Hosted by the Tarjan Center at UCLA in March 2024, this virtual webinar was led by Lori Cooney, program director of Inclusive Education and Curriculum Design at the Institute for Community Inclusion at UMass Boston.
In the webinar, Lori shared practical ways to make learning more accessible and engaging for college students, including those with intellectual disability. Topics included Universal Design for Learning (UDL), accessibility basics like alt text and color contrast, text-to-speech tools, note-taking strategies, games-based assessments, and mind mapping. She used visuals, videos, drawing tools, and interactive activities to show how content can be shared in more than one way.
The webinar also highlighted AI tools such as Canva, Perplexity, and Claude. These tools were shown as ways to support inclusive teaching practices and help students stay engaged and successful in inclusive postsecondary education programs.
Below is a list of helpful resources referred to throughout the webinar.
Why we recommend this resource:
We recommend it because it shows real examples of how technology can be used to make college content more accessible and engaging for students with intellectual disability. The webinar focuses on practical tools and strategies that staff can use right away, rather than theory alone.
It also highlights technology with flexible settings, including AI and visual tools, that can be adjusted to meet different learning needs. This helps educators move beyond one-size-fits-all materials and create content that works better for more students.
Tool | Description |
The four principles of web accessibility are defined by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C): Perceivable, Operable, Understandable, and Robust. The principles lay the foundation for making digital content accessible to people with disabilities. | |
Resources on creating accessible documents from the University of Washington | |
An interactive presentation tool for real-time polls, quizzes, word clouds, and Q&A, engaging audiences during presentations or lectures. | |
An online library providing accessible ebooks for print disabilities such as dyslexia, catering to individuals with reading challenges. | |
A tool that reads digital content aloud for users who have reading difficulties or visual impairments. | |
A universal and visual language collection of free and available icons and images used to communicate ideas. | |
A platform for creating randomized interactive content like text adventures, stories, and mad libs. Users can build custom generators with variables and conditions to promote creativity, storytelling, and student engagement. | |
A game-based learning platform for creating interactive quizzes and assessments for increased engagement. | |
A simple tool that simplifies text for students with different reading abilities, using techniques like replacing complex words and shortening sentences. It also includes interactive activities to promote comprehension and retention. | |
Online collaborative digital boards for sharing ideas, gathering feedback, and curating content. | |
A cloud-based service used to transform images and text into professional-quality videos easily. | |
An online transcription platform that turns speech into text with speaker identification and summarizations. | |
A graphic design platform for creating visual content like posters, presentations, infographics, and more, known for its ease of use and wide range of templates. | |
Mind mapping software to visually organize and connect ideas, useful in brainstorming, project planning, and studying. | |
An interactive lesson platform with videos, quizzes, and activities that can be used in a remote or hybrid learning environment. | |
An AI chatbot that uses natural language processing to answer questions through conversations, providing personalized assistance with human-like responses. | |
“An AI-powered productivity assistant that integrates with Microsoft 365 to help with tasks such as writing, analysis, and research.” | |
“Gemini is a versatile AI tool offering creative assistance, scientific research aid, and multilingual language processing.” | |
“A platform that provides various AI-powered tools and services, including text generation, image recognition, and more.” | |
An AI assistant thoughtfully designed by Anthropic to engage in harmless, honest, and helpful conversation. It utilizes self-supervision techniques and includes built-in safety measures to ensure reliable and well-balanced discussions (a.k.a Constitutional AI). | |
“An artificial intelligence search assistant that responds to user queries with concise and accurate responses.” | |
Tools developed by Benetech to create images, videos, and diagrams accessible using alt text and captions, specifically designed for individuals with disabilities. |