Day 8 - Exploring Kurzweil and the Importance of UDL

I have always struggled with differentiated instruction in my math and science classrooms. I have tried to use Kurzweil, Understanding Math and many other online programs, but in my experience at the junior high level, many kids are relunctant to jump on a computer and willingly use these programs. Some students will; however, many do not. UDL is so exciting for me, because I feel like these struggles that I face will be dissolved because if everyone can use this technology, children with LD will not stand out as being different. I am definately pro-UDL.

So, what is UDL? Universal Design for Learning. I briefly discussed the importance of this on my day 1 post, but we had another discussion about it today in class, and here are the highlights:

• This needs to be implemented in our school board!
• Brings the prices down on devices (IPad 2 is now only $419 + tax) because more people are buying it.
• We are not focused on changing the work for a child’s individual disability; we are starting at a level playing ground.
• We are not looking at changing the kids, we are looking at making the curriculum more accessible to everyone.
• Also, children with LD don’t look different anymore! Especially junior high, they are resistant to look different at all…they just want to fit in! Everybody can use this technology, so it creates a more engaging learning environment for everyone.

Check out this YouTube video that I came across that shares more ideas about UDL!

On another note, I had no idea that I had accessibility features built in to my own PC - FREE! We have a magnifier, narrator, on-screen keyboard and speech recognition. Also, there is a menu with many other options for customizing a computer to meet the needs of the user. Very cool!

This is a screen shot of the Kurzweil
program that shows the word prediction
feature as well as the different toolbars.

We spent a big chunk of the morning look at he Kurzweil program. I knew a lot about this program already, as I have participated in PD at the school and board level. What I appreciated about today was having discussions about which type of learners would benefit from each function of the program. For those people out there who have never been exposed to this program, here is an extensive overview of what the program can do:

• This is a very expensive program, but again, you get what you pay for.
• There are 4 toolbars and they can be customized. They are easily collapsible by clicking on a tab.
• Hard copies are easy to scan with Kurzweil and are transformed into a KESI file. These files are read only, which is nice for tests! You can change KESI files to a text file so students don’t need the program to access the information.
• As the program reads, it can highlight which is helpful for students who have attention problems.
• The speed can move faster or slower. Self pace and also kids who need to be engaged in the reading process (ADHD and kids with comprehension difficulty)
• They can re-read the document as often as they need to (For those kids with difficulty with short term memory and processing) This gives them access to the information – text to speech is great!
• They are independent and engaged. They don’t need to have a teacher reading to them.
• Dictionary – You can click in front of a word and click on the “definition” button. It will give you the definition and easily have it read aloud by pressing the “read” button.
• You can develop a picture library that will engage visual learners and children with Autism.
• Can highlight a passage and click on translate, and it will translate it in to different languages for you. (Translations are not great with the English version)
• Synonym works the same as the dictionary
• There is a pronounce function that would benefit students who are ESL and also for students who have decoding problems.
• There is a help button incase you forget or don’t know how to use any of the functions.
• Reading Toolbar: You can chose different voices, you can choose self-pace or continuous reading. The self-pace could benefit students with decoding problems and it finishes the complete thought before you move on. You can choose different options with self pace. Continuous line would help with comprehension and also with visual tracking.
• Page thumbnail shows you visually where you are on the page
• Highlighting feature – engagement, you can highlight for them before they start, you can give them ideas for what to look for
• Sticky notes – you can leave directions for students or leave a box for students to reply to you. Also, you could leave a word bank for students who are writing tests so they can drag the word over instead of having to type.
• 5 different uses for bubble notes – prompts, make study notes, important background information, tests, making connections, more vocabulary, they pay more attention to the text because they see that there is a bubble note coming up.
• Voice notes – giving directions, text to speech, student can use it as well as the teacher, more for upper elementary and secondary, and for independent writing tasks
• Can export files as audio files (mp3)
• Word prediction – you could create your own word prediction list using all of the vocabulary in a specific body of text

  Believe it or not, this isn't all that this program can do! This really is a great program that allows students with various different learning disabilities to access information, which ultimately is the goal.

Last order of business for today: We were asked to look through the UDL Tool Kitand choose 5 resources that we would use in our classrooms and these are the ones I chose:

Braining Camp – The content on the website is focused towards junior high math, which is why I chose it. Its content is based on the American curriculum, but a lot of it is very relevant for Canadian users. It strives to make learning fun and engaging to motivate learners who may have struggled with math in the past. It also helps students regain enthusiasm and acts as a motivator. It covers many concept areas and is complete with interactive learning tools. There is also information about relevant IPad apps and works with SMART boards!

Screen shot of alge-tiles that
I often use in my math class!

National Library of Virtual Manipulatives - I wanted to include this site because I find it extremely useful as I already use it regularly in my math classroom. I especially like the alge-tiles function, as there are not many online programs out there that have alge-tiles in them. Also, this site is broken down by grade level and different topic areas, and is very easy to navigate.

Online Graphing Calculator

Online Graphing Calculator - I have never taught at a school that had a class set of graphic calculators, and they would be so useful for the grade 9 classroom. Grade 9 is when students start looking at slope and graphing equations, so having the visual is a very helpful tool.

Create a Graph - This is a great website! I chose it because it allows students to build various different graphs on the computer, and the setup of the website does not look elementary. There are so many children that I teach that have fine motor skills problems that have a hard time creating a graph that they shut down immediately. With this great tool, they can log on and create their graphs with their own data and they can design it with different colors, graphics, etc.

An example of what you can create
in Prezi!

Prezi - A great tool that allows students to create presentations of their work that is not PowerPoint! It gives students creative freedom when presenting ideas. I would use this program in my science classroom as a project based tool.