This screencast tutorial was created with a partner to highlight the accessibility tool, Read & Write in the Universal Design for Learning course. Although Read & Write can be used in different forms, we chose to use the Google Chrome extension in order to focus our tutorial and appeal to users not familiar with the basics of the tool. Before developing our video tutorial, we were able to use the tool as a part of our daily computer use to gain an understanding of it’s strengths and limitations. Additionally, we researched how faculty and teachers use Read & Write in their own class to inform our guidance. The resulting product was the brief tutorial embedded above and accessible to anyone searching on YouTube.
This project was also a sort of “meta” experience. While we were creating a tutorial on an accessibility tool, we also need to make sure our end product was accessible. To ensure this, we heavily utilized the accessibility checker in MS PowerPoint, made sure our colors had the appropriate contrast, and ordered captions once it was uploaded into YouTube. This process in itself was formative, as I frequently make videos for my own courses and am now more aware of accessibility needs.
The variety of course assignments within the UDL course challenged me to re-think my approach to assessment and provide different means for students students to engage in course content. This has deeply shaped my own teaching practice, and I’ve experienced the stronger submissions from my own students by allowing students to complete assignments in an authentic way for their own learning.
Skills Utilized: Read & Write, MS PowerPoint recording tools, YouTube captioning, application of UDL Principles
Victoria Buckley 