Designing an Inclusive Future: Including Diversity and Equity With Innovations in Special Education Technology

Removing Systemic Barriers for Learners with Diverse Identities: Antiracism, Universal Design for Learning, and Edpuzzle

“…The goal of Universal Design for Learning (UDL) is to provide equal access to learning opportunities by removing barriers through the utilization of flexible methods. Scholars and practitioners in the field have recognized UDL's unfulfilled potential in explicitly addressing the plethora of diverse identities (e.g., gender, sexuality, socioeconomic status, race, ability) and are seeking to address it through such initiatives as UDL Rising to Equity (CAST, 2020b) and Designing an Inclusive Future (Kaczorowski et al, 2022).…”

“…Though there have been initiatives to broaden the scope of diversity, equity, and inclusion in the UDL framework (CAST, 2020b;Kaczorowski et al, 2022), race is usually part of a diverse list of characteristics including ability, socioeconomic This website of resources was created by Cesare and colleagues as a companion site to their article about Edpuzzle (Cesare et al, 2021). They include instructional videos on how to create effective video lessons and links to other online resources https://tinyurl.com/ DDC-TK-AH status, gender, and sexuality.…”

“…Though there have been initiatives to broaden the scope of diversity, equity, and inclusion in the UDL framework (CAST, 2020b; Kaczorowski et al, 2022), race is usually part of a diverse list of characteristics including ability, socioeconomic status, gender, and sexuality. Fritzgerald (2020) began the work of explicitly examining Antiracism alongside UDL, though we see the need for more literature on practical ways to truly integrate the two frameworks.…”

Introduction to the Special Issue Dedicated to Diversity, Equity, and Social Justice in Special Education Technology

“…As an organization we recognize that no single “special issue” of JSET, no diversity committee, and no awards for DEI focused research will be enough. As we put forward in the ISET Diversity Statement published in Teaching Exceptional Children “Going forward together, ISET will intentionally weave in diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives into our identity, organizational structure, and all future projects” (Kaczorowski et al, 2022, p.2).…”

“…To promote this effort, the Innovations in Special Education Technology (ISET) subdivision of CEC put forth recommendations for supporting inclusive and equitable implementation of assistive and instructional technology for students with intersecting identities across diversity categories (i.e., ability, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender identity, language) (see Kaczorowski et al, 2022). In addition, in the ISET social justice statement and action plan, we proposed to make a concerted effort to amplify diverse voices in special education technology research.…”