Information and digital literacy in education via the digital path

Editor’s Note: Today is Global Accessibility Awareness Day (GAAD) 2018. The purpose of GAAD is to foster conversation, reflection, and learning about digital access and people with different disabilities in order to move towards greater inclusion in technology and its applications. We are pleased to welcome guest author Stephanie Rosen to share some thoughts about accessibility and inclusion for digital textbooks. Stephanie is Associate Librarian and Accessibility Specialist at the University of Michigan Library, where she promotes equitable access to library resources for all users, regardless of ability or background. She holds a PhD in English from the University of Texas at Austin, and brings a background in disability studies to library administration and digital education.

The scholarly communications community is very familiar with the many varied meanings of the word “free” and how those definitions help shape or derail discussions. With recent offerings of “inclusive access” textbooks, we now need to carefully distinguish between the varied meanings of the word “inclusive.”

Does the everyday learning environment provide a range of supports to cater for student variability?

Universal Supports are those that exist in the learning environment, which the teacher does not have to think about or plan for daily. Thus, saving teachers time and energy.

They typically support Finance Assignment Help which are common to several learning activities. Universal Supports include the physical, emotional, and learning environment in the classroom as well as well-established systems and protocols that are so embedded they are simply ‘the way we do things around here’.

How UDL can be used to provide all students an equal opportunity to learn, at any grade level or subject area.