Heidi: Welcome back UDL Explorers.
Venecia: to our BCcampus UDL Challenge series.
Heidi: My name is Heidi
Venecia: and I’m Venecia. Our next challenge is around the principle of representation, specifically providing options for visual and auditory information. Heidi, why is this important?
Heidi: Well, we know students access information differently, right. So paying attention to how our students perceive the course content will really help reduce barriers in how students access the information. And while not relying on just one of the senses.
Venecia: Yeah, I agree. And this, of course, makes the information more accessible to different types of learners. Heidi, is there an example you’d like to share?
Heidi: Yes. One simple thing I’ve done for students who may have auditory challenges or maybe even can’t listen to a video with volume is to provide captioning to my videos. This is becoming a very simple way for instructors to reduce barriers for learning for their students.
Venecia: For sure.
Heidi: Venecia, do you have something that you do for visual alternatives?
Venecia: So I create a lot of videos and of course I use captioning as well, but I also make the transcript available. And this makes it easy for students who would like to use a text reader to listen to the information.
Heidi: That’s a great option for students. So, for this challenge, we’re asking you to look at one activity or one assignment and increase accessibility by providing some options.
Venecia: So you can create a video with captions. Or if it’s an image, just add alt-text. And as always, we have some resources below, some examples and instructions. We are looking forward to seeing what you come up with.
Heidi: Have fun and happy exploring. Bye bye.