Teaching, Learning, and Play: UDL & Google Docs

Universal Design for Learning has been on my mind a lot these days. Of course, I'm participating in a cohort of UDL experimenters this week, led by the fearless Candyce Rennegarbe, and it helped that I joined a panel discussion at the conference last week on the same subject. (Last-minute stand in for an ill colleague. That was ideal...didn't have time to worry about it!)

Universal Design is literally changing the way I look at the world. Of course, it started as a general design concept: make the world more accessible for people who need special accommodations, and everyone benefits. Classic examples include curb cuts in sidewalks and automatic door openers. Who hasn't bumped one of those with a hip when her hands were too full to grasp the doorknob?

UDL adds the same components to course design, my new favorite thing. Make it easier for those with difficulties to learn, and suddenly it's easier for everyone to learn. As the great UDL website CAST.org puts it, "UDL helps identify and remove barriers from teaching methods and curriculum materials...." It's that "remove barriers" portion that's particularly intriguing to me recently.

Ever since I first started teaching online, one of the significant problems I've faced with a small handful of students in every class is document file compatibility. The school I was working for at the time required all students to buy Microsoft Word and use it; there were invariably those who were trying to avoid shelling out the major dough for that by using the programs that came with their computer. It's hard to fault a college student for not having a lot of spare change lying around.

Having one standard format has grown more important to me, the more I swap files back and forth with students. The community colleges have no Word-ownership requirement, but the net effect is still the same. If a student sends me a Works file, I can't open it. Likewise with some of Mac's cooler processing software, like Pages.

It goes the other way, too. Though I know there are a lot of conversion programs out there, I always feel guilty requiring people to take an extra step (or several) in viewing documents I've posted in online classrooms.

My default way of skirting that recently has been simply to remove the document element, and post content directly into Angel, TCC's platform. This works fine for text. Some content simply needs to be in Powerpoint, though, and then I'm back to square one.

Many of you are already screaming the answer at me, I know. But I've finally stumbled upon it myself, and it works beautifully: Google Documents.

With Google Docs, everything's stored "in the cloud," and accessible from any computer. Files can be published to be shared openly. I'm in the process now of converting all of my class presentations to be available in both formats: Powerpoint and Google Docs' Presentation tool. That way people can download it if they want, or view it online anytime.

One huge barrier removed. My next phase of implementation will be to convince as many of my students to use it as I can. I've already laid the groundwork in English 101, encouraging my group projects to be submitted that way. Yay for easy, simple interactivity, especially ones that don't take up tons of space on my harddrive.