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(Luis) Welcome to week 3 of SETSIG's Small Open Online Course on
Universal Design for Learning and apps. This week, Tim Frey
Associate Professor of Special Education at Doane College
discusses the UDL principle of multiple means of representation
and he shares a number of examples of how he has implemented this principle
with tools such as the built-in accessibility features of the Mac,
Diigo, and Nearpod. Following the webinar recording,
your instructors, Luis and Kendra, will share some instructions
and next steps for how you will proceed with this week's activities.
Without further delay, here's Tim discussing the UDL principle
of multiple means of representation. (Tim Frey) My name is
Tim Frey and I'll be your presenter for today. We're going to focus on the
UDL principle of multiple means of representation.
In my experience, as an Associate Professor at Doane College in
Special Education, preparing pre-service teachers to work with students
with all kinds of learning needs, this is one of the most important things
that they can take away from the idea of Universal Design is how to share their content
in a way that meets the needs of all of those students. So here with you
from Nebraska, we'll begin looking at this principle.
Multiple means of representation is one of the three
key principles of Universal Design for Learning. The idea
behind this principle is that learners are different in the way they
perceive and comprehend content. For them, for example,
people with sensory disabilities or learning disabilities
or language or even cultural differences require many different ways to approach the
content. Others may simply just grasp information quicker
or more efficiently through a visual or auditory means rather than a printed text.
Also, the transfer of learning occurs when multiple
representations are used because it allows students to make connections within
as well as between concepts. In short, there's not
one means of representation that will be optimal for all learners but providing
multiple means of representing content is essential to provide accessibility
for students with different learning needs.
In summary then, the goal of this principle is to provide the multiple representations
of the content and remove as many accessibility barriers as possible
for the learners as they process information and gather
it into usable knowledge. Those barriers can be as simple as
things like not having written instructions for an activity or
as complicated as trying to sort and categorize information from a large
data set. The idea behind this principle
is based on the understanding of how the brain functions. As you learned in the
first weekly overview of Universal Design there are different
networks in the brain related to different areas of information
as we try to work with students and their learning. Multiple means of representation
intentionally targets the strategic recognition networks in the brain.
Those are the networks that focus on how we perceive things,
how we take information in and sort it and categorize it
in our brain. It really focuses on the "what" of the learning
that's going on in the classroom. Some examples
of the strategic network include learning related tasks
that are gathering information. That could be through seeing, through hearing,
or through touching things, and they include the things we do
often in classrooms and online like reading text and symbols, interpreting
images and visuals and categorizing and sorting the information into
identifying patterns. All kinds of subject areas
like music, and math, language arts, social studies and science are built on
the idea that we can categorize and sort the information that we're taking in
in the learning environment.
Key representation targets include multiple options for
perception, multiple options for representing expressions and symbols,
and multiple options for comprehension. The example
of the picture on this slide is all about perception.
And without a label to add a multiple means of representation
it's difficult to tell whether this is a duck or a rabbit. Personally, I
always thought it was a rabbit, but without that label and that text representation
as well our brain has to categorize it however we can.
We'll also look at similar examples for representing expressions and symbols and helping
students sort and comprehend the information they're gathering in the learning environment.
So we're going to look at three different examples of multiple representations
of content and the first example we'll look at during this webinar
is the use of text to speech features. You can find a great
example of a text to speech feature when you look at the video on the Voice Dream Reader
that was recorded by SETSIG last year.
So take a look at that, really good information on that one program. Another
thing that you'll find that's a really great text to speech is the accessibility features
on the Macs and also on the iPad. You can find a full
video of that also in part of this class and also last year
when Luis Perez did a webinar demonstrating some of those
featurees. So let me quickly review what that looks like for you because this is
a thing that you can do in your classroom for any student with anything
that's a PDF or a text file or an HTML file for your classroom content.
So you can see on the screenshot that
in the Preferences of the Mac you go to System Preferences and then choose the Speech
tools and then there's an option for Text to Speech at the top.
You can select the voice and the rate of speed
that the text will be read. And I like to change the key command
on these so that my students understand when they're using the computer where to find it
really easily and I make mine Command R because that reminds me it's for
Read. So whenever they click Command R they know it will read the text to them
right off the screen. The example then on the
screenshot from the CAST website, whenever you highlight the text and
click Command R the computer's operating system will then read aloud the
text to that person. So a lot of uses for this
in the classroom. Things like students researching articles online
that are above their reading level or that are difficult to access.
Also, we use this to allow students to have directions read
or to even have students have assessments read, so that the computer can be
an objective reader and give an audio representation
to the content that's only in text. Websites, again, PDF
and anything that's in a text document like a Word document or a Pages document
can be read aloud really simply. This is a great way to represent
content with audio instead of just text on the screen.
The next example
that I want to share with you is that of the multiple
representations and we're going to use an app or look at an app called Nearpod.
This is particularly important, we talk a lot in
Universal Design about how we can change the representation
but there's more to it than just adding extra senses. It's also
about how fast our brain processes information as we are gathering it
in our sense and how it stores and organizes it. And so one of the things
that I found to be really effective for students, especially for students
with learning disabilities or students who are struggling to access text
content is to change the timing or what I would call change the
synchronicity of the content being presented. And Nearpod
is just one app that has some features that could allow you to do that.
A couple of screenshots and then we'll see if we can go
into this live. Nearpod you can find the app online. There's a
free version and it allows you to create presentations
that then are then shared on an iPad or an iPhone or even an
Android device. And to do this, you create an account
and then head into Nearpod. There are several advantages
to having the presentation on an iPad rather than on
up on a screen. This is of course one of the most common ways we represent content
in the classroom or even in webinars by having the information
on the screen right in front of us. A large screen far away, though,
is different for a lot of students than having their own personal screen right in front of them.
In fact, I'm going to back up to look at that picture. If you see the picture on this slide
of the students with the computers and iPads right in front of them
Nearpod allows you to present the content directly to that person's desk or that
person's face or sometimes even where students are working in small groups.
So the content is right in front of them and the best part is they can manipulate it at their
own pace especially things like videos and activities
that you can embed in your Nearpod presentation. So this
screen is a basic outline of what the Nearpod tools look like
and on the next screen you'll see how to add content.
The options in Nearpod are variable, you can include slides that can be
PDFs or Powerpoints, videos,
audio podcasts or slideshows and then the best
part is it allows for interactivity so you can include tools in your
presentation, in the way that you are representing the content that allow students options
for example to draw what they're representing the content with, to ask
questions or take polls about the content as they're going through it and even to
respond to reading questions or comprehension questions about something they might be
using to read or gather information
during the presentation. So we'll try to take a look now live
at how to build, or what a Nearpod presentation looks like when
it's completed. So this
is a look at my Nearpod site and we'll look
at a couple of examples from the presentation side, from the teacher's side.
Here's an example that I've made for this webinar and you can see
it's just a few short slides of presentation that include
some text, an image,
a web link to a video and then some quiz questions at the end.
And one of the things that we're using this for consistently in classrooms
of students that I'm working with is basic reading comprehension
and reading groups if you will but each
person has their own reading group then in this case. So the student has text to read
in this initial slide and then also
has an image and then a Web link that
has in this case a picture of a moving hummingbird that you can follow along with
the standard questions at the end for reading comprehension.
So each student has a personalized reading text at their level and then an
interactive opportunity to get the information from the text in multiple ways.
And then the assessment at the end to look at
that. So if we preview this, you'll see that it looks just like
a regular slide presentation with the image,
and then the Web link,
and students would view these right at their desks at their iPad
and then these are the questions from the teacher perspective.
There's some advantages to this
in that it can be used for lots of content. One of the things I also like to use Nearpod
for is for mathematics where we can have visual images
and even active videos capturing either a student
drawing out problems, making models of the
problems with visuals like
learning blocks and continuing to make
connections and organizing information. That's just a brief overview of Nearpod.
If you go to Nearpod, the main site, you'll see there are
opportunities to get engaged in webinars just learning Nearpod. It's very
user friendly and an excellent way to get your students involved
in a universal design way to represent content.
So Nearpod
presents multiple opportunities including students
opportunities to draw and share their understanding, to make notes
and to interact with the information at their own pace, which is something
unique. When I use Nearpod one of the things that's important is for students to
each to have their own set of headphones as well for the presentation.
Because they move through the content, when there's audio, they can pause
and back up the video or audio and listen to it over and over as they're
getting the information from the text or from the video.
That change in synchronicity is what makes Nearpod a valuable resource
in my classroom. Nearpod lessons, again,
can be used for reading, for mathematics, and especially the synchronicity
of the video and audio components that provide opportunities for
students who process information at different speeds to adjust that
themselves and be in control of the learning
that meets their needs. So a third example I'm going to share with you
that represents content in multiple ways is a text highlighter
and annotation tool called Diigo. This is a popular tool especially at
the secondary level for students who are working with text that's
online. It could be a textbook online, it could be
information in articles and content and also even potentially
assessments and things of that nature. Diigo
is a tool that allows students to organize
and use some of the standardized tools that we used to let them use on
paper in an online or HTML environment.
And the specific ones include the highlighter and the sticky notes
are some of the primary tools in Diigo. So when we look at Diigo,
this is a screenshot of one of the online CAST modules
and the Diigo tools are up in the top right
hand corner. Diigo is an add-on to your browser.
It works best with Chrome and it's a pretty effective
way to be able to allow students to interact with text so not just
have it read aloud but to highlight keywords and
organize the information that's part of the content.
That part of the comprehension part of the multiple means of representation
principle is a really key in students
as we work to help them recognize ways to organize content.
So you can see on this page, on this web page,
I was able to go through and highlight each time it talked about recognition networks with my
yellow highlighter. I can create a sticky note and talk about
the key focus of the areas. Teachers can also use this
to mark up HTML text before
the students read it. So one of the things that I like to do is
help my students identify what some of the key areas are that I'm looking at.
in articles or web pages or resources I may assign to them to read.
And so I'll go through and identify those parts with different colors of
highlighter and by putting some sticky notes in it might help them focus
on a key area. We also talk a lot about chunking strategies
when students are gaining text information. This is a great way to help
students chunk information by requiring or encouraging them to
produce sticky notes for each paragraph or each section
of a text reading that's provided online.
That strategy helps build notes and it helps students organize
and identify key areas of content.
So in summary, representing content in
multiple ways is a key to Universal Design. We want
each unique learner to have more opportunities to gather information
and make connection within and across the content that's being presented.
We hope you gained a lot of information from this particular webinar
and that you'll use the tools that are both built into your computer and that are added on
like Diigo and Nearpod to connect with your students and provide
Universal Design for Learning in your classroom and school.
(Luis Perez) A big thank you to Tim for this excellent presentation on the UDL principle of multiple means of
representation and the great examples that he has shared to
help you implement this principle in your classroom. Now that you've
watched the webinar, please make sure to click on the Representation tab of the
course website at www.setsig.com
for a list of this week's tasks as well as some additional resources
that will help you explore the UDL principle of multiple means of representation
in more detail. Also, remember that on Tuesday we'll be having an Open Office.
This is an informal time where you can ask any questions that you have about the
course content and if you have any questions at any time
please make sure to email Luis or Kendra at setsig@gmail.com.
We appreciate your involvement in this course
and we hope that you're finding it to be a valuable resource for expanding your understanding
of Universal Design for Learning.