I’m taking a course online Using Apps to Support UDL. I enjoyed this week’s instructional presentation focused on engagement (and mobile apps) as a one of the four UDL guidelines. It gave me a chance to reflect on my work of these last year’s in mobile learning 1:1 and learning lab environments and my passion for this learning. Engagement and access is what brought me to this work. Without engaged students we have brilliant instructors working very hard to no great end. Without access for all our work in education can never have full meaning.
When we started our first 1:1 deployment of mobile devices access for our Burmese students was a necessity. These students had come to us after years of living in camps. They had no English. We were in desperate need of Karen interpreters and Karen dictionaries. It almost goes without saying that these were extremely lacking. In fact we had none. That spring though we had begun a slow deployment of iPod touches. And so we had digital dictionaries.
Enter one of my favorite apps still today — Merriam-Webster Dictionary, free for iOS, Android, Kindle. This dictionary has expanded in capability but even then it was a game changer for our students’ engagement. Today it offers text to voice, related words, noting-“favorites”, and recently looked up words.
Many devices have built-in dictionary capability today which is terrific. I continue to recommend Webster for all that it has offered and continues to offer our students.