UDL & Tech

Who knew how easy it would be to make our lessons more accessible? With the increase in technology over the last 10 to 20 years, a lot more opportunities have been created for students to have access to an inclusive classroom where they were not able to join before. What are some of the increases?

Google Docs, Word, and SpellCheck

    Well, there are a lot of different types of technologies that have helped provide inclusivity in the classroom. One of them is spellcheck. In Washington, there is a one screen to every one student policy, so every student now has access to a laptop or chromebook of some sort and is able to use Word or Google Docs to use spellcheck when writing an assignment. Also, for someone to be able to type instead of having to handwrite assignments allows for a lot more accessibility in the classroom. Someone who might not be writing at all is now able to type and their capacity for learning in school has grown significantly. 

ChatGPT

    

    There is also the newer technology of AI. ChatGPT has opened up a lot of opportunity. One example of this is a teacher could not get a student to want to read and couldn’t afford the books that the student was interested in. The teacher would have ChatGPT write a story or reading about space so that the student would have something to read. This gave the student access to reading in the classroom that they might not have accessed previously, especially with a limited supply of material that they are interested in. 

Noise Cancelling Headphones

            Another method of technology that has increased our ability to be more accessible is noise cancelling headphones. A lot of students have a difficult time focusing or learning with noises, and the introduction of noise cancelling headphones in the classroom as well as at school dances and other events, promotes inclusivity in the classroom and at school. Students are now able to be in classes and attend other events that they might now have been comfortable before. This helps with social emotional learning as well. Having kids in the classroom or attending school functions is almost always a positive relationship with learning.

 

FlipGrid 

            In addition to AI, Word, and noise cancelling headphones, there are also a lot of different ways for students to do assignments through the use of technology. FlipGrid allows students to record themselves instead of handwriting or typing. If you have a student who can create a story, but isn’t able to write it out, FlipGrip can be a wonderful option for them to record what is going on in their mind. There are a lot of different ways to complete a task, and allowing students different methods to reach the same outcome allows for an inclusive classroom and an exponential increase in learning. 

Conclusion

With the increase in technology, our schools are more accessible than ever before. There are a lot more technological advances that have happened, and this blog post highlights only a few of them. Hopefully there will also be many more.