The Global UDL Virtual Classroom was initially designed between a U.S. based and international partnering institution of higher education to build a rich and sustainable online learning community to: engage doctoral students and international educators in building a virtual model classroom to study Universal Design for Learning (UDL) principles, pilot applications of innovative pedagogical methods, and evaluate the effectiveness of online resources in varied educational settings.
Using open-platforms, this virtual classroom aimed to make learning visible, constructive, and applicable through online dialogue, interactive demonstrations, resource curation, and evaluation of applications in diverse cultural contexts. We designed this site to welcome educators at the remote location and encouraged them to join us in building and learning together!
As you begin to explore, you will see we have noted the various elements on this page which included images taken at the (remote international location) area during an initial visit (these were removed from this template to maintain anonymity of our colleagues). The menu above this introductory paragraph was customized to serve as a guide to resources, information, and people. We encouraged participants at the remote location to explore and engage with us through the comment function at the bottom of each page through a “leave a reply” note.
We purposely selected the Twenty Eleven theme from the WordPress collection to provide a user friendly, accessible, and responsive platform to design this online space. We focused on a simple design with the ability for clear and easy navigation. We added several plugins to enhance functionality including the “wp accessibility” tool to provide accessibility options and “gravity forms” to capture comments into an organized format for evaluation purposes.
*** UPDATE NOTE: All commenting opportunities have been removed from this site. However, the model remains as something to explore and consider. Some of the UDL resources have been updated at the U.S. CAST, Inc. location and worthy of consideration.
A link to a publication that details this project is noted here: https://www.routledge.com/Universal-Access-Through-Inclusive-Instructional-Design-International/Gronseth-Dalton/p/book/9781138351080 (See Section 2, Chapter 6)
