UDL (Without Digital Accessibility) in Digital & Media Literacy

I would argue that digital and media literacies are, at their core, social literacies. They build understanding and capacity for learners to use and interpret various forms of communication, often focusing on one-to-many forms of information communication technology (ICT), more than one-to-one forms. Beyond building technical proficiencies, a digital literacy educator building on Hobbs’s socially-conscious work (cited in Dalton’s paper) might seek to create opportunities for learners to engage with the ethics of how they use (and can be used by) ICT, how they conduct themselves with others, how they find and connect with others in safe ways, and how they might use ICT to be engaged citizens.

Further to that, I will point out that the competencies that comprise both digital and media literacies form, and are formed by, social understandings, social values, social ethics and social constructs. These competencies are not neutral. They are inherently social, within the normalized construct of an ableist society. Disabled ICT users are marginalized by, even excluded from, normalized digital practices, not because the accessible digital competencies and literacies are not available, but because they are not taught. The literacy competencies and practices that are normalized, and the ones that are omitted from digital literacy curriculum, or are presented as “add-ons,” speak volumes about who is included and who is marginalized in society.

Dalton’s paper does not address or trouble the notion of normalized competencies in any way. It addresses strategies to teach the normalized, standard competencies to learners with disabilities. It does not address strategies to teach digital accessibility competencies to all learners so that they might utilize inclusive communication practices with their disabled peers, nor does the paper identify accessible digital literacies as a gap. The existence of skills that could be used to include people with disabilities in their learning communities, and in their digital world, are missing from a paper whose stated mission is to reduce barriers affecting people with disabilities. I find that incredibly problematic.

UDL is not a social learning theory. Its stated purpose is to make inclusive learning environments accessible to all. That seems to me to be a socially situated concern, but UDL doesn’t concern itself with how learners with disabilities learn, or live, in community with other disabled and non-disabled people.

UDL focuses on offering multiple means for teachers to reach students with disabilities, and multiple means for students with disabilities to share their learning for assessment. Even in the context of this paper, where Dalton discusses the UDL strategies that dovetail with Hobbs’ social responsibility, and community-mindedness competencies, she can’t find her way to discussing how teaching digital accessibility skills to all learners would improve disabled learners’ inclusion in their learning community, or that we have a social responsibility (not to mention legal obligation) to be digitally inclusive and practice digital accessibility in learning environments, workplaces, and in the digital commons.

In attempting to map Hobbs’s socially situated work to the CAST UDL framework, Dalton’s paper inadvertently puts into stark relief the fundamental difference between ICT-integrated, social learning that the Academy claims to offer all learners, and ICT-integrated, solo learning in a social context, which is what many disabled learners experience. I call this lonely learning in a wired world.