The Current Status of Education:

Education as it currently stands is extremely one note, usually requiring the educator/instructor to stand at the front of the class with a PowerPoint and lecture the students on the material. This is how people have been taught for many years now, but it is a flawed system. Different people do not learn the same way, and by creating an environment where all education is taught through lectures and through physical written tests, then it is not a fair system for the other individuals that may have a harder time learning this way or may in some cases even find it impossible to engage with the material. In addition to this, if the only way the content is being given to the students is via these lectures then the students will start to feel less and less engaged with the content that can even drag down students that like this learning model.

The Solution:

Universal Design Learning, AKA UDL, is an educational framework designed to make education more accessible. To elaborate on this, UDL’s methods are focused in on three major principles: representation, action/expression, and engagement. The UDL focuses in on these three principles in order to bring down barriers to education and improve accessibility to all students, not only because it would make it more fair, but also because everyone benefits from a more accessible learning environment.

How to apply Universal Design Learning:

There are a couple major ideas when it comes to applying UDL the major ideas include: straight forwardness, flexibility, explicit presentation, fairness, accommodations, minimizing barriers, and being supportive. While it may seem that some of these may only apply to face-face education, all of these ideas can be applied to both online and in-person education just in different ways.  Straight forwardness means cutting back on complexity, in-person this is mostly in regards to language as some individuals may not have the same vocabulary as others and simplifying things down can really allow people with a less extensive vocabulary to shine, and the same applies to an online space, except that instead of just applying to language it can also apply to digital services because people have different levels of digital literacy so using less complex services and ensuring that the links can bring the students directly to the material instead of making them search for it, can really go a long way. Flexibility can take shape in multiple forms, some of the times it has to do with time as people can get very busy especially in university so allowing for extensions or changing times that someone can take a test reduces the student’s stress. Explicit presentation works in a similar vein to straight forwardness, by reducing the complexities and improving clarity, the students have more time to meaningfully engage with the material, this can be done in both online and in-person classes by really highlighting both visually and audibly the important aspects that the students need to take note of. Fairness, accommodations, and minimizing barriers go hand-in-hand, and take drastically different forms when being compared to online and in-person classes. In-person fairness and accommodations usually means ensuring that people do their own work, and ensuring individuals with disabilities are given additional help to support them, this can come as either extra time or other items such as ramps or the ability for people to opt out of a specific activity, but the last one should not be required as long as the lessons are sufficiently planned to be as accessible as possible. An online environment on the other hand, is much more difficult as digital literacy and equitable access to digital resources are not problems that are usually had within a face-face environment. For digital literacy there is little that can be done other than creating material that walks the individuals step by step through the expected process, doing so can slowly close the potential gap between the different student’s digital literacy. Inequitable access to digital resources is another problem and can be approached in two main ways, the first is to try and limit the individuals that have a large amount of access to digital resources, but this is not a strategy that I would recommend. The second is to try and increase the amount of access people may have to digital resources, this can take the shape of renting out devices or having a safe space in the physical world for people to have good access to connect to the internet, but there are still some flaws with this as commuting to said physical space takes time and acts as a barrier, while renting the devices may also act as a barrier to entry as some people do not have the finances available to do so. Lastly, being supportive is very similar between both online and in-person learning environments as it requires the instructor to consistently engage with the students and to also encourage students to keep learning.

EdTech:

EdTech short or education technology is any form of technology focused on improving education. This is quite useful as it allows for teachers to improve the learning experience for their students through friendlier and more specialized technologies, but it also has many ethical concerns. These ethical concerns can be split into five different topics: Privacy and Data security, Big Data and Tracking, Equal Access, Commercialization of Education, and the Digital Divide. Privacy and data security is a major concern as it is difficult to ethically collect this information and it is even more difficult to know where the data may potentially be going because if there is a privacy or data breach then it is usually already too late. Big Data and tracking follow that line of thinking as while tracking the user may help form a better educational plan, the potential of a privacy breach would have major consequences on those who are being tracked. Equal access is something that I went over in the previous section as well as it is difficult to guarantee that everyone is playing on an even playing field when there are so many considerations when it comes to technology as people with more stable connections would technically have an advantage. The commercialization of education can mean that the people creating the technology may not have the student’s best interests at heart, and the digital divide follows the same line of thinking as equal access. While these may seem like an insurmountable number of issues, it is manageable. The main thing to keep in mind while working with EdTech will always be to try and minimize the potential of a privacy breach which means making sure that they must know how the information is being obtained, where it is going, and how possible is it for a breach to occur. This in addition to accommodating individuals that may not have great access to technology or the internet can make it possible for an educator to balance the concerns of privacy, data security, and equity.

Digital Interactions:

Digital interactions include any interaction someone has with another individual online. While people may think that digital interactions and face-face interactions are the same, they are not. Digital interactions have some form of anonymity and can at times lack the tone or body expressions that are used to convey more information. This can make digital interactions feel somewhat fake and can sometimes make people forget that they are talking to another living, breathing human being. There are also some concerns people have especially about their privacy online. This means that in order to be a positive influence in online learning communities, the individual should be inclusive and respective of their peers, but to also remain a distance away and to not ask too many personal questions so that the other individual can keep their privacy and anonymity as they wish. This also means that if someone does suddenly ask a personal question to not act defensively about it, but instead to simply comment that you do not wish to speak about it or to give a vague answer, unless they are consistently doing so.

UDL In my experience:

While I have not been a part of a learning community as an instructor, I have been a part of many as a student. I have done many classes both in person and online. In both cases I believe that the adherence to UDL was generally pretty good especially during my high school and university classes. Most classes have now adopted the learning framework that is UDL, but some do so more than others, and some only did so in specific areas. Take my Greek and Roman History class as an example, while they did not have many activities and the main way we learned was through lectures in front of a PowerPoint, the professor did make a very specific point that the two major assignments we had which were the major other way for us to learn were both creative projects and allowed for us to do whatever we wished to do as long as the finished product could be linked back to Greek and Roman History and the connection could be explained through a paper. So, while it did do a great job at one aspect which was to increase the fairness of the two major projects, it did not fully adopt UDL as many people that do not learn that way will still struggle on the assignment because the teaching was still done in a way that unfairly hinders them. Another example would be the community mapping class I am taking right now, while it is in person the technologies they are using are unfamiliar to me and while the instructors have been helpful in teaching me how it works, having some kind of basic tutorial on how to get started as a video would be another great way accessibility could be improved. Overall nearly all of my experiences are like this, while it feels like nearly every single class is slowly moving towards having a more UDL based framework, there are still many minor issues that have simple solutions.

References:

CAST, Inc. (n.d.). The UDL guidelines. The UDL Guidelines. https://udlguidelines.cast.org/

YouTube. (n.d.-a). YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Q3jwLWWV1s&t=1289s

YouTube. (n.d.-b). YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gmGgplQkrVw