Episode 19 (Special Education and Universal Design for Learning) is Online!

Well, just in time for the end of the month or the beginning of the month, depending on how you look at it, here's the new episode!

Special Education and Universal Design for Learning. I've always had tremendous respect for those who work in special education. My mother was a speech therapist in the schools and I remember back in the 70s visiting the special education classrooms with her. Even as young as I was, it was obvious to me how challenging the work must be at times, and how dedicated the teachers were. So I'm glad to have the opportunity to focus on this topic with Episode 19's interview with Daniel McNulty (and I plan to return to it). I had heard a bit about Universal Design for Learning from my colleague Seak-Zoon Roh--here's an article (in PDF) from him about UDL and designing accessible websites--but this discussion really clarified things for me--and hopefully will do so for listeners who are new to the model.
The basic idea, if I've got it right, is to make instructional designs that work for all learners, and thus the kids with special needs are covered. If you want to continue to explore the concept, please visit the PATINS Project site. Discussions about the topic can be found at the
Closing the Gap Forum. The AT TechNET @ VCU: Assistive Technology Blog has quite a few interesting resources in this area for you to check out.

Technical Notes. The new version of Rogue Amoeba's Audio Hijack Pro certainly made the job easier this time. It now automatically records both sides of the conversation. I guess I should have been closer to the Snowball microphone when I spoke, because my audio was a little quieter than Daniel's side, but a tweak of the balance knob in Garageband fixed that. If you downloaded the episode early on Wednesday, you may want to download it again, since I didn't realize the imbalance at first. Or you can just adjust the balance on your computer, CD player, iPod, etc. I'm going to try out their new Fission program, to master an audio cd. Hopefully, it will serve as a cheaper alternative to Bias Peak LE, and have more features than the free Audacity.

Free Music for IU students! Even though it's not Mac or iPod-compatible, I do feel like I should mention that IU students, including my online students, can download free music from Ruckus! It is far from perfect, and I suspect an hour with it will send most people running back to iTunes, but if you have the time, what the hey... (Okay, I can't resist some quick complaints: not Mac/iPod compatible, loads of ads, not all albums are complete, requires its own player, etc.)

Enjoy Episode 19! Thanks again to Richard Owens for the fine music he provided!

Chris