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Conclusion:
High Tech
•Provide spellcheckers, grammar checkers
•Provide Text-To-Speech software (voice recognition), recorders
•Provide calculators, graphing calculators, geometric sketchpads, or pre-formatted graph paper
Low Tech
•Provide sentence starters or sentence strips
•Provide virtual or concrete mathematics manipulatives such as base-10 blocks, algebra blocks
In the classroom, students should not be limited to the traditional tools. Current media tools provide flexibility which allows students to successfully take part in their learning and articulate what they know. Unless a lesson is focused on learning to use a specific tool such as learning to draw with a compass, students should be able to access alternatives. Like any craftsman, students should learn to use tools that are the best fit between their abilities and the demands of the task.
Students solving a problem with manipulatives
Learning to communicate through writing is very demanding on a student. There are benefits of offering alternative media for expression for all students. The advantages of using a range of different types of media – including word-processing, audio recording, video or film, multimedia, images, drawing, animation, graphics – are that building fluency with a wider range of options helps prepare students better for the communication skills they will need in the world now with new technology, and provides valuable alternatives for those students who have persistent difficulties in written expression.
There is no medium of expression that is equally suited for all learners or for all kinds of communication. On the contrary, there are media, which seem poorly suited for some kinds of expression, and for some kinds of learning. While a learner with dyslexia may excel at story-telling in conversation, he may falter when telling that same story in writing. It is important to provide alternative modalities for expression, both to the level the playing field among learners and to allow the learner to appropriately (or easily) express knowledge, ideas and concepts in the learning environment.
High Tech
CAST Strategy Tutor
Book Builder
UDL Editions by CAST
Low Tech
Worksheets
Pencil
Learners must develop a variety of fluencies (e.g., visual, audio, mathematical, reading, etc.). This means that they often need multiple scaffolds to assist them as they practice and develop independence. Curricula should offer alternatives in the degrees of freedom available, with highly scaffolded and supported opportunities provided for some and wide degrees of freedom for others who are ready for independence. Fluency is also built through many opportunities for performance, be it in the form of an essay or a dramatic production. Performance helps learners because it allows them to synthesize their learning in personally relevant ways. Overall, it is important to provide options that build learners’ fluencies.