I learned a lot in this week’s zoom class. We talked about accessibility in education and tailoring lessons to be accessible to all learners. Not all disabilities are visible and I was reminded how important it is to make accommodations all the time, not just when someone asks for them. Something that stuck with me from the first video we watched was that trees grown on sidewalks make them inaccessible. I didn’t intuitively realize this from my point of view, so it showed me how important it is to hear other people’s perspectives.

The lesson today reminded me of a cool accessibility feature I noticed this summer while travelling. On the Tube in London, there are signs that remind others that not all disabilities are visible. Those who wish can get pins that say “please offer me a seat”. I think this is good practice that can be used in Canadian public transit, or be modified to make other services more accessible as well.

We talked about UDL a bit in multiliteracies but our talk today reinforced the power of the framework. Providing options for many aspects of learning is definitely needed and I will consult the UDL website as I create my lesson plans. I also find the UDL framework table super helpful. While a drawback of the UDL may be too much planning time, a benefit for us new teachers is that we can use it as a baseline to build all of our new lessons.

I also tried using speech to text and it was a new experience I don’t feel too comfortable with yet. This was my speech-to-text output: “I’m using SpeechTexter to test out speech-to-text. To be honest I think I’m slower in speech-to-text because I think so much about what I’m going to say versus with typing I know I can go back and delete part of my sentence and it still will make sense. My sentences out loud don’t always make sense.”

Are there places and services that stand out to you as being very accessible/ inaccessible? Could their strategies be used across many different services and situations, or are they specific to the service? Let me know what you think!