Media Labs

Although new technologies offer the opportunity to customize educational experiences to meet diverse learner needs, the same technologies carry the risk of excluding learners whose backgrounds, skills, abilities/disabilities, or interests do not fit "mainstream" models of learning. CAST approaches this challenge through UDL, building flexibility into materials and methods to accommodate learner differences. For example, through UDL we can provide improved access to educational content for individuals with low-vision who cannot read a textbook; we can provide the text in digital form, adjust its size or color or transform it into speech.

We do not yet understand the full power of digital media and networked or Web-based learning environments. Many of these new technologies and curricula lack the flexibility required by UDL to meet individual learning needs. Effective UDL requires an understanding of each medium - its advantages for particular communicative purposes and its challenges for particular learners, as well as the issues involved in converting one medium into another.

The Media Labs provide our visitors with and opportunity to explore the nature of media and the challenges of media transformation.

• Image Lab
• Sound Lab