Customizing with UD Features: Bailey's Book House

Index

Overview

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1. Multiple Representations of Information

Information throughout the program is generally presented in multiple media, including text, image, sound, and animation.

d

In "Letter Machine" questions are presented orally but also represented with a letter in a speech balloon (e.g., "Find the letter V"). When the correct letter is selected, a sentence is read aloud, and then enacted with an engaging animation.

2. Multiple Options for Expression and Control

Children can select their preferred way of interacting with Bailey's activities: open-ended exploratory learning or structured learning with explicit goals (Explore and Discover mode vs. Question and Answer mode).

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In the Explore and Discover mode of "Three-Letter Carnival," children click on any object or animal to see its name spelled and sounded out. In the Question and Answer mode of the same activity (pictured here), children are challenged to fill the carnival cars with things that rhyme or that begin with the same letter.

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3. Multiple Options for Engagement

The "writing" activities are scaffolded so that young children can experience the communicative power of writing.

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In "Make-a-Story," children build a written story by selecting narrative elements such as main character, setting, and sequential events. Their choices produce animations that enact the meaning of the sentences. Children can revise and play back the animations multiple times or print their narratives to share off-screen.

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Customizing Tips

• For students with attention deficit disorders the Letter Machine allows active participation, minimal waiting time, and many representations (all relevant to the task) that are likely to engage their attention.
  
• For students just beginning to recognize letters, select Letter Machine keyboard and question formats that match.
  
• For students just learning the alphabet, select alphabetic order. For students learning keyboarding, select QWERTY order.
  
• Students anxious about finding the "correct" answer can work in Explore and Discover mode until they gain confidence. When they move to Question and Answer mode, show them how to (and encourage them to) move back and forth between the two modes.
  
• For students using a single switch to control the computer, turn scanning on and adjust speed to suit students' needs.
  
• For students needing a lot of structure, start them within an activity rather than on the startup screen and encourage them to work within one activity.

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Universal Design Wish List

• Add talking buttons to the single switch scanning options so that children with visual impairments or blindness can use scanning to navigate and interact with the program.
  
• Add visual representations of all auditory content so that children with hearing impairments can see full instructions and feedback.
  
• Add preference that would contain activities either in Explore and Discover mode or Question and Answer mode.

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Feedback

How do you customize your students' learning with Bailey's Book House? We would like to add your ideas to our Web site, space permitting. (If we use your submission, we will give you credit.) Submit your Customizing Tips and UD Wish List items via e-mail to udfeedback@cast.org.

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Product Information

For more information about Bailey's Book House, see the Teaching Tools section of this Web site.

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Disclaimer

CAST does not necessarily endorse this product or consider it fully universally designed. CAST applauds the inclusion of universally designed features in this product and wishes to illustrate some of those features for educational purposes.

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