Moondrop Entertainment, LLC is announcing the end-of-support for the Drawp for School iOS and Android mobile apps. The Drawp for School web app (link: https://app.drawpforschool.com) will continue to support all devices and platforms, and has all of the features of the mobile/tablet apps plus much more (new scaffolding tools to engage learners at all levels and ready-to-go free lesson plans).
Starting Aug 23, 2021:
No new updates will be released for the iOS and Android mobile platforms
Users can continue using the current versions available in the respective platform; however, no new features or bug fixes will be released
The app will be removed from the iOS App Store and Android Google Play Store by the end of the year
The add-on provides easy access to Drawp’s most popular features
San Francisco, CA (Dec. 7, 2020) - Moondrop Entertainment’s Drawp for School launched an add-on for Google Slides that provides access to users’ favorite tools from Drawp. Educators can use the add-on to streamline engaging and accessible learning experiences with the free graphic organizers.
Moondrop Entertainment, LLC is proud to be part of the Google Cloud Partner Advantage Program as a Google for Education Integrated Solutions Partner giving Google for Education customers the ability to make their Google Slides presentations even more accessible with the Drawp for School add-on. As a Google for Education partner, the Drawp for School Google Slides Add-on provides educators with two of the most loved features from the main Drawp for School application: The Language Scaffolding Tool and Graphic Organizers! Drawp’s Graphic Organizers are available for free with the Drawp add-on in both English and Spanish and are available as tables, flow charts, maps, and more! These templates are easy to add to your creations to provide support and guidance for all of your learners.
“The Drawp for School add-on for Google Slides is another step towards helping educators reach their students wherever they are,” says Marija Efremova, Product Manager and Lead Engineer at Moondrop Entertainment. “By making Drawp’s tools like the Language Scaffolding Tool and the Graphic Organizers available within Google Slides, we’re giving more students the opportunity to advance their learning outcomes.”
The Language Scaffolding Tool allows educators to access questions, sentence stems, strategies, examples of potential lessons and activities while designing learning activities aligned to their learner’s English Language Proficiency level, Bloom’s Taxonomy and Webb’s Depth of Knowledge while creating in Google Slides. Access to this resource for supporting students makes the creation of scaffolded work that meets learner needs easier by providing those supports that are readily aligned to your learner’s needs at the click of a mouse.
Educators can now easily access and make use of both of these tools when creating in the Google Slides environment by locating the Drawp for School Google Slides Add-on in the Add-on tab in Google Slides. Install the Add-on here
About Moondrop
Moondrop Entertainment, LLC was founded in 2012 to provide outstanding educational software for children. The National Science Foundation (NSF) has invested in Moondrop with two major grants to support research and development. Moondrop’s mission is to combine technology with education to make learning more inspiring, engaging and accessible for all students. Moondrop’s K-12 education software, Drawp for School, is an all-in-one cloud-based platform for creation, communication and collaboration, with integrated content and workflow that allows for personalized support in all subjects. Drawp for School also provides built-in accessibility features with the Language Scaffolding Tool and Integrated Framework Tool to support immersive English language learning opportunities.
Drawp for School is an all-in-one K-12 platform for creation, collaboration, content, and workflow management. It includes rich design tools, swipe-to-share collaboration and unlimited cloud storage. Drawp’s accessibility tools, text-to-speech, voice recording, and ELL supports help teachers reach students wherever they are.
Drawp’s ELL Tool, a bank of bilingual scaffolding tools to support English learners, was created in partnership with the Los Angeles County Office of Education and the Val Verde Unified School District. The Drawp ELL Tool can be used to support all learners of any skill level and in any subject.
The free Drawp Resource Marketplace provides teachers with an easy-to-access repository of standards-aligned educational resources to download and share.
For more information, email school@moondropapps.com.
Drawp for School is partially funded by the National Science Foundation.
Eduscape will Help Bring Award-Winning DRAWP for School to Students Globally
San Francisco, CA (November 17, 2020) – Moondrop Entertainment, the developers of NSF-funded DRAWP for School software, has partnered with Eduscape to help support millions of students with English language learning and in core subject areas.
“Moondrop’s goal with the Language Scaffolding Tool is to help teachers engage, teach and support English learners regardless of subject and curriculum or student language level and ability. Our partnership with Eduscape will enable us to accelerate our growth and reach learners who will benefit from Drawp to advance their learning outcomes.” said Ana Albir, CEO and Founder of Moondrop.
The percentage of public school students in the U.S. who are English Language Learners (ELLs) grew by about 430,000 between 2009 and 2019. About 40 percent of ELLs eventually drop out of school. The results of Moondrop’s Phase I research showed that students using the Language Scaffolding Tool improved their English test scores both absolutely and relative to their peers. Spanish-speaking students learned more effectively when given native-language educational tools in multiple subjects. The Language Scaffolding Tool provides teachers with bilingual sentence frames and questions for students that can be tailored to any subject and content.
“DRAWP for School is a proven, research-based solution that offers all the powerful features of an online creativity and communication tool like Seesaw, but with the added benefit of integrated language learning tools for ELL students. We are excited to partner with Moondrop to put DRAWP into the hands of teachers and students across the U.S. to deepen their engagement in the learning process.” stated Alex Urrea, Founder and CEO of Eduscape.
Moondrop offers tools that empower teachers to work on multiple objectives with ALL students regardless of language proficiency level. These tools help districts with early literacy initiatives, as well as engaging ELLs. The Language Scaffolding Tool offers question and sentence frames organized by language proficiency level, Bloom’s Taxonomy & Webb’s Depth of Knowledge and aligns with the California English Language Development Standards. The tool is part of Moondrop’s DRAWP for School software, a platform for communication, creation and collaboration that includes content for K-12 students and workflow features for teachers while also being integrated with Google Classroom. It automatically tailors sentence frames to match each student’s language proficiency level. Moondrop developed the Language Scaffolding Tool in partnership with the Los Angeles County Office of Education and the Val Verde Unified School District.
Join Moondrop and Eduscape for a webinar on Thursday, November 19 to learn about how to engage ALL learners, especially ELs, in remote, hybrid, and traditional learning environments using DRAWP for School. This tool for Designated and Integrated ELD helps make teacher time more efficient and helps make data from assessments actionable. Learn how our Voice Sticker technology can add the missing instructional link between students and teachers from a Universal Design for Learning (UDL) and Multi-Tiered System of Support (MTSS) lens. Register here
About Moondrop
Moondrop Entertainment, LLC was founded in 2012 to provide outstanding educational software for children. The National Science Foundation (NSF) has invested in Moondrop with two major grants to support research and development. Moondrop’s mission is to combine technology with education to make learning more inspiring, engaging and accessible for all students. Moondrop’s K-12 education software, Drawp for School, is an all-in-one cloud-based platform for creation, communication and collaboration, with integrated content and workflow that allows for personalized support in all subjects. Drawp for School also provides built-in accessibility features with the Language Scaffolding Tool and Integrated Framework Tool to support immersive English language learning opportunities.
About Eduscape
Eduscape is a social innovation company and the leading professional learning organization in the United States. The company partners with exceptional educational organizations to deliver the highest quality learner-centered programs that empower educators to elevate their practice, rethink learning and bring innovation into their classrooms. Its team is comprised of former educators who strive to be exceptional agents of quality professional development for all learners. Eduscape has impacted nearly 800,000 educators and over 25,000 classrooms. For more information, visit https://www.eduscape.com, follow us @eduscape.learning or @eduscape.
All logos, company and product names may be trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners.
Drawp for School is an all-in-one K-12 platform for creation, collaboration, content, and workflow management. It includes rich design tools, swipe-to-share collaboration and unlimited cloud storage. Drawp’s accessibility tools, text-to-speech, voice recording, and ELL supports help teachers reach students wherever they are.
Drawp’s ELL Tool, a bank of bilingual scaffolding tools to support English learners, was created in partnership with the Los Angeles County Office of Education and the Val Verde Unified School District. The Drawp ELL Tool can be used to support all learners of any skill level and in any subject.
The free Drawp Resource Marketplace provides teachers with an easy-to-access repository of standards-aligned educational resources to download and share.
For more information, email school@moondropapps.com.
Drawp is honored to be featured in the launch of Google’s new Chromebook App Hub.
What is App Hub?
The Chromebook App Hub is an online resource of Google-curated apps and activities where educators can find inspiration. This new K-12 content discovery experience brings together educators, administrators and developers to provide transparency to the Chromebook app market. Administrators can use the App Hub to confirm app information and check alignment with district policy compatibility requirements.
The new site is a go-to source for quick ideas, engaging classroom activities, and resources that align with district curriculum goals and everyday teaching. No need to waste time surfing the internet looking for lesson ideas — the App Hub has everything in one place. Use it to find apps and resources during advanced curriculum planning or to find quick activities the day before a lesson.
Idea Sparks By and For Teachers
Idea sparks are ready-to-go K-12 classroom activities on the App Hub that are searchable by app category, subject, and available language. Idea sparks are created by teachers and can be used as is or they can be adapted to students’ learning goals.
Transparency
Google worked with the non-profit Student Data Privacy Consortium (SDPC) to ensure that admins can confirm each developer’s policies on the App Hub. Admins will appreciate the easy-to-find data about compatibility, security, privacy, and accessibility enabling them to compare apples to apples.
Drawp on the App Hub
As a long-time trusted Google partner, Drawp was honored to be invited to participate in the launch of the App Hub as part of the first cohort of select app developers.
You can get started finding inspiration on the App Hub today.
- Julie Brannon
Drawp for School is an all-in-one K-12 platform for creation, collaboration, content, and workflow management. It includes rich design tools, swipe-to-share collaboration and unlimited cloud storage. Drawp’s accessibility tools, text-to-speech, voice recording, and ELL supports help teachers reach students wherever they are.
Drawp’s ELL Tool, a bank of bilingual scaffolding tools to support English learners, was created in partnership with the Los Angeles County Office of Education and the Val Verde Unified School District. The Drawp ELL Tool can be used to support all learners of any skill level and in any subject.
The free Drawp Resource Marketplace provides teachers with an easy-to-access repository of standards-aligned educational resources to download and share.
For more information, email school@moondropapps.com.
Drawp for School is partially funded by the National Science Foundation.
Many schools are not prepared to optimally teach, support and assess English Language Learners (ELLs). As the number of ELLs in American schools increase, it becomes more important to put equitable systems in place that can identify and support the needs of all ELL students.
Equality vs. Equity
Equality is when students are all treated the same and have similar resources.
Equity is when students get specific resources they need for success.
Why are Equity and Inclusion Important for English Language Learners?
Inequity in education can be based on socioeconomic standing, race, gender, disability or other factors. Education inequity negatively affects a student’s learning and future quality of life. ELLs often come into school systems with multiple disadvantages and the ELL population in American schools is growing. Approximately 1 out of 10 public school students is an ELL. Graduation rates for ELLs are only at 63 percent compared to 82 percent nationally. ELLs who are left behind become an untapped resource in our communities. Most importantly, all students should be provided the fair opportunity of a quality education.
Like all students, ELLs come to school with a wide range of abilities and potentials. Schools should reach students where they are and help them learn in ways that best fit their needs. ELLs may need prevention services, early intervention and other special programs to help get them up to grade-level learning, but there are also simple steps that educators can take to help ELL students achieve success.
Untangling ELL Equity Issues
There are multiple issues around equity and inclusion for ELLs that need to be untangled by educators before they can be addressed.
ELL students have particular needs based on their diverse English language levels and backgrounds that should be addressed by school systems.
Some ELLs are erroneously tagged as learning disabled simply because of their limited English ability.
Some ELLs have verifiable learning disabilities, physical disabilities or other special considerations such as gifted education needs that should be assessed.
Providing equity for ELLs means providing access to adequately challenging content, fair assessments, quality instruction, inclusive environments, and personalized support. Educators are realizing that removing systemic barriers to learning and promoting inclusion are important for creating empowered learners. But how do you specifically support ELL students to create a more equitable space for learning? Here are some things that you can do in your school today to empower ELLs.
SEVEN TIPS FOR PROMOTING EQUITY IN THE ELL CLASSROOM
Allow students extra time on work
Give students ample time and space to reflect and work. ELL students are working double time to decode and learn. Extra time may begin with the teacher speaking slowly and giving ample time for students to respond. It may mean providing content or flipped resources in advance so that students can review material at home. Or it may mean extra time on assessments.
Look at where your students need extra time and be creative about how to provide that time inside or outside of class.
Provide translation tools and bilingual supports
Translation is not cheating. It’s important that students can leverage their home language to learn English and to understand content knowledge. ELL students come to school with pre-existing language and content literacy. Let them access and build on that knowledge by providing translation tools and scaffolding. Current translation tools offer seamless integration into lessons. In addition, sentence frames, bilingual supports and other scaffolding can help students understand content that otherwise may be just beyond their grasp, allowing them a boost to further learning.
Allow multiple learning formats
Some students are better at reading and writing in English, and some are better at speaking and listening. Allow students the options of getting instructions in various formats: audio, visual and written, along with scaffolding that matches their skills. Provide similar multimedia options when they are completing assignments so that they can show their learning in a way that fits their level in each area.
Use technology for differentiation
Educators may be asking, “When will I have the time for all this scaffolding and alternate learning methods?” Use new technologies to make differentiation easier. Tools like the Drawp ELL Tool can provide bilingual scaffolding for students while taking into account existing proficiency and depth of knowledge levels. It can be used with any curriculum for any subject.
Educators can use app smashing to mix and match apps that support students in particular assignments. Provide an app toolbox and let students choose apps that work for them for particular assignments. This gives them the needed support and the added autonomy of choosing what works for them.
Create fair assessments
Equity doesn’t stop when assessments begin. ELL students may need more frequent check-ins for casual or formative assessments to help keep them on track. They may need more time and/or scaffolding on summative assessments. Students may need visual, audio or dictionary aids during tests to help understand instructions or with completion of the test. Review tests for cultural biases that might confuse ELLs. Remember, the goal of most assessments is to find an accurate picture of where a student is in their learning trajectory so that you can help them move up to the next level. Consider also allowing a struggling ELL student to skip the class quiz and get personalized support during this time instead.
Provide Quality Instruction
In some classes, students are not being challenged enough as ELL students are pulled out of core classes to focus on basic English, missing the content needed to move ahead. In other classes, students may be given content that is too difficult, without adequate supports and scaffolding needed to help them understand and learn. The goal of educators should be to reach students wherever they are on their learning path.
“Inclusive education is when all students, regardless of any challenges they may have, are placed in age-appropriate general education classes that are in their own neighborhood schools to receive high quality instruction, interventions, and supports that enable them to meet success in the core curriculum (Bui, Quirk, Almazan, & Valenti, 2010; Alquraini & Gut, 2012).” 2017, Room 241 Blog, Concordia University-Portland
Inclusion is as important for ELL students as for special education students. Studies show that students of all abilities benefit from inclusive classrooms. Pulling out students or segregating students can have a negative impact. Students can reasonably be pulled out for part of the day, but the overall focus should be on inclusion so that students don’t miss out on core curriculum learning with their peers.
To reach students where they are, you have to know who they are. Understanding their background, their current proficiency, and their challenges will help you tailor learning to best meet their needs. In addition, simple things like learning to pronounce names correctly or celebrating diverse student cultures in the classroom can help students feel more welcome.
Equity for ELL students
To summarize, it’s important to provide equity in education when helping ELL students find success. These tips can help you reach and support ELL students:
The Drawp ELL Tool, a bank of bilingual scaffolding tools to support English learners, was created in partnership with the Los Angeles County Office of Education and the Val Verde Unified School District. The Drawp ELL Tool can be used to support all learners of any skill level and in any subject.
Drawp for School is an all-in-one K-12 platform for creation, collaboration, content and workflow management. It includes rich design tools, swipe-to-share collaboration and unlimited cloud storage. Drawp’s accessibility tools, text-to-speech, voice recording, and ELL supports help teachers reach students wherever they are. The free Drawp Resource Marketplace provides teachers with an easy-to-access repository of standards-aligned educational resources to download and share.
For more information, email school@moondropapps.com.
Drawp for School is partially funded by the National Science Foundation.
According to CalEdFacts, 1.3 million students in California public schools are English learners, comprising 20.4 percent of enrollment, and a total of 2.6 million public school students speak another language besides English at home (some of these are English learners). Students and their school districts can benefit when educators support students’ use of their home language as a bridge to efficiently transfer existing knowledge and literacy to English. Home languages can be used judiciously in classroom management, social interactions and instruction to help students learn English, get up to grade level, and ultimately find success in school and beyond.
Benefits of Leveraging First Language for ELLs
Research shows that ELL students receive multiple benefits when schools use their first language (L1) to help them learn English (L2). Five separate meta-analyses have illustrated the same results: “that educational programs that systematically incorporate use of ELLs’ home language result in levels of academic success, including achievement in literacy and other academic subjects, that are as high as and often better than that of ELLs in English-only programs (Genesee & Lindholm-Leary).”
Bilingual students benefit cognitively, academically and socially. But schools don’t have to focus on high bilingualism or dual immersion to benefit from leveraging students’ L1 skills for English learning. Studies show that ELLs fail because of a lack of comprehensible input (a minimal understanding of the assigned task). This often occurs when instruction is designed for English speakers (cf. Gunderson, 1985, 1986b, 2004, 2007) without leveraging native literacy. Students do better on standardized tests when they are taught using at least some of their primary language (Greene 1998), and when educators work on first language literacy before English (August, Calderón, and Carlo 2002). Students learn English faster and have higher academic achievement when schools design programs that support students’ use of L1 to access existing knowledge and literacy.
Socially, when students are encouraged to use their home language at school it builds student self-confidence, lets them better connect with their family and culture, and helps them build relationships in their community. Students also benefit cognitively with improvements in creative problem solving, advanced metacognitive development, and executive control. Bilingualism has even been shown to delay age-related mental decline in retrospective studies (Klimova, B., Valis, M., Kuca, K.,2019).
How and When Should Students use First Language in the Classroom?
Most districts know some of the reasons why they need to help students use their primary language to learn English, but they don’t know how best to implement classroom strategies that leverage L1 to improve student outcomes. They may ask, “How will students learn English if they are always speaking their home language at school?” The key is to have a purposeful plan in place that teaches students that their home language is a valuable tool for learning English and outlines when to use L1 and when to use English.
Edweek reports on additional ways to leverage L1 to learn English as recommended by Tan Huynh, the head of the English Language Acquisition Department at Vientiane International School. He lists three reasons to integrate home language into instruction: 1) to foster comprehensible input (Krashen, 1981), 2) to encourage social interactions and 3) to facilitate comprehensible output (Krashen, 1981). Huynh outlines specific classroom examples in the article:
To foster comprehensible input Huynh allows students to use their home language to build context, understand vocabulary and read texts.
To boost social interactions he encourages them to work collaboratively and communicate opinions in their home language.
For comprehensible output he allows them at times to use their home language when writing text, learning grammar and talking as drafting.
Using Drawp to Support ELLs in L1 and L2
Bilingual scaffolding tools are crucial for supporting students as they make the transition from their primary language to English. Scaffolding tools help students access existing knowledge, transfer knowledge from L1 to L2, and acquire new knowledge. Teachers can provide a mix of native language, bilingual or English language scaffolding at different points as needed along a student’s learning journey. The most efficient and effective way to scaffold ELLs is with the NSF-backed Drawp ELL Tool.
The Drawp tool provides a bank of prewritten sentence frames and questions in a personalized mix of depth-of-knowledge and proficiency levels in L1 and L2. Teachers can adjust the level of scaffolding as a student progresses through English learning over time. Drawp’s text and audio scaffolding tools can be linked to any curriculum, and the Drawp platform also allows for meaningful collaboration between students and feedback from the teacher.
More Information
The research is overwhelmingly in support of using students’ primary language to learn English. Resources abound that illustrate ways to support L1 in your school or district. See the links below for resource lists, lessons and additional research.
The Drawp ELL Tool, a bank of bilingual scaffolding tools to support English learners, was created in partnership with the Los Angeles County Office of Education and the Val Verde Unified School District. The Drawp ELL Tool can be used to support all learners of any skill level and in any subject.
Drawp for School is an all-in-one K-12 platform for creation, collaboration, content and workflow management. It includes rich design tools, swipe-to-share collaboration and unlimited cloud storage. Drawp’s accessibility tools, text-to-speech, voice recording, and ELL supports help teachers reach students wherever they are. The free Drawp Resource Marketplace provides teachers with an easy-to-access repository of standards-aligned educational resources to download and share.
For more information, email school@moondropapps.com.
Drawp for School is partially funded by the National Science Foundation.
References
August, D., Calderón, M., & Carlo, M. (2002). Transfer of Skills from Spanish to English: A Study of Young Learners. Submitted to the Office of English Language Acquisition, Language Enhancement, and Academic Achievement for Limited English Proficient Students, ED-98-CO-0071.
Genesee, F., & Lindholm-Leary, K. (in press). The education of English language learners. In K. Harris, S. Graham, & T. Urdan (Eds), APA Handbook of Educational Psychology.Washington DC: APA Books.
Goldenberg, C. (2008). Teaching English language learners: What the research does — and does not — say. American Educator, 32, 8-23, 42-44.
Greene, J. P. (1997). A meta-analysis of the effectiveness of bilingual education. Austin: University of Texas, The Tomas Rivera Policy Institute.
Gunderson, L. (1983a). ESL students: Don’t throw them to the sharks. Highway One, 6, 33– 44.
Gunderson, L. (1985). “L2 reading instruction in ESL and mainstream classrooms.” In J. Niles & R. Lalik (Eds.), Issues in literacy: A research perspective (pp. 65– 69). Rochester, NY: National Reading Conference.
Gunderson, L. (1986b). ESL students and content reading. TESL Canada Journal, 4, 49– 53.
Gunderson, L. (2004). The language, literacy, achievement, and social consequences of English-only programs for immigrant students. In J. Hoffman & D. Schallert (Eds.), The NRC Yearbook (pp. 1– 27). Milwaukee, WI: National Reading Conference.
Gunderson, L. (2007). English-only instruction and immigrant students in secondary schools: A critical examination. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Gunderson, L., Murphy Odo, D., & D'Silva, R. (2014). ESL (ELL) Literacy Instruction: A Guidebook to Theory and Practice. New York, NY: Routledge.
Krashen, S. (1981). Second Language Acquisition and Second Language Learning. Oxford: Pergamon Press.
Kovacs, A.M., & J. Mehler, J. (2009). Cognitive gains in 7-month-old infants. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 106(16), 6556-6550.
Lindholm, K.J., & Aclan, Z. (1991). Bilingual proficiency as a bridge to academic achievement: Results from bilingual/immersion programs. Journal of Education 173, 99-113.
Lifeliqe and Drawp for School have partnered to make selected Lifeliqe lesson plans available on the Drawp Resource Marketplace. Lifeliqe’s science curricula include 3D interactive models that are aligned with Common Core, NGSS and major K-12 textbooks. This partnership allows users of Lifeliqe to add further interactivity to their lessons. Teachers and students who use both Drawp and Lifeliqe can interact with Lifeliqe’s 3D models and augmented reality (AR) lessons and then create and complete assignments that include drawings, photos, text, Voice Sticker recordings, and text-to-speech. The Drawp platform also includes easy ways for students to share and collaborate on their work. In addition, with the optional Drawp ELL Tool, teachers can adjust the difficulty of lesson questions based on students’ proficiency in English and depth of knowledge of the subjects.
Lifeliqe’s visual learning platform has over 1000 lesson plans with 3D and AR interactive features. Their engaging 3D models help inspire students and bring STEM learning to life. Lifeliqe’s beautifully designed interactive models help students understand complex concepts.
The Drawp Resource Marketplace is a repository of free lesson plans that any teacher can use to browse and share lesson plans. The platform makes it easier for educators to find lesson plans that suit their needs. Teachers can also create and share their own lesson plans. Then if teachers are Drawp users, they can also easily attach lesson plan resources to their Drawp assignments for students.
Check out the first three Lifeliqe high school lesson plans on the Drawp Resource Marketplace:
Drawp for School is an all-in-one K-12 platform for creation, collaboration, content and workflow management. It includes rich design tools, swipe-to-share collaboration and unlimited cloud storage. Drawp’s accessibility tools, text-to-speech, voice recording, and ELL supports help teachers reach students wherever they are.
Drawp’s ELL Tool, a bank of bilingual scaffolding tools to support English learners, was created in partnership with the Los Angeles County Office of Education and the Val Verde Unified School District. The Drawp ELL Tool can be used to support all learners of any skill level and in any subject.
The free Drawp Resource Marketplace provides teachers with an easy-to-access repository of standards-aligned educational resources to download and share.
For more information, email school@moondropapps.com.
Drawp for School is partially funded by the National Science Foundation.
Last summer at ISTE, I discovered a must-read book about Universal Design for Learning (UDL). The book is called Dive Into UDL - Immersive Practices to Develop Expert Learners by Kendra Grant and Luis Perez. I started reading the book expecting to learn about accessibility in special education. Instead, I got a mind-expanding lesson in what the future of learning must be for all humans. I learned how UDL can help all students and teachers become expert learners.
One of my favorite anecdotes in the book is about a Center for Applied Special Technology (CAST) Instructional Designer, Mindy Johnson. She took piano lessons as a child but, despite great effort, she couldn’t read sheet music. Instead, with her mother’s help each night she practiced the lessons and learned to play by ear. Later, Mindy was able to win competitions if she got the music ahead of time and could learn it by ear, but if she was given sheet music to play, she still couldn’t play at all. Was Mindy gifted based on her great ability to play by ear, or disabled, due to her inability to play from sheet music? This is a great example of not only how we try to box people into labels but also in how important it is to have a good fit between learners and their environment.
This book defines UDL based on the CAST definition: “… (CAST) defines UDL as a framework to improve and optimize teaching and learning for all people based on scientific insights into how humans learn (CAST, 2017).” Some of the best insights in the book are based around breaking down larger ideas into smaller bits to help you think through what learning really means. For example, learners can vary in what motivates them, in how they process learning, and in how they demonstrate learning, ie: the WHY, the WHAT and the HOW of learning. UDL provides students and teachers with various options for each of these three areas of learning.
The authors explain that recent research exposed the myth of the “average learner.” You can calculate a statistical average of abilities, but that doesn’t mean that most or even any of your students will fit into this middle-of-the-road moniker. Instead of focusing on disability, special needs, or students in the margins, the all-inclusive term used in the book is “variability” since we all have “strengths, needs, and preferences.” The book is useful for teachers of all students including English Language Learners (ELLs), gifted students or twice-exceptional students, not to mention the wide range of students with a mix of abilities that we might call “average” or “typical.”
As groups like CAST and others working with Universal Design began to work on tools and processes to help give more access to students with disabilities, they realized these tools can help any student become a better learner. Indeed, a large part of this book is about teaching teachers as well as students how to be “expert learners.” As acceleration of change intensifies throughout the world, learning to learn becomes more and more important. The content that is important to learn today may not be important tomorrow. Teaching students to be motivated and flexible learners will be the most valuable gift you can give them.
Over the years as educators researched ways to use technology to help disabled students, they found fabulous tools to help level the playing field; however, they also bumped up against systemic barriers to learning that can still be found in classrooms today.
A viral visual that best explains this phenomenon is shown below. In the first panel students of differing heights try to see over a fence at a ball game. The second panel shows kids standing on boxes (scaffolding) to help them see over the fence. In the third panel the fence (systemic barrier) is removed entirely so that the kids can see the game. The key, the authors tell us, is to learn to remove your own filters so that you can see the systemic barriers and learn to make changes to remove them.
Co-author Luis Perez informed me that co-author Kendra Grant created an updated image with a fourth panel that depicts inclusion. In this updated image there is no fence and all children get to play.
Image by Kendra Grant, 2018
Dive Into UDL gives teachers a fantastic overview as well as hands-on tips and resources for helping them expand learning for themselves and for students. The authors list the UDL Guidelines from CAST (2011, 2018) and the ISTE Standards for Students and Educators (ISTE 2016, 2017) as the main frameworks for the book. The book explains how to be “Empowered Learners,” “Empowered Professionals” and “Learning Catalysts” — essentially taking control of our own learning and being agents of change.
Dive Into UDL moves beyond equality, equity and even moves beyond just removing barriers to learning. The book focuses on helping all teachers and students become expert learners. To do so requires flexible instructional design and flexible learning environments.
“It isn’t enough to just provide ‘disabled students’ with technology to ‘level the playing field.’ Equally important is to change our instructional practice to better support the variability of our learners.”
Imagine a student taking a test while wearing glasses, but the teacher says, “Sorry, you can’t use assistive technology during this test; please take off your glasses.” We can’t imagine today that wearing glasses could be seen as a way of “cheating” the system but, unfortunately, that is often the view when teachers try to add other kinds of scaffolding for learners. It’s important to allow supports and to remove systemic barriers.
We’ve all heard the phrase about teachers evolving from “sage on the stage” to “guide on the side” but this book encourages teachers to become expert learners right along with their students, modeling what they are trying to create. Teachers are given permission to expose their own interests, goals, successes, stumbles and even failures to show students how expert learners adapt and grow. Teachers become co-learners and collaborators.
This allows students to have ownership of their learning and gives them agency to choose their own learning paths that align with their own interests. Another way to build ownership is to separate content goals from skill goals. The great example given in the book is of a student who has to write an essay about the Civil War. Even if the student knows about the Civil War, if they don’t yet have the skills to write an essay, then they’ll get a bad grade on this project.
The authors recommend letting students show their knowledge about content in more flexible ways: through speeches, slide shows, videos etc. Then teachers can give students separate skill-building exercises around content that they already know and love. The idea is to build up skills and content knowledge separately and then eventually merge them as you slowly remove the scaffolding.
Even in places where the districts have fairly rigid standards that limit teacher flexibility, there are still easy ways to give supports to students. The authors include an example of flexible ways to help ELLs with an assignment. In this sample case, ELL students must write an essay on a topic to meet a certain core standard:
“For younger learners or English Language Learners, you might provide pictures to help them first retell their story before writing, a graphic organizer to plan each step, or sentence starters to get them on their way. As students mature, you could provide them with access to a concept mapping tool to plan and organize their work, give them opportunities to draw before they write, or suggest that they record their thoughts with audio or video prior to sitting down to the task. Of course, technology support by way of text to speech and word prediction (which is standard on many of today’s devices) should always be available to everyone. These tools reduce the barriers the goal created, allowing the learner to show higher-level thinking, mastery of the concepts, and the ability to create a logical, evidence-based argument: the important aspects of the goal.”
The authors outline the importance of giving similar options and choices to all students so they can choose the tools and methods that work best for them. I love their idea of adding a “tic tac toe board” that lists a variety of apps and resources that students can choose from. Having students choose their own tools is just the first step. The book goes on to outline how students can also be allowed to choose their own learning goals. This is where the real ownership and agency happens.
Dive Into UDL explores the issues around the current Professional Development (PD) system, claiming that even the best-designed PD events are not the model we should aim for in teaching. Instead, we should aim for a continuous culture of learning. If that sounds time-consuming or onerous for the busy teacher, worry not. The book has useful links to resources that can help you direct your own learning and, most importantly, find the additional passion and motivation to learn that is inherent in this model of being an empowered and expert learner.
The structure of this book can be linear or non-linear so that you can read it in the way that works for you. Each topic area provides a “wade in,” “shallow swim” or “deep dive” section so you can access a little or a lot of the information as time and interest allow.
The book teaches us that learners vary in predictable ways and that flexible learning environments can support all students. Expert learners are defined as “learners that are purposeful, motivated, resourceful, knowledgeable, strategic and goal oriented.” The power of the book lies not only in that it teaches you the history, the what and the why of UDL, but that it also holds your hand to show you how to create these flexible learning environments so that you can teach your students (and yourself) how to be an expert learner.
Dive Into UDL - Immersive Practices to Develop Expert Learners by Kendra Grant and Luis Perez, published by ISTE, is available on the ISTE website or on Amazon.
Julie Brannon
Did you know that Drawp for School fits in great with UDL by removing barriers and by providing choices for students to learn and show their work? Read more about Drawp below or go to www.drawpforschool.com for more information.
Drawp for School is an all-in-one K-12 platform for creation, collaboration, content and workflow management. It includes rich design tools, swipe-to-share collaboration and unlimited cloud storage. Drawp’s accessibility tools, text-to-speech, voice recording, and ELL supports help teachers reach students wherever they are.
Drawp’s ELL Tool, a bank of bilingual scaffolding tools to support English learners, was created in partnership with the Los Angeles County Office of Education and the Val Verde Unified School District. The Drawp ELL Tool can be used to support all learners of any skill level and in any subject.
The free Drawp Resource Marketplace provides teachers with an easy-to-access repository of standards-aligned educational resources to download and share.
Drawp for School is partially funded by the National Science Foundation.
Drawp for School now integrates seamlessly with Google Classroom allowing educators to sync their Google Classroom classes with Drawp. With this integration, students can now access Drawp assignments from Google Classroom.
When students swipe to submit work to their teacher in Drawp, assignments are automatically submitted in Google Classroom as well. This easy, integrated workflow saves time for teachers and students.
To get started using Google Classroom with Drawp, log into your DrawpforSchool.com account and connect your Google Classroom account by going to the Drawp settings. See step-by-step directions below for how to connect a Google Classroom account and how to import classes and students from Google Classroom.
How to Connect Your Google Classroom Account
First, you’ll need to connect your Google Classroom account with your Drawp for School account. To do this, follow these steps:
3. Find the “Connected Accounts” section located at the bottom of the Settings page and select the “CONNECT” button next to the “Google account:” label.
4. Select your Google Classroom account from the listed accounts, or choose “Use another account” to add your Google Classroom account if it’s not in the list.
5. Select “Allow” to accept the scopes that drawpforschool.com requests.
6. Once a successful connection is established you should see your Google Classroom account shown as connected in the “Google account:” section.
How to Import Data from Google Classroom
Once your Google Classroom account is connected, you can start importing your data from Google Classroom. To do that, you should:
1. Select the “Import” button from the “Google account” section within the “Connected accounts” in your Settings page.
2. Choose “Import” from the dialog presented.
3. Select the courses from which you would like to import your students.
4. Once you have the courses selected, choose “Import” and you’ll see activity in the progress next to each course. Please do not close this dialog until the progress bar reaches 100 percent for all of the courses you chose to be imported (otherwise some student data might not get imported).
5. Once the progress bar for all of the courses that you have selected gets to 100 percent, you can close the dialog.
6. Navigate to the “My Classes” page and you’ll see a “Change school” option shown next to the name of your school.
7. Select it, and you’ll get a list of schools (your actual school and a “Google Classroom” school), with the current active school pre-selected. For each teacher, all of the imported data from Google Classroom will be under the “Google Classroom” school. To switch to that school, choose the “Google Classroom” option from the “Select School” dialog and press “Select.”
8. Now you’ll see the course that you selected to be imported from Google Classroom in step No. 3.
9. To switch to another school, use the same “Change School” option.
10. To see the students that are imported from Google Classroom, select a class and navigate to the “Student Groups” section.
11. Select the student group and a list of students will be shown. To see the student’s connected Gmail account, hover over the Gmail icon.
12. Now students can log into Drawp using their connected Gmail accounts, and they’ll have access in Drawp to the courses to which they belong.
For more information about other Drawp for School integrations, see these posts:
Drawp for School is an all-in-one K-12 platform for creation, collaboration, content, and workflow for teachers and students. It includes rich design tools, voice features, swipe-to-share collaboration and cloud storage that works with any curriculum and supports any skill level.
The Drawp ELL Tool supports ELL students and allows teachers to give students personalized scaffolding in a heterogeneous classroom.
Drawp’s Resource Marketplace gives teachers a platform for sharing standards-aligned lesson plans.
Drawp is partially funded by the National Science Foundation.
The Drawp ELL Tool is a robust bank of scaffolding supports for K-12 English Language Learners. NSF-backed research of the Drawp ELL Tool showed that ELLs advanced in reading passages after using the tool for just three months. In addition, during the research, teachers found that Drawp’s Voice Sticker recording features increase oral fluency and make students more comfortable with speaking.
Teachers can use the Drawp ELL Tool to easily assign language scaffolding support that matches individual students’ language levels. The sentence frames and questions are organized by depth of knowledge and by proficiency. Scaffolds are available in both English and Spanish. The Drawp ELL Tool can be used to add language support for students of all levels to any subject or curriculum. Teachers can view the frames and simply check a box to have one or more added to a current or new assignment.
The Voice Sticker recordings allow timid students, who may be uncomfortable speaking English, to practice speaking alone into the device before having to speak in front of the class. Students whose reading and writing skills are low, but whose speaking and listening skills are high, can better show what they know orally through Drawp’s audio features.
Four Ways Schools are Using Drawp Audio Features
Students can access:
professionally recorded playback of all scaffolding frames;
text-to-speech for any text typed on the screen;
students’ own voice recordings with the Drawp Voice Sticker tool;
teacher recorded directions, corrections, and feedback.
How To Use Drawp’s Audio Features
1.
Pre-recorded Playback. Drawp has hired professional voice actors to speak all of the sentence frames and questions in the Drawp ELL Tool scaffolding bank. When teachers choose the scaffolding frames that they want to add to any subject and curriculum, a play button is automatically enabled so that students can hear the prompts spoken aloud. To hear these pre-recorded readings of the frames, students simply tap on the green-and-white play button:
2.
Text-to-speech.
Students can hear the scaffolding frames or their responses, or indeed any text typed in Drawp, read back to them using Text to Speech (TTS).
Tap on the select sticker button at the top of the page in the web version:
Tap on the sentence to be read:
Tap on “Read Text” in the left sidebar.
Note that words will be highlighted in blue on the screen as they are read:
3.
Student Voice Sticker™ Recorded Notes
Students can record their own voice and play it back to listen to how it sounds as many times as they like. They can add infinite Voice Sticker notes to each canvas. For example, a student can speak an answer in multiple ways using separate Voice Sticker notes, submit responses to the teacher, and the teacher can indicate the correct version.
4.
Teacher-Recorded Voice Sticker™ Notes
Teachers can add Voice Sticker recorded notes to canvases as a way to give directions, model appropriate speech, or give feedback to students. Imagine that a teacher listens to student answers and wants to correct pronunciation of the word “fruit”. She can place a Voice Sticker next to that word and students can listen to the teacher reading the correct pronunciation by pressing the play button.
Note that teacher Voice Sticker audio play buttons are green and student Voice Sticker audio play buttons are blue so that students can see who created each Voice Sticker at a glance.
Further reading about the Drawp ELL Tool, the NSF research, and how to use Drawp features:
Drawp for School is an all-in-one K-12 platform for creation, collaboration, content, and workflow for teachers and students. Drawp allows teachers to give personalized support for all subjects and skill levels and helps teachers to meet students wherever they are. It includes rich design tools, swipe-to-share collaboration and cloud storage that works with any curriculum.
Partially funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), Drawp also provides accessibility features such as voice recording, text-to-speech, an English language learning add-on tool, and the Drawp Resource Marketplace.