The Universal Learning Center:

Helping Teachers and Parents Find Accessible Electronic Learning Materials for Students with Disabilities

by Lucinda M. O'Neill

"I have done several searches for (electronic versions of) lower elementary children's books, but have not been very successful. Perhaps it is because most are not in the public domain. I want to use the books with middle-school-aged children who are reading at 1st or 2nd grade level. Does anyone know of very low reading level children's books that are already online?"

"I am a Secondary Reading and Dyslexia teacher. I have trouble finding textbooks for my students in any type of electronic form. We have to scan them all into the computer and it would be so nice to find them…Any ideas?"

"I am also struggling to find (electronic) text for students who are emergent readers… I think we all need to become advocates, speaking to all the companies that develop software for students who are struggling readers-they need to know we are desperate! We are spending so much time scanning in books that would be better spent working with students."

These recent pleas appearing in an online forum hosted by CAST, a non-profit educational research and development organization, tell the story: Teachers are frustrated, and in some cases desperate, in their search to find electronic versions of books and other learning materials to help their students with disabilities gain access to and master the general curriculum.

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The feature that distinguishes the Universal Learning Center from other Web-based instructional content services is its focus on accessible digital materials.

For students with disabilities, electronic (or digital) text offers many advantages over print-based materials. Digital content can be displayed in many formats-text and images, but also sound, moving images, captioned video, and more. Students who have low vision can adjust the color and size of text and background on a computer screen; spoken text can be slowed down for struggling readers. Further, digital text can incorporate learning supports such as embedded hyperlinks to dictionaries and encyclopedias to build background knowledge, prompts to support reading comprehension, and electronic notepads and visual organizers.

Imagine, then, a one-stop resource where teachers could quickly find electronic versions of curricular materials and the resources and supports they need to use them effectively, even for the next day's lesson. CAST is creating such a resource with its new Universal Learning Center (ULC), a Web-based service (http://www.ulc.cast.org) that will enable teachers, students, administrators, and parents to locate and acquire accessible digital content and software tools to help them meet the needs of individual learners, especially those with disabilities. While full access to the ULC will eventually be offered on a subscription basis, the service is currently available as a pilot program for interested teachers to try out at no cost.

Maximizing the Educational Potential of the Web

ULC Co-Director Skip Stahl says that the ULC "grew out of the awareness that school districts nationwide were routinely digitizing their own instructional materials -- a highly redundant and inefficient effort. CAST recognized the potential -- through the Web -- to develop a centralized repository and a content 'locator' to help teachers, parents, and students find the materials that fit their needs."

The Web has dramatically increased the ease of distributing learning materials. The ULC will draw on the effectiveness of the Web, incorporating a searchable database or 'locator,' a repository of digital content, and resources for teachers who are integrating digital materials into their classrooms. Because not all digital materials are accessible to screen readers and other assistive devices used by students with disabilities, those available through the ULC will be carefully chosen to meet this criterion.

Reflecting Current Research in Universal Design for Learning

The ULC is founded on the principles of Universal Design for Learning (UDL), an innovative approach developed by CAST. Facilitated by digital text, UDL is a powerful alternative to the print-only curriculum, particularly for students with physical challenges, learning disabilities, low literacy skills, attention disorders, and those who may have difficulty learning from traditional print-based materials. Universally designed materials offer flexible options for diverse learners, including multiple representations of content, multiple ways for students to use that content and express knowledge, and multiple ways of engaging students in the learning task at hand.

An Idea Whose Time Has Come

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The Universal Learning Center will support teachers in using digital materials in their classrooms by providing links to professional development and information on promising practices.

The ULC is uniquely positioned to respond to recent changes in the educational climate. Federal special education mandates-IDEA '97 and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973-require that students with disabilities have access to, participate in, and progress within the general education curriculum. Yet textbooks and many other core components of the general education curriculum remain inaccessible to students with disabilities and unsupportive of students with diverse learning needs. Moreover, student outcomes and teacher effectiveness are increasingly being measured by high-stakes tests that must be taken by all students, including those with disabilities. Yet the high stakes tests themselves are frequently inaccessible.

With less than five percent of special needs students in general education classrooms going on to postsecondary education and fewer still reaching graduate school, a staggering number are being left behind by an educational system that fails to meet their needs. The ULC offers hope to students who are shut out of educational advancement because of inaccessible learning materials.

The increasing use of technology in schools makes a service such as the ULC both feasible and desirable. Fourteen percent of schools are now subscribing to online services that deliver instructional content, and publishers are eager to stake a claim in this potentially huge market. Major educational publishers are scrambling to provide Web-based alternatives to traditional print-based materials, ranging from interactive digital textbooks to collections of Web-based tools designed for teachers, students, and parents. What distinguishes the ULC from other content repositories is its focus on accessible digital materials. The service will host accessible digital curriculum materials that are not available elsewhere. If a published work already exists in an accessible format on another Web site, the ULC will identify it and provide a link to it. The ULC's rating system will enable teachers to determine the accessibility of the materials for specific students and their compatibility with specific assistive technologies.

Linking Teachers and Publishers

The ULC's accessibility focus is catching the attention of educational publishers. According to Stahl, "Large textbook adoption states (such as Texas) are requiring their curricula to be accessible to students with disabilities. So publishers need and want to get their materials online. We are working with several educational publishers to help them provide educational materials in digital format." Stahl and ULC Co-Director Rick Bowes see curriculum publishers as critical partners in the ULC. Bowes sees the service as a facilitator -- creating a link between users (teachers, parents, students) and content sources (publishers). "By partnering with publishers, we will make significant strides in making the general curriculum accessible to all learners."

A Resource for Teachers and Parents

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The Universal Learning Center will address the needs of parents, enabling them to directly support their children's learning at home.

While making content available is the ULC's first challenge, making it useful to teachers and beneficial to students is another. The ULC will act as a resource to support teachers in their efforts to employ digital curricula by providing access to professional development and information on promising practices. According to Stahl, supporting educators is a critical goal of the ULC. "Teachers are the ones who have to deliver this 'accessible general curriculum' to their students. They need to know they will have help in meeting IDEA policy and mandated state standards. It's not just about access."

The ULC will also address the needs of parents, who often feel their children's schools' resources are too limited or the approach to instruction not sufficiently innovative. Parents are scheduled to have access to the ULC in early 2003, enabling them to directly support their children's efforts at home. The ULC expects to also offer online communications forums for parents to share with one another their experience, wisdom, and resources for supporting their children with disabilities.

This Time Next Year

Creating a comprehensive repository of kindergarten through twelfth grade-level digital curricular materials is a huge undertaking, so the ULC will begin by featuring social studies and literature content for ninth and tenth grades. Moving forward, the ULC will provide access to digital versions of an increasingly wide range of subject areas for all grade levels.

Initially, copyright-protected digital materials will be available for downloading and use only by students entitled to digital materials under disability legislation (the Chaffee Amendment to the Copyright Act). During 2002, however, the ULC plans to add e-commerce capabilities, allowing publishers to charge for the use of their digital content where appropriate. At that point, the ULC's content repository will be able to support the digital curriculum needs of all students, not just those students for whom accessibility is an issue.

Summarizing CAST's vision for the ULC, Bowes says: "We're looking forward to collaborating with teachers, publishers, disability groups and others as the ULC expands its resources. Our goal is to make the ULC an indispensable resource for those serving the learning needs of the more than five million children with documented disabilities and the many millions of other struggling learners for whom new learning technologies and digital content can make a life-changing difference."

Lucinda M. O'Neill is a staff writer at CAST in Peabody, MA.