long gone – if it ever existed.” [from “You Need to Know About Universal Design for Learning”, 2014]

Inclusivity is at the heart of the proactive strategies found in the Universal Design for Learning (UDL) guidelines. The more we practice and discuss UDL strategies in our teaching & learning environments, the more flexible our course materials, activities and assessment methods will become, and the fewer barriers members of our diverse student population will encounter.

Walls Optional 2019 will open with a facilitated dialogue consisting of faculty and students who will speak to the theme of “inclusion through UDL”, and their experiences with this approach in their own classrooms. We will then break into peer-led workshops, of either 45 minutes or 5 minutes (“lightning rounds”) in length, and end with a closing plenary session.”

To find out more once our presentation schedule has been posted, and to register for this immersion experience into UDL, go to our website (http://camosun.ca/about/teaching-learning/events/walls-optional.html) – We look forward to seeing you there!

BCcampus Inclusive Design Webinar Series

In case you haven’t heard, this month BCcampus has been running series of webinars related to Inclusive Design.

According to the Inclusive Design Research Center, “[i]nclusive design is design that considers the full range of human diversity with respect to ability, language, culture, gender, age and other forms of human difference. Designing inclusively results in better experiences for everyone.” With the addition of Diversity, Equity and Inclusiveness policies at our institutions, and as we move more into the world of University Design for Learning (UDL) these webinars are a must for everyone to check out.

You can watch the recordings of the webinars, as well as peruse some great resource links on inclusive design and how to get started, by clicking on the links related to each of the webinars as listed for each of the Webinar headings.

Webinar 1: Part 1, Inclusive Design

Want to know more about what inclusive design is, and how it relates to accommodation and accessibility? Jess Mitchell from the Inclusive Design Research Centre discusses this and more in her presentation on Inclusive Design in which “[s]he touches on ideas like inclusion, design, transformation, innovation, access, diversity, equity, atypical, perspective-shift, data (quantitative and qualitative), anecdote, change, social justice, precarious value, intersectional, mismatch, multi-modal, and revolutionary.”

Webinar 2: Part 2, Presentations

Wanting to make your PowerPoint presentations more accessible, Josie Gray has some best practices for you in her presentation on Inclusive Design and Presentations. While the webinar addresses PowerPoint specifically, “the basic principles can be applied if you use a different presentation software. We talk about the technical aspects of setting up accessible slides, strategies to ensure all of the content on your slide is perceivable by people in the audience, and how making your slides available in multiple formats before your presentation can increase the impact of your presentation.”

Webinar 3: Part 3, PressBooks

Thinking about writing an Open Textbook? Josie Gray is back to give you some information on how to make your open textbook accessible in her presentation on Inclusive Design in PressBooks (soon to be available on the main BCcampus video site.

While “[t]his webinar [highlights] accessibility features of Pressbooks … [and] the importance of offering multiple formats, and other design choices that will improve the accessibility of your open textbook.”, the best practices presented are also applicable for other instances where you might be placing images, video, or audio in an online environment.

Webinar 4: Part 4: What Makes Something Inaccessible or Not?

As of the time of this post, there is still time to put the fourth webinar, “What Makes Something Inaccessible or Not?”, in your calendar. “This webinar aims to highlight overlooked or unrealized accessibility barriers by giving concrete examples of what might make something inaccessible and how that barrier might present for different people. By connecting the ideas of the previous webinars, we offer a way to think more critically about digital and print accessibility, especially as it relates to open textbooks and open educational resources. “

Go to the BCcampus Inclusive Design Webinar Series site for more information on how to access the webinar. If you miss it, no worries – the recording will be posted on the main BCcampus video site, where you will also find links to the many amazing webinars offered by BCcampus!