Design for inclusion and diversity is necessary for designing learning resources and materials. In my group’s learning design, there will be lessons in the form of reading and listening to learning resources and doing analysis by discussing cases or evaluating materials. In order to meet the needs of the learners with special needs, or for unexpected occasions, I would add more features to the materials we provide. For example, for reading activities, we would find audio versions or if there is, video versions so that the learners with specific needs would be met. When it comes to discussions or evaluations of cases, we would provide online forums for unexpected occasions such as the pandemic. During the online discussion, we would also try to be inclusive by providing the learners with different options for their forms of submission. They could submit texts, videos, audios on the same topics.
The examples of universal design I know are in computer and software design. For example, people with disabilities could use the accessibility functions on Apple devices. Here is a video of how people with visual impairment use an iPhone:
There are also functions where it allows the device to read out the texts on a screen, as well as converting audios to texts. This universal design is very inspirational for a learning design because when my group is designing our project, we could also think about learners who may have this need and incorporate functions that would make it easier for such learners to access to our resources.
Universal design is a great point to address in our group learning design and our future design for any resources and materials because it is so easy that we forget such needs and this could potentially block some individuals from accessing the resources that might be important to them. Knowing how we could do to meet the needs of all learners could improve the inclusiveness of our resources. Like Jin mentioned in the post of the three principles of inclusive design, understanding the audience is the most important part because the center of the design should be human, the users of the resources rather the resources themselves. Using technology in the design is also an important principle. As mentioned earlier in this post, technology as made it a lot more convenient for inclusion. Using technology properly in our own design could greatly improve the inclusiveness of our work. However, misuse of technology could also cause negative results of the learning experience such as the excessive use of videos mentioned in Jin’s post. Therefore, when designing our group learning resource, we also need to evaluate the technology we used to make sure that it benefits the learners.
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