UDL Educator Checklist

The following is the UDL Educator's Checklist that I completed for my lesson Using Dropbox to Store and Share Files.  

Using Dropbox to Store and Share Files (link to lesson)
James Dunn

UDL Guidelines - Educator Checklist
I. Provide Multiple Means of Representation	Your notes
1. Provide options for perception
1.1 Customize the display of information	Feature: Learners will be able to view the presentation live and afterwards via the recording.
1.2 Provide alternatives for auditory information	Feature: Learners will be able to watch a recorded version of the presentation with captions.
1.3 Provide alternatives for visual information	Feature: Learners will be able to listen to a recorded version of the presentation.
2. Provide options for language and symbols
2.1 Define vocabulary and symbols	Barrier: Learners will not have a list of pre-requisite terms in front of them.  A glossary would be helpful.
2.2 Clarify syntax and structure	Feature: The whole lesson is about how to use Dropbox.  The structure of Dropbox is inherently given throughout the lesson.
2.3 Decode text or mathematical notation	Barrier: There is no way to decode text other than for participants to ask for help.  A glossary of pre-requisite terms would be helpful.
2.4 Promote cross-linguistic understanding	Barrier: The entire presentation is in English.  It would be helpful to translate the lesson into other languages.
2.5 Illustrate key concepts non-linguistically	Feature: Learners will watch me go through the steps on the Promethean Board.
3. Provide options for comprehension
3.1 Provide or activate background knowledge	Feature: The Math Department has already completed a Technology Consultation and Questionnaire.  Every teacher has heard of Dropbox, shares files in one way or another, and rated themselves as “average” or “above average” when asked about technology proficiency.
3.2 Highlight critical features, big ideas, and relationships	Feature: The interactive quiz(zes) will highlight the important information.
3.3 Guide information processing	Barrier: This is a stand-alone lesson.  No formal instruction will have occurred before or will occur after.
3.4 Support memory and transfer	Feature: This lesson will lay the groundwork for the Math Department’s new file sharing system.  They will use Dropbox everyday to save, edit, and retrieve files.

II. Provide Multiple Means of Action and Expression	Your notes
4. Provide options for physical action
4.1 Provide varied ways to respond	Barrier: Learners must complete the online quiz by answering multiple choice and short response questions.  There is currently not a way built in for them to speak their responses.  Something like this may be helpful.
4.2 Provide varied ways to interact with materials	Feature: Learners will be able to watch the presentation live and later via the recording.
4.3 Integrate assistive technologies	Feature: The entire presentation will be closed-captioned.
5. Provide options for expressive skills and fluency
5.1 Allow choices of media for communication	Barrier: All learner responses will be typed.
5.2 Provide appropriate tools for composition and problem solving	Feature: Learners will create their accounts and begin using Dropbox immediately.  They will also answer questions on a quiz.  I see these tools as “appropriate.”
5.3 Provide ways to scaffold practice and performance	Feature: When learners answer questions incorrectly, the quiz will redirect them to the appropriate section to learn the material in another way.
6. Provide options for executive functions
6.1 Guide effective goal setting	Barrier: It may be a good idea to help learners set goals regarding Dropbox usage and adoption.
6.2 Support planning and strategy development	Barrier: It may be a good idea to help the Math Department create a plan to migrate existing files to Dropbox.
6.3 Facilitate managing information and resources	Feature: The whole lesson is about managing (sharing and accessing) resources.
6.4 Enhance capacity for monitoring progress	Barrier: This lesson is a “one and done” shot.  The learners are not students in a class.

III. Provide Multiple Means of Engagement	Your notes
7. Provide options for recruiting interest
7.1 Increase individual choice and autonomy	Barrier: Learners are being told that they are switching to Dropbox.  While some learners were on the committee to find a file sharing system, the decision is being forced on them.
7.2 Enhance relevance, value and authenticity	Feature: In my demonstration, I will show them specific examples of documents that have been shared with me, documents that I have shared, and documents that I have kept private.  This is an authentic, relevant task.
7.3 Reduce threats and distractions	Barrier: No attempt is made to reduce threats or distractions.  Dropbox’s site is, however, ad-free.
8. Provide options for sustaining effort and persistence
8.1 Heighten salience of goals and objectives	Feature: The objectives are given in writing and orally at the beginning of the lesson.
8.2 Vary levels of challenge and support	Barrier: For this lesson, all learners will be asked to complete the same tasks.
8.3 Foster collaboration and communication	Feature: A part of this lesson requires learners to create a document and share it in one of the shared folders.
8.4 Increase mastery-oriented feedback	Feature: All learners are asked to email themselves their username and password.
9. Provide options for self-regulation
9.1 Guide personal goal-setting and expectations	Barrier: It may be helpful to encourage goals regarding Dropbox usage and adoption.
9.2 Scaffold coping skills and strategies	Barrier: No attempt is made to call learners attention to the help section.  Call their attention to the help section!
9.3 Develop self-assessment and reflection	Feature: Learners were already given a self-assessment questionnaire.

Evaluation of Learning Material Found in Merlot: Common Craft

Quality and Potential Effectiveness
Common Craft, the brainchild of Lee LeFever, is a two person company that sells "explanation."  They make short movies (around 3 minutes each) explaining concepts like RSS feeds and augmented reality, as well as websites like Wikipedia and Twitter.  I have watched about 10 different Common Craft movies, and have found all of them to be informative and easy to understand.  I have not found any errors.

Common Craft movies should be used during the Explanation and Demonstration stages of the learning cycle (their website fittingly lists their slogan as "Our product is explanation").  The learning objectives vary depending on the movie.  Many are explaining the basics features and how to use them (e.g. Twitter in Plain English).  Since the movies are so short, learners can be completely new to a concept of website (Twitter, in our earlier example) or advanced.  The new learners will feel confident that they at least have some kind of understanding after watching the movie.  Advanced users will either pick something up that they can use, or nothing at all.  Either way, it's only 3 minutes of their life.

In our Twitter example, users should know what Twitter is used for.  They will know common uses of Twitter, and how to do basic features.  If they have experience with Facebook or blogs, they can add Twitter to their own schema.  Every Common Craft movie is a little different, but the Twitter example is fairly consistent with the norm.

Common Craft movies do a great job of introducing learners to a variety of topics.  While it is free to view these movies from their website (with a watermark), it costs money to embed them into your website or LMS, or to download them to your computer.  It can be as cheap as $20 per movie (for classroom use) or $350 (for a school or an entire school district).

While these movies can be very helpful for big ideas, they are not meant to replace teachers or textbooks.  They are meant to introduce topics so learners all have a level playing field.  They do not teach html, show the ins and outs of creating Facebook groups, or how to add a Calendar to your blog.  They explain it pretty well in their own Common Craft movie about Common Craft.

Ease of Use
The website is fairly easy to navigate.  I recommend clicking on the orange "Browse Videos" button near the top left corner of the homepage.  From there, click on the "Browse Videos" button again.  I know this seems repetitive, but it's the only way to get the helpful menu to pop up.  It took me awhile to find this, but once I did, I was good.

Common Craft does not have a spot for users to rate the content.  If a teacher or presenter shares a link to a specific movie, it is extremely easy to use.  Just click play!  Lee LeFever is the voice behind all of the movies.  His voice is clear and easy to understand.  The drawings are very neat and clean as well.  Once you've viewed a couple movies, you'll be very familiar with the format.

Overall, I love Common Craft.  I highly recommend it to anyone that needs a quick introduction to a concept or website.  I recently found out that they also have some non-technology movies.  Enjoy!

Personal Learning Reflection

Effective Teaching

I had already taken 10 credits of educational technology at another institution before this one, but definitely still learned a lot from this class.  My biggest takeaway was the session about copyright.  A teacher recently asked me to teach her class how to make movies.  Since the student drives are so small on our network, I knew that a local storage option (like Windows Movie Maker) would not be an option, so we used Jaycut.  I confidently showed the students how to obtain free, legal images and mp3s using sites like Creative Commons Search-Jamendo and Danosongs.

Evaluating Technology

Before one can evaluate various uses for technology in education, one must gather resources.  A great way to do that was with Google Reader.  I didn't realize that I had set this up a few years ago until I was required to log in for this class.  The feed that I had coming in was CNN Education.  I am so excited about having Google Reader and using it now!  I found that a lot of sites that I visit everyday have RSS feeds.  My favorite so far is TUAW (The Unofficial Apple Weblog).

Good Teaching

I feel like my group's SIG proposal had a lot of examples of good teaching.  The content that I personally contributed to this assignment was the research.  I am interested in research as it results to educational technology.  After all, if a technology (hardware or software application) is shown to be effective, then it should be used.  If it is not, then it should not be used.  I love the idea of trying to seek out the best practices in educational technology.  Of course, the only way to get this started is by having teachers across the country (and world) experiment with different things, and try them in different ways.  Then when a teacher seems to be on to something, we should replicate that, test it, and analyze the results.

PGP Goals

I had set two goals for myself in my PGP.  My first goal was to improve access to technology.  While this is a long-term goal, I feel like I have already made some progress.  I was able to convince the right people in my district that we needed to get Google Chrome in the computer labs.  Internet Explorer 5 just wasn't cutting it anymore.  It was no longer loading flash and a few other things.  They told me that downloading recent versions of Explorer, as well as flash updates (and others) was too time consuming on the older computers (most are between 7 and 11 years old!!).  Firefox's system requirements were too high for our aging machines.  I had been using Chrome for a few years, remembered that it had very low system requirements, and updated Flash player automatically.  It seems like a win-win.  I was able to convince the Google-skeptics that this really was the best solution for us right now.  We essentially made 2 unusable labs usable again :)  Therefore, I'd say Goal 1 is in progress, but going well so far.

My second goal was to improve my Prezi skills.  I forced myself to do this by offering a Prezi professional development.

New Goals
My long-term goals haven't really changed since the beginning of this class.  I plan to get accepted into and (hopefully) graduate from MSU's MAET program by August 2012.  Then I think I'll take a year or two off and slowly work on my PhD.  I don't have any kids yet, and know that my priorities may change once I do.  Either way, I'm a lifelong learner of educational technology.