Universal Design for learning
Universal Design Defined…
“The design of products and environments to be useable by all people, to the greatest extent possible, without the need for adaptation or specialized design.”
Robert Mace – Center for Universal Design (1997)
“…a concept or philosophy for designing and delivering products and services that are usable by people with the widest range of functional capabilities, which include products that are directly useable and products and services that are made useable with assistive technologies.”
Assistive Technology Act (ATA) of 1998
(PL 105-394)
7 Principles of Universal Design…
- The design can be used by, and marketed to, all kinds of people.
- The design incorporates a wide variety of preferences.
- The product or service is easy to understand and use.
- It works in all kinds of settings.
- The design accommodates error.
- The product or service requires minimal effort to use.
- It accommodates variations in size and position.
The principles of universal design place responsibility on the teacher and the school, rather than the student, to make curricula, materials, and environments accessible and useable by all
(Bowe, 2000)
UDL Toolkit...
The US Department of Education has developed a Toolkit on Universal Design for Learning, available at http://www.osepideasthatwork.org/UDL/index.asp, thanks to the hard work of the UDL Task Force and Ricki Sabia, from the National Down Syndrome Society Policy Center.
UDL Tutorial
Presuming Competence By Design: A tutorial for systems, environment, curricular, and materials design in learning systems is available at: http://www.unco.edu/CETL/UDL/
Universal Document Design:
Capitalizing on the Accessibility Features in Microsoft Office 2007
The accessibility features in Microsoft Office 2007 and improved compatibility with assistive technology products make it easy to navigate and create accessible documents, spreadsheets, and presentations. The document below guides document developers in locating and using features in Microsoft Office 2007 to engage in best practices in accessible document design.
Keyboard Shortcuts
Keyboard shortcuts increase speed and efficiency when woroking with Windows and Microsoft Office applications. The following documents highlight a wide assortment of keyboard shortcuts these applications.
Excel 2007 Keyboard shortcuts
Office 2007 Keyboard shortcuts
Outlook 2007 Keyboard shortcuts
PowerPoint 2007 Keyboard shortcuts
Windows Keyboard shortcuts
Word 2007 Keyboard shortcuts
ESheep file
This is a fun little .exe file that puts a little animated sheep on your desktop.
You can have several running at the same time and they interact with each other....ESheep file.