I recently published a course on iTunes U called nABLEing All Learners with iOS Devices. The course is organized according to the nABLE framework or heuristic I use to help me with technology integration. In designing the course I have tried to incorporate a number of UDL principles as a model:
- Multiple pathways (UDL Checkpoint 8.2: Vary demands and resources to optimize challenge). Throughout the course there are “Dig Deeper” post that encourage learners to explore a given topic in more depth. This gives the learner some choice: skip these Dig Deeper posts and go through the course at a basic level designed to provide the most essential content; or follow the links and other resources available in these posts to go through the course at a more advanced level. The choice is there for the learner.
- Accessible Materials (UDL Guidelines 1 and 2): I have paid attention to this guideline in a number of ways: all of the videos I have authored include closed captions (and soon I will be uploading transcripts as well). With the ebooks and other documents, I have paid attention to accessibility by adding tags for screen readers in the case of PDF and by including options such as accessibility descriptions in the case of ePub. For third-party content, I have tried to choose accessible content as much as possible (the resources from CAST are great in this respect).
- Prompts for reflection and discussion: Throughout the course, I have made use of the new Discussions feature of iTunes U to prompt learners to reflect on their learning. I am going to keep these discussions, but I think in the future I will add some activities with apps (apptivities if you will) to make the learning even more concrete.
I invite you to visit the course and enroll if you are interested in learning more about UDL and how to support its implementation with the wonderful accessibility features available on iOS.
The Website of Luis Perez 