Over the weekend I endeavored to write new blog post on the Universal Design for Learning (UDL), the framework developed by the Center for Applied Special Technology (CAST) to reach all learners. My intended focus was how to persuade schools/districts to embrace more flexibility in the design of curricula and the delivery of learning materials, in accordance with UDL’s core principles of providing for:

• Multiple means of representation, to give learners various ways of acquiring information and knowledge,
• Multiple means of action and expression, to provide learners alternatives for demonstrating what they know,
• Multiple means of engagement, to tap into learners’ interests, offer appropriate challenges, and increase motivation.

Over the years, I have approached UDL from several different angles. I discovered UDL in my graduate studies in educational technology, and I have several years of experience in content management, thus there was an immediate professional appeal to me.

Second, I am also a tax payer.  While I recognize that budgets are tight, my feeling is that there is plenty of education money being egregiously spent by all levels of government. My personal opinion is that some funds could be reallocated toward resources that improve learning for all, while mitigating behavioral issues and other distractions.

My most important reason for having such a strong opinion on UDL, and educational reform in general: I am the parent of a highly-intelligent boy ( maybe a little “too smart” as the saying goes) who is already “checked out.” He is in kindergarten. Thus, student engagement is a deeply personal issue in my household.

I do find some comfort in the fact UDL’s tide is starting to rise in the education world. This is evidenced by the following:

• UDL framework language is included in technology plans of several states (Michigan among them).
• Inclusion of UDL courses and teaching certificates in the curriculum at major universities, (Grand Valley State in my neck of the woods)
• Legislation in states such as Maryland has mandated incorporation of UDL into the general curriculum plans
• David Rose, PhD, co-founder of the Center for Applied Special Technology (creator of UDL) was a lead author of the most recent US Educational Technology plan

Note: one thing that struck me about the Tech Plan was that there no mention of Microsoft or Apple (or IBM or specific educational publishers…) There were 65 mentions of student engagement.

So over the weekend (full of motivation and caffeine) I  bellied up to my laptop….and stared at the screen. As I thought about UDL in the classroom, I began to realize, that despite the research and the top-down activity by states/provinces and the national governments, change absolutely had to come from the bottom-up. That is, this had to be a teacher-led movement.

As a classroom “outsider” I struggled to find examples of teachers who had taken the initiative to implement UDL framework and could describe (better than I ) what a UDL classroom would look like. I was having some difficulty finding examples of such, my frustration was evident by my salty language.

As fate would have it, after a few minutes of uttering cuss words, Twitter seemed to sense my frustrations and made me aware of a brand-new blog posting by an elementary school teacher,  who so eloquently described what I couldn’t. Certainly this had to be an answer to my “swears.”

If you are a teacher, student, parent, administrator, taxpayer, I urge you to read this wonderful blog post on UDL in classroom. In addition to merely describing teaching practices and materials, it makes important points on change management (“Educators must give up that position of power…”).

I will be writing more about UDL from my view as an educational technologist (and a content manager, a parent…) in the near future.  In the meantime, I urge you (as parent, administrator, taxpayer, Secretary of Education)  to read Lisa’s blog on UDL from the classroom teacher’s perspective.

• Where is the coffee?
• I think I mentioned that I drink coffee; where is the bathroom?
• Any peanut allergies here? (If so, I am prepared to eat my snacks outside, shivering alongside the smokers)
• Is this thing that I’m working on backed up?
• Where can I find Post-It Notes?

It turns out that, yes, their thing was being backed up. Their particular thing is a forthcoming re-lease of their public Web site. Good thing, too; let’s just say I have a history.

I remember what happened on previous projects when I didn’t ask all those questions.  Like the time I located the coffee, but found myself lost in an unfamiliar building, seemingly miles from a bathroom.

Or the time I deleted a client’s SharePoint portal (forever) within 1/2 hour of joining the project.

About a year ago, I learned something intriguing about SharePoint. You can delete a site collection from WITHIN that site collection. I know this, because I accidentally did this upon starting the project.

My client had asked about a styling problem. He asked that I not touch the current style sheet because people were going to be reviewing the site that day. So to work beneath their radar, I created a sub site–three levels down in the hieararchy–to do some testing.

I soon learned that the problem was actually with a mal-formed custom layout template and took the following steps:

1. Informed my client of the issue
2. Fixed the problem on the layout template
3. Applied my changes
4. Performed a quick round of QA
5. Deleted my 3rd-level test site, in SharePoint Manage Content and Structure view

Actually……I deleted the top-level site–the site collection–and subsequently EVERYTHING that lay beneath. Buh-Bye, sub-sites, document libraries, calendars…..

I asked my client who was taking care of the SharePoint backups and was given some phone numbers of DBAs and system administrators. The answers to my question about backups  were reminiscent of that  recurring  Family Circus theme when the parents asked “Who did this?” and received one of these answers from the children:

• “Not Me”
• “Ida Know”

No backup. All the content that had been there at 8:00 am that day was gone by 8:25. My fingerprints were all over the mouse button that clicked the “OK” button in the dialogue box to authorize the deletion.

My colleague, who had been with the project for a few weeks, was able to recreate the few changes he had made to the cascading style sheet and layout templates fairly quickly.  A bigger problem was ressurecting the SharePoint libraries and lists.

My client recognized that it wasn’t my fault that the sites were not being backed up. Still, I felt like a dolt, not just because I whacked the site collection (could happen to anybody) but because I didn’t ask about backups. Bad business analyst! BAD!

I’ve since taken the won’t-get-fooled again approach. In subsequent projects, I recognized that I need to enquire about backups BEFORE touching the site (and after ensuring continuity of caffeination).