UDL+BookBuilder

=UDL Book Builder= by Eric Lawson

Book Builder was developed with support from the Massachusetts Department of Special Education, NEC Foundation of America, The John W. Alden Trust, and The Pinkerton Foundation. ( [] /) This online resource and tool allows users to read books from public libraries, or model books created by other users to the website. These books are very helpful to younger readers, and also readers with visual and/or other reading learning disabilities. Each book comes with a text-to-speech tool, translator for other languages (usually Spanish only) and helpful cartoon coaches that can help a struggling reader, or a first time user to the site to navigate through the digital audio books. The website is very user friendly, and the data base for searching content online is easy to follow and to use. Within the database you can search by date published, title, author, illustrator, genre, content area, school group, grade level, average rating, and by key words. Each book can also be rated and there is an area to leave a comment to the database and to the creators of the book. This makes it very easy to browse through the database to find a book that is just right for your student(s). You can sign up for a free account to create your very own book. This is a great way to get all of your students to create digital books, and to also offer assistive technologies to students that may need the text-to-speech or translation features for stronger comprehension. Teachers could certainly reword texts and/or create more student friendly versions to apply to all of their learners in class, and help to individualize the content to meet each student’s need. A text book could be reworked to drive home key points to students in a manner of different ways using Book Builder to help students with learning disabilities. A teacher must be skilled in UDL design and implementation in order to create these resources for each individual child. Book Builder allows a skilled professional to not only model, but to also create books to individualize instruction and promote UDL within their classroom.

I found this awesome presentation about Web 2.0 and various tools for ELLs that apply UDL:

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