Alana’s UDL blog

I was fascinated by learning about cagras syndrome in class.  I try to imagine what it would feel like to believe that your loved one has been taken over by a stranger.  I imagine fear, anxiety, paranoia, and insecurity.  I found a couple of videos on youtube if anyone else is interested in learning more about capgras.  This video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DDbzaEO0shs&feature=related is part of a BBC series on Dr. Ramachandran’s work.  The series is about vision and various disorders in the brain that provide insight into the conscious and inconscious processes of vision.   The episode begins with the story of a man who cannot recognize faces (prosopagnosia) or animals.  It then introduces a man who suffers from capgars.  Both men suffered brain injuries in a car accident. 

Another video on capgras syndrome http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sO-6BhKMv5I is a high school student’s presentation on capgras for his AP psychology class.  Watch the dramatic interpretation after the powerpoint and see if you think he captured the affect of a person suffering from capgras.  Warning: the last two minutes of the video are hard to hear and reminiscent of a lot of high school video projects that digress into attempts at humor. 

…check out what the scientists have to say.  In the article below, which appeared in the New York TImes Sunday Styles section April 26, 2009, stereotypes are presented as neurological responses stemming back to our earliest ancestors.  It describes a response through the planning and goal-oriented portion of the brain (prefrontal cortex) as well as a stress response (amygdala) when discrepancies in our stereotypes emerge. 

-I marked this article using diigo, but when I open my bookmark, the highlights and comments are gone so the link below has no comments.  Does anyone know what I’m doing wrong?

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/26/fashion/26looks.html?pagewanted=1&8dpc&_r=1

The aritcle linked below is an interesting look at motivation as a factor in reading comprehension.  The authors discuss a specific reading instructional method, CORI-Concept Oriented Reading Instruction, which targets motivation along with explicit teaching of comprehension strategies.  CORI is aligned with UDL in many ways-it provides options for expression and allows autonomy for the students.  CORI differs, however, in its view of student engagement and seems to suggest that all students are motivated by hands-on learning.  For example, the authors write “Students are excited when they observe a live iguana, handle a skull, build a Native American totem pole, or trail the sources of a watershed” (Guthrie & Solomon, 1997).  While these are examples, all of which sound exciting and fun to me, I wonder if the authors have considered students who might find these experiences frightening or disengaging?  As an environmental educator, I love inquiry based learning, but when I consider all of students’ individual differences, i question whether it is the right method for everyone.

http://web.ebscohost.com.ezp-prod1.hul.harvard.edu/ehost/detail?vid=3&hid=17&sid=41de2047-777f-4730-a2e3-8cddfe47233b%40sessionmgr3&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZSZzY29wZT1zaXRl#db=aph&AN=9703134153

http://web.ebscohost.com.ezp-prod1.hul.harvard.edu/ehost/detail?vid=3&hid=17&sid=41de2047-777f-4730-a2e3-8cddfe47233b%40sessionmgr3&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZSZzY29wZT1zaXRl#db=aph&AN=9703134153

General Reaction:

Participating in the VoiceThread about Martha’s Vineyard was an interesting way to experiment with Multiple Means of Action and Expression.  My preferred method of academic communication is writing.  Recording a verbal reaction on VoiceThread was challenging.  I typically prefer written expression as it allows me to carefully consider the language I use to convey an idea.  I can pause, review, edit, and finally contribute my comment.  Verbally, the pressure to communicate an idea concisely and fluidly in the moment increases my anxiety level and infringes on the prefrontal cortex I rely on to help me plan the next sentence.  Putting myself in an awkward position as a student allowed me to experience the insecurity and anxiety that I imagine struggling students feel frequently.  While VoiceThread has its limitations, discussed in more detail below in reaction to specific UDL guidelines, it does allow students choice in their means of expression.  In addition, programs like VoiceThread promote the philosophy of UDL by equally valuing verbal, written, and visual expression as a means to communicate an idea in an academic environment.

UDL Guidelines:

Guideline 4-Provide options for physical action in the mode of physical response (4.1), means of navigation (4.2), and accessing tools and assistive technologies (4.3).

As a digitally based educational tool, VoiceThread is likely to be more accessible to physically disabled students than traditional texts.  An accommodation to a traditional keyboard may be necessary; however, if a student can type, speak, or make a video, the student can create or contribute to a VoiceThread.

Guideline 5: Provide options for expressive skills and fluency

5.1: media for communication

This is VoiceThread’s strong suit.  Its purpose is to provide a venue for commentary that is open to various forms of expression.  While the options to express an idea musically or physically through dance, painting, or sculpture, for example, are not built into the program, the video option would allow someone to capture music, movement, or a three-dimensional commentary and include it on the VoiceThread. 

5.2: tools for composition and problem solving

There are not tools built into VoiceThread to support composition and problem solving.  The program does support multiple languages for text comments including non-alphabetic languages. 

5.3: scaffolds for practices and performance

These tools are not built into the program, but could be provided by a teacher who is setting up a VoiceThread.  Jenna’s model commentary about the VoiceThread on the deaf culture of Martha’s Vineyard provided a helpful example of what a recorded comment might include.  Browsing other VoiceThreads will allow students to access other models.  Alternately, VoiceThread could be used as a way to scaffold students through a process of developing critical responses and finally constructing an independent VoiceThread about which the student can receive individualized feedback from a variety of sources.

Guideline 6: Provide option for executive functions that guide effective goal-setting (6.1), support planning and strategy development (6.2), facilitate managing information and resources (6.3), and enhance capacity for monitoring progress (6.4).

A final note on VoiceThread that does not relate directly to Principle II in the UDL Guidelines—While I browsed through several voicethreads, some from classrooms and others from individuals, I noticed that comments rarely turned into discussion.  Each comment stood on its own or responded to the initial question or statement.  This is true of our comments about the deaf culture on Martha’s Vineyard as well.  I think VoiceThread would be most optimally used and more interesting if participants reacted to the comments made by others and truly took advantage of the sharing capacity of the program.  

After leaving class last Monday, I began to think of alternate means of supporting students’ learning.  UDL supports learning in the classroom and uses various media to engage and support the learner and help all students access a given body of knowledge.  In my experience as an evironemental educator, we were also concerned with multiple means of expression, but in a different context.  By expanding the classroom physically, rather than virtually, we relied on experience to support the learner and help students access knowledge.  We designed activites that asked students to use multiple senses.  For example, students might sketch the landscape based on its visual representation or use their bodies to act out the geologic formation of the land or design a map of the area based on sound.  Environmental education is in some ways similar to UDL in that is a from of pedagogy outside the mainstream and as such, given a certain amount of freedom.  It could be interesting to see a partnership between environmental ed or expeditionary learning and UDL to construct curriculum. 

Sometimes when I’m in my car, I listen to 96.9 Talk Evolution.  If you ever feel trapped in a bubble of like minded lefties at the ed school, I suggest you do the same.  Twice I’ve listened to an afternoon show with Jay S__.  This is where I heard the term “crimaliens” –that is, all the illegal aliens who don’t pay taxes and who Obama plans to make voters as part of his “socialist agenda.”  Yesterday, referring to a Wall Street Journal article that reported Obama’s tax plan is raising the number of people who won’t pay taxes from 38-50% of the population (can’t find the article he’s referring to; find WSJ online confusing).  The radio host said this event marked the most important political event in his career as the day when “the have-nots can now vote themselves your stuff.” 

How does this relate to UDL?  Well, the attitude itself is un-UDL.  In the education worlds, who are the “have nots?”  I think it would be -kids with physical disabilites, kids with cognitive disabilites, kids who don’t speak English as their first language, fot example.  And “the stuff” that they’re after is access to a high quality education.  The parallel is that when people fear change that may in some way diminish their access to a good, there is a tendency to see the people who are newly gaining access to a shared good as the enemy.  From what I gather, the UDL response would be to argue that there is a way to make the good accessible and functional for more people, and increase the quality of the good overall.  Everybody benefits. 

Check out this link to the New York Times interactive map on immigration into the US since 1880.  This was in the March 10, 2009 times.

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2009/03/10/us/20090310-immigration-explorer.html?scp=1&sq=US%20immigration%20map&st=cse

One thing I’m learning in my spring semester classes is that I have a tendency to self-diagnose.  Last week in the Science of Learning, I learned that the critical period for visual brain development is from 0-12 months.  Since I was born with cataracts and didn’t go through surgery until age 2…what happened to my brain?  What could be the effects I wondered?  Tonight I got a clue.  My entire life I have not been able to read lips, not that I have thought about this in a long time.  Reading lips seemed important in junior high when friends were trying and failing to send messages to me across classrooms, but it hasn’t really been a hindrance since then.  Tonight, I seemed immuned to the McGurk effect.  (Sidenote-McGurk was my Dad’s nickname for me as a kid.)  In both videos, my brain seemed to ignore the movement of the lips and only register sounds.  Maybe it has something to do with the wiring of my brain related to early vision impairment.  That’s interesting.  Is it a reasonable hypothesis?  Not sure; I may be leaping to conclusions.  

When I went to diigo.com, I thought it was a really interesting mix of social networking meets hey, check out my stamp collection.  It seems like a neat venue for people to share ideas, thoughs, and interests with each other.  A friend of mine’s brother developed similar software to highlight and mark pages and it’s amazing to see how that technology has progressed as well as my thoughts on how useful it could be.  I’m trying to take my world closer to paperless so I’m getting more interested in digital media.  Overall, I had a good feeling about diigo.

Then I visited second life and was fairly creeped out.  I’ll admit, I’d never visited the site before, but read about it in the Chicago Tribune a few years back and was disturbed by the story of a man who spent 12+ hours a day living his second life with his avatar wife while his real life sat in the next room.  So, I didn’t enter with an open mind.  However, I’m disturbed by the use of a digital world and an invented persona that can so encompass one’s life. 

I’m wondering how you, my classmates, feel about self representation on the internet with the increasing number of sites that ask you to create a profile.  Is it important to be authentic or am I just not technologically progressive?

Sunny, warm!