Hello UDL bloggers,
Welcome to "Logan's Universal Design Blog", a place where, depending on your browser, all of your wildest dreams may or may not come true. This is a place where in one highlight reel diigo Maradona can rewind time and score a touch down with his left foot for the patriots and a goal with his right hand for the ex-patriots; a place where dogs of all sizes are welecome; a place where imagination meets weekly marination and out pops one incredibly sticky note that you and I can share over candle light with the soothing sound of audio books in the background. Mostly though, I'll just be writing about what I learn each week in UDL.
I'm not really sure what we are supposed to write about for this first blog post, hence the silly beginning, so I guess I'll just say a little bit about my background and why I wanted to take UDL.
Background:
I am a special education major from the University of Georgia. In fall of '06 I left Georgia to work as an intern for United Cerebral Palsy in Washington DC. I love DC, but Cambridge/Boston is making a go at the "my favorite city" superlative.
I spent most of last year traveling with a documentary film I was a part of, the subject matter of which also concerned issues within the realm of people with disabilities. More specifically, the film features a friend of mine who tried to get his wheelchair pimped on pimp my ride, and who's wheelchair also served as a test for architectural accessibility as we crossed America to reach the television studio.
Why UDL?
What if the studio would have been inaccessible!?
Having had very close relationships with people who thrive in accessible atmospheres (and fail in inaccessible ones), I hope to learn more about the physical, psychological, and curricular barriers that inevitably impede the progress of society as a whole.
I say society as a whole because I don't believe we know what gifts people have to give to any sector of any community until they can actually access that sector. That belief hardly needs justification. However, a glance at its scope may make resonate longer.
Let's say Steven Hawking really is the smartest person in the world. Isn't it in everyone's best interest to make everything (buildings, attitudes, and information) accessible to THE SMARTEST PERSON IN THE WORLD. Stephen Hawkings uses a wheelchair btw.
Intelectualism not your thing? How about parenthood or commerce? Bet you are or will be involved in one of those. Accessible places provide entry for strollers, mothers of babies in strollers, customers who want to buy a new stroller (or anything else), the next Stephen Hawking who could tell us stroller designs that would save baby lives, and on, and on...
These issues of physical accessibility generalize to knowledge as well. Diverse learners must have diverse routes to knowledge. Stephen Hawking can't write. Imagine if he were only assigned written assignments his entire life.
Being a TIE student here at HGSE, I am particularly interested in the advancements of technology that make UDL more possible to implement. As a special educator I tried my best to universally design my classroom, but truthfully, it kicked my butt. Two years have passed since I was hacking out an attempt at UDL in a highschool classroom. In just two short years there has been an explosion of useful tools on the web that assist teachers with UDL. It appears that UDL itself is becoming significantly more accessible. I'm really looking forward to getting a closer look this semester.
thanks, and see ya Monday.
