October 2, 2009
New Features Add Power and Flexibility in UDL Environment
October 2, 2009 — CAST announced today the launch of the latest version of the CAST UDL Book Builder (http://bookbuilder.cast.org/), a free online tool that allows educators, parents and students to create, share, publish and read supported digital books.
Since its release in Spring 2008, nearly 1,000 books have been created and shared through the CAST UDL Book Builder Public Library feature. With version 3.0, CAST is responding to the dramatic growth in usage by expanding its functionality and capacity to serve learners of all ages with different interests and needs. Educators, parents, and students now have greater power and flexibility in authoring, scaffolding, sharing, and finding books.
Highlights of New Features
* More varied collection of model books. Our expanded model book section illustrates new types of learning goals, including social and emotional development, historical inquiry, print awareness, fluency, vocabulary, and more. Terry, the "author's coach," offers links to technical help with media, ideas for story development, and related research.
* Added control in book sharing. Authors can publish their books to the Public Library for the world to see, or share them with specific people.
* Increased search capacity. Users can mark favorites or create their own tags to filter searchers.
* New coaches & voices. CAST has designed two new animated human coaches that appeal to a wider audience of high school and postsecondary students. From a total of six animated coaches, users can choose up to three, name them and select their voices. Users also have the option to create their own non-animated coach using an image of their choice and adding recorded digital voice. Two Spanish-speaking and two French-speaking voices, as well as more English-speaking voices, have been added.
* New student response area. By enabling this option, authors can insert a prompt to elicit reactions to their story. Students respond by typing into the response area.
* More audio options. Add up to two audio clips to each page.
* More flexible scaffolds for readers. Text-to-speech is now available on each page. Authors and readers can reduce scaffolding by “hiding” the coaches, allowing readers to work on their own.
Anne Meyer, CAST’s Chief of Education Design, says the response to the CAST UDL Book Builder is indicative of the future direction of learning: “Book Builder’s popularity is testament to the increasing importance of scaffolded digital literacy environments for learning and to the strong motivation among teachers, parents and students to create and share their own content.” She calls on educators, parents, and students to “make the next 1,000 books even better—opening doors for more learners with your fantastic content and learning supports.”
The CAST UDL Book Builder project began as a research project to support the development of literacy skills for beginning readers. The project expanded into a collaborative professional development initiative with teachers in 2004. Says Grace Meo, CAST’s Director of Professional Development and Outreach Services, “The current design of the CAST UDL Book Builder is heavily influenced and informed by our collaboration with educators who continue to contribute their, ideas, suggestions, and feedback.”
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About CAST
Founded in 1984 as the Center for Applied Special Technology, CAST has earned international recognition for its development of innovative learning resources and for articulating the principles of Universal Design for Learning (UDL), a framework for creating inclusive educational environments. Learn more at www.cast.org.
