ICE UDL Playground

"https://itunes.apple.com/book/explain-everything/id591601596?mt=11"

ToonDoo is a website that allows users to generate their own comic strips. You can create your own characters by selecting basic traits from an extensive list. You can also upload your own images. ToonDoo also offers excellent community features such as voting, commenting, and sharing. Why UDL? Making comics is a creative way for students to express their ideas. With ToonDoo, students can share their comics with each other for collaboration on projects or feedback.

Animoto provides tools for making videos by using animation to pull together a series of images and combining with audio. Animoto videos or presentations are easy to publish and share. Why UDL? Making a video presentation by combining music and images is another creative way through which students can express their ideas.

Readability is a simple tool that makes reading on the web more enjoyable by removing the clutter around what you're reading. Why UDL? Readability allows the user to customize the display of information by reducing visual distractions that surround written text on the web.

Glogster allows you to create "interactive posters" to communicate ideas. Students can embedded media links, sound, and video, and then share their posters with friends. Why UDL? Glogster is a unique tool that allows students to communicate their learning as well as their creativity!

Want to share ideas? The world's coolest brainstorming and mind mapping software has now joined the open source community. Why UDL? Mapping is an effective way to organize and manage information.

Your students can study the wildlife that gathers at Pete's Pond in Botswana through National Geographic's 24hour live webcam. Why UDL? National Geographic brings authentic learning to the classroom with its WildCam live webcam!

"This five-part series explores how one teacher designs, refines, and implements rubrics in a variety of subject areas." Why UDL? This series reveals how implementing rubrics in the classroom help to make the goals and the objectives of activities and assignments more explicit.

This teaching module explains how rubrics can make a positive impact in your classroom, discusses different types of rubrics, and offers tips on getting started. Why UDL? Rubrics are an effective strategy for heightening the salience of goals and objectives.

"Skype allows you to make free calls over the internet to other people on Skype for as long as you like, to wherever you like." Why UDL? Skype is another powerful example of a tool that can be used to foster collaboration and communication among students across classrooms, districts, states, and countries!

"This FREE implementation toolkit provides a lesson plan and supportive materials for you to design your own student self-advocacy learning model." Why UDL? Teaching students to become self-advocates is an effective way to develop their self-assessment skills.

This blog lists some common distractions in the classroom and provides tips to follow so that you aren't led off track. Why UDL? Being aware of the various diversions in the classroom and developing strategies to overcome them is a powerful way to reduce threats and distractions.

"Focus on Effectiveness" offers research-based strategies on providing feedback to students. Why UDL? The strategies offered in this article will help educators to increase the mastery-oriented feedback that they give to students.

In this article, the author describes the use of "Learner Diaries" in order to "see each student as an individual with individual needs and abilities" and "to develop a 'one-to-one' relationship even with large classes of students." Why UDL? The use of "Learner Diaries" in the classroom is an effective way to develop students' self-reflection and assessment skills.