Welcome to Episode 118 of the Think UDL podcast: Badges, Modules and Praxis with Thomas O’Shaughnessy. Thomas O’Shaughnessy is an Assistive Technology Officer and UDL Project lead at the University of Limerick in Ireland. I thought I might introduce him and this episode with a poem:

In Limerick, Tom’s praxis did shine,

Inclusive practice, his paradigm fine.

With UDL’s broad scope,

And tech breaking trope,

Access for all, his constant line!

In this episode, Thomas outlines how UDL has bloomed at the University of Limerick with a national UDL badge, faculty and staff training, and large-scale awareness and implementation of UDL. Thomas has been championing the implementation of UDL and creating more accessible and inclusive educational spaces for all and shares his great work with us today.

Resources:

Contact Thomas O’Shaughnessey on LinkedIn

Transcript:

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

UDL, work, people, students, inclusive, university, creating, module, learning, year, reading, project, practice, disabilities, accessibility, badge, Limerick

SPEAKERS

Thomas OShaughnessey, Lillian Nave

Lillian Nave  00:02

Welcome to Think UDL, the universal design for learning podcast where we hear from the people who are designing and implementing strategies with learner variability in mind. I’m your host, Lillian nave. And I’m interested in not just what you’re teaching, learning, guiding and facilitating, but how you design and implement it and why it even matters. Welcome to Episode 118 of the think UDL podcast, badges modules and Praxis with Thomas O’Shaughnessy. Thomas O’Shaughnessy, is an Assistive Technology Officer and the UDL Project Lead at the University of Limerick in Ireland. I thought I might introduce him and this episode with a poem in Limerick Thomas’s practice did shine inclusive practice his paradigm fine with UDL is broad scope and tech breaking trope access for all his constant line. In this episode, Thomas outlines how UDL has bloomed at the University of Limerick with a national UDL baj faculty and staff training and large scale awareness and implementation of Universal Design for Learning. Thomas has been championing the implementation of UDL and creating more accessible and inclusive educational spaces for all and shares his great work with us today. Thank you for listening to this conversation on the think UDL podcast. Thank you to our sponsor, Texthelp, a global technology company, helping people all over the world to understand and to be understood, it has led the way in creating innovative technology for the workplace and education sectors, including K 12, right through to higher education for the last three decades, discover their impact at text dot help forward slash learn more, that’s learn M O. R E. Thank you, Thomas for being on the think UDL podcast today. I really appreciate you coming on the podcast. Happy to be here. Great. I’ll start with my first question. And that is what makes you a different kind of learner.

Thomas OShaughnessey  02:46

And unless and that’s a good question. And, you know, when I was younger, you know, looking back, no, I, I guess I really didn’t know what type of way I like to engage what kind of way I like to learn. And as I got older, you know, we were very much, you know, kind of point system in our school. So unfortunately, things like rote learning, PT a lot when I was in set post primary and a little bit even when I was in post secondary. And for me, that’s kind of when that started working in a positive way. For me, that is something that I will admit afterwards now looking back that I shouldn’t have done, but I did do in terms of, you know, wanting to get good grades. So for me, that kind of practice worked. But as I got older, and I started working more in education, working with students, I realized that I actually like to engage in so many different ways. I think that’s kind of Ye, UDL has always kind of resonated with me, you know, even things little, even right now, like, you know, I read an awful lot. And one of the tools I use, especially when I’m tired, or I just, I’m no one energy, I use Intune it’s like whisper sync, you know, that links up your Kindle and your Oracle Account. You know, I also like put on stuff like inverted colors, you know, to make it more accessible to me. And I find that, you know, even times, especially when you know that tiredness is kicking in debt, I just, for me, it’s much easier to engage I find in terms of you and just retention because sometimes when I’m tired from reading the book, I’ll get the end of two pages, and then I’ll be like, I gotta go back and audiobooks. It’s just audio, sometimes I completely switch out. So I found having that kind of two pronged approach with it, I found for me, especially with that kind of professional human voice. I mean, I am just so engaged, even when I’m tired and for me, like realizing now these difference, you know, options are out there, whether it’s you know, immersive reader that’s built in a lot of these tools are just really beneficial to me and I liked them. It’s great and but it depends on them. And sometimes I like to open up a book and just read sometimes I like to use the software. So how I learn and engage kind of varies, you know, I have I’m one of those people that you know, if I focus you know, if it’s something I like, I’m almost like locked in, you know, I you know, it’s very hard to distract me, but it’s the complete opposite if it’s something that we’re on Unlike I’m not really interested in this topic, I can just my imagination, just schools, I find it very hard to switch off. If I see something, I can just be like 15 minutes, and then I’ll circle back. And I was like, why wouldn’t that last 15 minutes, I really come up with really good ideas in the meantime, but it’s kind of one of those things. So yeah, like, for me, distractions often tend to lead me to procrastination. So I try to work in, I like to work in a quiet environment. So even where I am now, it’s, you know, it’s really quiet, it’s easy for me to focus, there aren’t really distractions, if I pull down the blinds, you know, I’m really in my zone. And I’m just kind of sometimes whether it’s learning or it’s writing, that’s where I’m kind of happiest. But I guess in terms of learning, I like to, I guess, one thing that I always emphasize before is about kind of seeing those correlations between different areas that need to talk to each other, seeing the links between different topics. And, you know, I did a lot of stuff around, like, keep in mind mapping which students in terms of, you know, approaching the, how they, you know, how they study how they learn how they want to how they plan for an assignment and stuff like that. And, for me, my brain kind of works a little bit like that, and how I kind of break down ideas and how I how I kind of think, and for me, like even though if I started, whether it’s a PowerPoint presentation, I’m writing the paper, whatever it is, first thing I do is I kind of sit down with that mind map, and I plot it out. And I like to just break it up into smaller parts, and then start linking those parts, add it in documents, or references or links to those. So for me, I get that kind of more holistic picture, and it starts getting me kind of critical thinking starts to come into play. And for me, I guess that’s how I always like to engage in so now, every single time that mindmap kind of opens up. But for me, as well as human, if we’re talking about, I guess, that kind of learning journey for me, it’s about consistency as well, you know, we work in an area of inclusive education UDL, even education, general education, I like technology, it moves at such a fast pace. For me, that whole learning journey is about, you know, reading constantly. So that’s about reading every day, even if it’s just for 15 minutes, or, you know, even stuff like I do Duolingo everyday, I think I’m on like, 127 day streak at the moment. So you know, it’s about, it’s about it, that’s, you know, for me, it’s about trying to create a consistency and engage in the learning and even so, like, so here’s three kind of things I do every morning, that was I read, I do my Duolingo. And then I do my word, just because I want to have that. For me, it gets me my brain up and running and starts my day on a kind of positive way. And it’s stuff that’s kind of, I’ve learned new stuff, and I’ve moved away. So you know what time work starts. I’ve already done these kinds of things. So that’s kind of I guess that that sums up where I think my learning sphere is at the moment like, you know, yeah,

Lillian Nave  07:45

that’s great. Wow, you are have a very limber system, they’re keeping your brain ready. And I’ve just started doing some of those, like the Wordle, and some of the other brain puzzles, because I thought I need to do that I need to be expanding and thinking about how I might be doing things I’m not used to doing to keep right to keep, like all of those synapses, and all those parts of my brain if going because if you don’t use it, I think that you don’t lose it entirely. But it’s Rusty. So I love that you have so many things going on. And I also appreciate how aware you are of your learning. So a lot of the folks that I get to talk to with universal design for learning are reflective thinkers. And so you’ve really had time to think about what works for you, and put that into practice. And so I think that’s a really valuable thing to know how your brain works, and how you’re going to get the most out of it. And you’ve been putting all of those things to practice in your job at the University of Limerick. And so I found you on. Well, I’ve seen you your work quite a bit and then saw my little post on LinkedIn. And I thought, oh my goodness, we need to find out what’s going on with Universal Design for Learning at University of Limerick. So the UDL at UL project. So I was wondering if you could tell me about that project, how it came about, and in general, what it included?

Thomas OShaughnessey  09:20

So yeah, so in Ireland, they’re going back a couple of years now and actually kind of emerged out of kind of disability support service, I guess, which is where I would have worked in a previous role. And what happened was there was like funding provided by the European Social Fund for students with disabilities attending higher education support to begin with, like personal assistance, assistive technology, these kinds of supports. And what happened was over time, not all of that money was spent so all the universities had kind of a build up of this kind of fund. And so what the universities are getting refuse to return it back to the ATA, but the HCA which is like our higher education buddy who allocate this European Social Fund They, between European sort of HA, they decided that instead of returning the money that we could use it to buy technology, invest in technology issues, I should say, really. But we can also put forward ideas for strategic projects about how our university could attack more accuser project attack approach, which was a practice, I should say, and, and the idea was to, you know, reduce the needs for more individualized supports for students to look at this kind of bigger picture thinking and how we could implement these kind of strategic projects to, you know, better support the university and just to, with the growing number of students with disabilities, and from other kinds of access backgrounds, it just made more sense to have a more kind of inclusive university. And so I there was a five foot five projects put forward, and I put forward for kind of one, but they captioning. So it was like a campus wide kind of captioning project. I did. I had another project with the Technology University of Dublin, which was around supporting students that are deaf or hard of hearing, which is, is something that has a real interest in me. So that’s I do a lot of kind of work in that area. The third one was on developing the text to speech, Irish language. So native Irish speakers, which is still ongoing, it’s just quite complex. So we’re working with Trinity College, Dublin to develop that. So but there’s like 16, Haiti is involved in that, but we’re leading it. So that was, that was quite a big project. And then UDL IUL was the last of those kinds of projects. And so I guess, you know, my colleagues and I, we’ve been pushing the UDL and kind of duty, charged for some time. But you know, it was very difficult the attraction until the national badge kind of UDL badge was rolled out across Ireland stache, you know, institution has really started to buy into this. And this kind of work that we were doing around here kind of coincided with a lot of that kind of people picking up this UDL badge. And so, I put forward this idea to have you know, what did you EDL, you will kind of mean, and for me, it was about creating kind of an exclusive module, really, we call it inclusive practice, conclusive practice and UDL. And it was set on our kind of diploma for teaching learning, which is what all kinds of new staff have to take when they come in as new staff. And so it’s kind of a kind of standard training that they would do. So a lot of a lot of our new academic staff would be taken on this course. So I think we have about 15 to 20 people doing it kind of almost every year. And so the idea was to kind of create that module. The second part was about just kind of creating awareness around UDL, and trying to get more people to buy into it. And one of the elements of that was set up two kinds of things. One was a community of practice. So we could have that kind of middle out that kind of peer sharing. And then another part was to look at, say, not this kind of special interest group, which fell under kind of Human Rights Committee, and that was about trying to influence change in kind of culture and practice as well in terms of, you know, bigger picture stuff, trying to feed into senior management and getting that change from that. That kind of higher power, because like one of the things that I always talk about when I talk about UDL is, you know, top talent is crucial. And, like, for me, it’s really is top down, bottom, up and middle out all together. So for me, the kind of CLP and diseq We’re looking at kind of the middle, our umbrella, then you have students feeding in, through stuff that we’ll talk about later. And then we had trying to get that buy in from kind of senior management. And so like, our current Provost, which is like our vice president, he campaigned to get aid kind of UDL was a big part of what he did, when in his campaign to become the provost or vice president. And so that was that was a good starting block, obviously. But then, we also wanted to create kind of more weakness because we knew, especially among senior academics, and the kind of staff that were on, there wasn’t really that a witness room, you know, a lot of the newer staff had engaged in the kind of UDL badge and stuff like that. So they were more familiar with it. So it was about creating awareness. So we had these webinars. And so these webinars, we had Thomas Tobin, from University of Wisconsin, Madison, and I had met with him before and that was a big fan of some of the work that he’d done. And I thought, it’s such an approach was such a kind of, for me, I was trying to think of someone that would really resonate with the different people on campus that I thought he’d had engagement. I just thought Thomas stood out as someone that’s it’s just his whole demeanor is something I just find, like the feedback afterwards suggested that I was right or picking him because like, he really, really does. He’s so inclusive, he really does kind of, he just he has a natural demeanor that people are just drawn to, I find and I like so I knew he was I had a feeling he beat it the perfect solution. So He came in and he did three webinars. So the first webinar was just about inviting kind of your community to come in. Sorry. Well, that’s what we abbreviate University of Limerick to campus to come in and discuss what is UDL kind of had that kind of general conversation for a lot of staff who still wouldn’t really be familiar with UDL, despite the real badge been around, which was, I guess, more focused on academia anyway. And then the second one was very much about UDL, and the role of support staff. And for me, this was a really important one, and something that was kind of being neglected. Everybody’s like UDL is grounded in teaching and learning in academia. And it is, like, you know, it’s a culture that you’re trying to really create. So under that bigger kind of UD umbrella, there’s no point the academics, you know, embedding accessibility doing all the stuff, if the supports are services that they’re working with are coming back to them with inaccessible materials, or they’re not realizing that yeah, actually, why are we the ones providing everything and no, multiple formats when it’s actually in our suits, of course, I’m reading and I think that was one of the big surprises, I got this, like the, the real interest from the support house. And a lot of them, I guess, were former students. And a lot of them were like, this would have resonated with me when I was a student. And so for me, it was, again, that reinforced and that this is the direction we need to be going in. But how Thomas kind of did that, and the engagement he brought within the sessions, I thought was really powerful. And that really drew in more people. And so again, that kind of feedback we got from that kind of post, that second webinar was really positive. And from that note, I know that there is going to be this kind of UDL badge coming out soon, that’s actually specifically for students support effort, kind of that kind of constitutes what you call it, the more administrative side of the house, I guess. And then the third one was very much about senior management. So the first one, as I said, was General The second was about sports staff. And third was very much kind of senior academics and looking at senior management and how they out, you know, having their influence on on, you know, embedding UDL across our campus. And, again, Thomas came to the fore here, like we had her present to her, she was sick at the time, but she still came on the call, and even he called an honor as well. And I think, you know, we had the, the different Provost who was there at the time, he was there as well, we had a lot of senior people there, and a lot of people coming up afterwards asking about UDL. And, like in the way the provost spoke about it, he he works, he works in our kind of UL global, which is our international now. But he’s worked in a lot of international universities across the globe. And like, he was saying how important this was, he could see the benefits is from all the different kinds of universities he came from. So again, kind of reinforcing that diversity angle over as well as the importance of realizing that you have that kind of diverse population. And so that was another element kind of of it. The other thing that my colleague Jess and I put together and we had an William in our office as well as kind of William was kind of still doing kind of SSP RG stopped, but he was coming in and as much UDL stuff as he could. So we did kind of CPD sessions, one kind of one’s focused on kind of accessibility, which I guess I led, and then UDL, which I guess my colleague Jess would have. So we kind of work them together. Because, you know, there’s a lot of questions coming in, usually when you’re delivering these sessions. So that was about, again, creating that awareness by giving more of that practical application, more of that hands on feedback, this is how you could do it. And so we’re back in lots of ideas about you know, we talked about having this UD UDL Academy for next year. But because of changes in tradition, now, that’s kind of being pushed back a little bit. But it was about, again, providing this more intensive training about how you can remediate yourself how you can look at better, the bigger picture, what kind of tools are available to support you and you know, embedding UDL across what you’re doing. And the other thing, I guess, that we wanted was we wanted reusable resources. So one of the things that we found even like if you Google kind of open source kind of image and stuff like that, you don’t really get that much. So what I wanted to do was provide our university with more kind of open images that they could use if they were talking about UDL. And what are we talking about communities of practice when we’re talking about embedding excessively, so we created these kinds of resources that people can use and share. There was ones about embedding accessibility, there was most like accessibility and social media, there was ones and there was a lot of video content about, you know, interviewing our provost, different academics, support staff, students with disabilities, all talking about their experience with UDL. So again, it’s about building that awareness off because, you know, it’s always tends to be an awful lot of fun with that same kind of cohort that we’re kind of interested in UDL and what strategies could we take to get it out to the bigger population? And I guess I kind of didn’t class over the relevant of the UDL module. But me and my colleague just just really, she was originally in our arts faculty, but she came aboard in this project when it started at the start and like Jen Again, she comes in with a very kind of open mind in terms of diversity inclusion. And she’s even before she came aboard this project, she was doing kind of UDL based off within her own faculty. So when she when she came aboard the project, I was delighted because I knew that mindset, already, there was that instant connection, we kind of had the same vision about where we wanted to go with this. So this development of this module that I mentioned, would be on the kind of our diploma in teaching and learning. The idea behind that was to, well embed that accessibility, but we wanted it again, to be something we kind of wanted to link it into a micro credential later on, so that it could be available to more than just that, you know, that cohort, because, again, not everybody has access to that teacher, and then probably not everybody has access to resources and time to do it. But how we were going to structure you know, I always felt that, you know, just having it about UDL was kind of too narrow, because a lot of the stuff that I see in UDL I want to see and kind of that overlap between UDL and kind of EDI, and kind of other practices that are happening. So for me, I was very much that more inclusive umbrella, rather than just saying we’re just sticking to one kind of inclusive pedagogical framework where we can look at a much bigger picture. And so one of the things that we we have planned to do this module is kind of on hiatus at the moment due to resources. But I’ll explain more recently about how that’s actually changing at the moment, and there will be more staff to help develop this. But it was about, you know, drawing, like just a lot of work around stuff like engraving, which I thought was fantastic. And it’s something that we’re really interested in, in having this key to the module in terms of assessment. But we also talked about drawing on experts I mentioned earlier about identifying those people on campus identifying ill in higher education. And sometimes I think just across education, you get this silo mentality off this kind of ownership of this is minor, I have to have all the expertise but UDL is so broad. It’s so it only talks about you know, intersectionality love it. It is that bigger umbrella. And, you know, anytime someone says they’re like an expert in UDL, I was kind of skeptical. Because then the truth is, like, it’s so broad, how can any one person be an expert? And I always, so I would, I would never idle was I never like, I don’t really see it that much. But sometimes you tell me to, um, you’d be an expert. And I’d be like, I need to talk to you. Because I was like, have you heard it. But I guess for me, it was about, you know, we had, we have postgraduate students doing fantastic work in the area of say, decolonizing the curriculum, we have other people working on this country responsive pedagogy, we had, we had an unopposed currently just finished her doctorate, doing a lot of really good work around anti ableism, than we were trying to get a girl from University of West Glasgow. And to do stuff with us around anti racism. So we’re really looking at drawing in that expertise and having them involved in the module, rather than saying, Oh, we’re going to talk to you about like, I don’t have a disability. So, you know, I’d rather someone with the lived experience talking about it, saying how embedded it is within our culture, because, you know, I see ableism everywhere, like, you know, I see it often, obviously, more in my own institution at times, because it’s where I work. But when I go to events, and when I go to other institutions, I see that same ableism, often not even realizing as ableism. But even in terms of I don’t have the expertise to speak on anti racism. So I’d rather bring in the experts who have no so right. When you’re, when you’re delivering that information to students, you’re getting students by that they’re getting it from someone who has that tacit knowledge, you know, you want to help you don’t you want me to do a section on accessibility, I’ll do it or it says technology, or there’s lots of areas where I’m like, Yeah, I’d gladly do that section and be comfortable doing it. But I’m not going to talk to you about culturally responsive pedagogy. And for me, like I always bring up simple example is, you know, like, we’d have quite a big Muslim population in our university, and, you know, we run our exams in the evenings on, and I just always find that, you know, that’s very, like, if, if you’ve got to sit exams, you have to fast between, you know, sunrise and sunset, I can’t can’t concentrate if I don’t need for an hour and only. And I just think, why can we be more accommodating there? Why can’t we be more flexible, and while we do so just trying to, but like, I think a lot of that is just an awareness thing where, you know, academics isn’t even something that they’re thinking about. So if we don’t, that’s why I think it’s really just having you do this having that more EDI flavor, you know, on top of it and give that more inclusive umbrella just makes that my for me, it makes it more interesting, but it also creates that more awareness, which is what we needed in the day because we’re so rigid in our whole traditional model that we all came through, which we think oh, yeah, that works. But yeah, it works for specific students.

Lillian Nave  24:50

Is it working now? Is it working now for the students that we have? So So you’ve been talking about this Nash this inclusive practice and you do Yo module, right? So I’m, you’ve got so many ideas here, I’m trying to wrap my head around that you started with the webinars and increasing this awareness on campus. And then this inclusive practice and UDL is kind of how to put it in not just awareness, but now how to put it into practice, right. And in so doing, you’re launching out not just you and your colleagues in your department, but you’re getting experts across campus to put together this inclusive practice and UDL module. But as you mentioned, it has so many different parts that go into these other areas like inclusive teaching, dei or EDI, which is, you know, diversity and equity and inclusion. And when when you start using all of those other words, those can sometimes mean that it’s Oh, that’s not my department that’s in this other part, or this is administrative, or you get new leadership, oh, now that’s going to move over into this other section. And so this seems this is a problem or an issue that comes up a lot in North America. And I see that you’re dealing with also over at the University of Limerick. So, you’re you’re still working on right, this practice inclusive practice and UDL module and you’re bringing in all of these experts. And so, tell me what sort of issues are coming up with gathering all these these folks. And and having it like, where is this

Thomas OShaughnessey  26:38

to where it is now is that, you know, we weren’t sure where this was going to, you know, go and in the end decision was made that because it’s UDL and and because it’s very much pedagogy focused that it needs to be moved to our Center for transform returning. The problem that we had there at the time, though, was that we didn’t have the staff really with that in depth knowledge of UDL to take over the project. So one of the things that’s kind of happened in the last while because I know because I was sitting on the kind of interview panels is that we’ve hired two new kind of UDL specific people. So we have a UDL academic developer, now starting to one year old. And we also have UDL project Li, which is a three year old, and I build the tree in one year olds, I suspect, these are very much long term roles, you know, they’re just set up, but they will be become very much part of core. So that’s kind of where the UDM module is going to recite it. So the continuation of that is going to be kind of on their shoulders, I guess. But for me, the only stacking, like in one week, they’re starting this day next week. So both of them. So I guess one of the first conversations we’re going to be having is about where this module is gonna go, how we’re going to develop into my credential, but I’m hoping that the conversation will be yes, this is intersection. So intersectionality This is where we need to draw the information from these are the people that have the expertise. So I suspect that like, I’ve heard nothing to the country. So I assume that’s where this is gonna go. So because I’ve seen some stuff that’s been done around kind of UDL modules, and I just some of the areas I just I’m not even sure if they qualify as UDL. So for me, it was really much about addressing that diversity, providing that flexibility. And not just saying that everything is just UDL, it is about like our population, our student body is so diverse compared to we even when I was a student 1520 years ago, it’s completely changed. Yeah, we’re still using a lot of the same practices that we use back then. So not now. But there are like, there are pockets of people on campus looking at stuff like Oh, as I mentioned, wasn’t just a PhD student. There’s a whole pocket of people, I think out of our Languages Department that are looking at stuff like decolonizing the curriculum, I’m sure there’s more work going on around idealism web, but it’s about getting those people in the same room and having that conversation. But I guess the key point is that we have access to many of these resources. But it’s also okay, that we go when we pull externally rather than say, No, that’s a limit. So I guess for me, you need to recognize the need for a budget as well to work with these other people. But even doing that you’re networking, you’re creating these relationships. And like I’ve seen that happen so many times where even with myself where, you know, colleagues from places like our boyfriend, you were laughing from Indiana from all over. So, you know, when he started working on people who were processing this, you don’t actually know where it’s gonna go. But everybody, for me becomes a little bit richer and a little bit wiser from the interactions, you know. Yes,

Lillian Nave  29:26

absolutely. And you had mentioned to about what’s happening in Ireland, kind of in a larger scale, there’s the national UDL badge and that rollout and was wanted to know how that’s going and, and how that’s how many people are taking it and what’s going on there.

Thomas OShaughnessey  29:47

In terms of DDL badge, I actually was practically the first cohort to do that. I’d say it was about was pre COVID I think pretty sure so it was like five or six years ago and now at least and I’m so excited that see that there were optional, the uptake at the start was a bit low. In our university, we only had like six raise. But the last time I checked, I think there was like 72 or so some quite high. And but even like it’s a UDL badge is a joint project kind of between us University College Dublin and ahead which are like a national disability organization. And so they’d be No, no, I mean, like, I think I was just reading I just went back and checked an email everything they were saying like they had over 1000 people register for last year, and they’re expecting more more than 1000 again this year. And so it’s, they’ve expanded it. So it’s not even just looking at UDL in higher education is looking at for education and training to. So it’s, it’s the umbrella and it’s getting wider. And I like even from my own experience, I’ve seen that like even people who aren’t working in those areas, teachers and stuff like that have also signed up to do UDL badge. So they’ve really started to create awareness. And it’s really, I think it’s been a real capitalist and how UDL has been taken on board because even though all universities were familiar with UDL, it was kind of like who’s going first, it’s kind of who’s going to take the first step. And I think, kind of UCD who were kind of leaving it, they had created their own UDL toolkit. They kind of had dragon and I think, like they have a really strong person and kind of Lisa Patton. I mean, she’s, if you call it sort of, but Lisa was integral part of making sure that this UDL bad was rolled out. So I think that’s just kind of stuck with everybody. And I think that’s kind of been built on year on year. And as I said, like, I think I’m pretty sure now they’re working on a UDL, HS specific to kind of support staff, even though like we’ve had lots of support staff take the academic one. And the examples they obviously use are very more specific to their kind of workload, it’s slightly different. But you can see why you’d want to have this wider looking at more than kind of UDL bags for support stuff. Yeah.

Lillian Nave  31:52

Well, it’s, it’s fantastic how. So that was kind of a precursor, you got interested in it, or or several people are trained on it. But then, you know, a few years later, this large project for UDL at UL comes along. And I think it’s a great case study about what others can do taking existing frameworks working with it. And then what can you do to expand at your own particular university? That’s why I love this conversation is finding out kind of the ways you’ve been able to broaden that within your own University of Limerick community. And so I have you kind of already answered one of my questions, which is how is this going to be embedded with those new hires that you have? And they’re going to take some of these ideas and go forward? So I guess my my only last question then is about what other aspects of this work kind of grew organically? You’ve mentioned things like, you know, working internationally and things like that. So

Thomas OShaughnessey  32:54

I guess yes, I mean, my colleague, Jess, we were being I guess, we were being asked to do a lot more presentation, though, we worked with UL global, which is our international office. So they had little European partners come over to visit the campus. And so one of the big things they wanted to show off was, you know, the kind of work that we’re doing in terms of UDL. And like there was really interest, like we had loads of questions from universities in places like Germany and stuff like that asking a lot of questions around funding, actually, unsurprisingly, I guess, but and so ever kind of projects that we looked at as well, in terms of you know, we had a national forum surveyed equal quote, in 2020. And children, almost one in five students were using assistive technology. And like one to 10, almost one to 10, were saying it was crucial to their education. So So that’s way higher than the number of say, disabilities. And even within that cohort using this technology, and we also saw that almost 50% of staff were using it. So we’re seeing a real change in demographics in terms of technology, like I mentioned, use of mind mapping and speech to text, I use text to speech I use, for me to productivity tools. And even now, when I do sessions for first years that I address your disabilities, it’s called productivity tools and accessibility, because essentially, that’s what they are. But for me a lot of tools, whether it’s stuff like reading pens, here, new technologies, these tools should be shouldn’t be just restricted for people who have medical documentation to get this access to disabilities for service, they should also be available to our library. So we have a really cool project that happens in our university library. It’s called makerspace. So what we’ve done is we’ve given them a lot of our tools and technologies that they are able to loan out to their servers. So it’s going into that bigger population. And again, it’s again, it’s about what’s what does a student have a preference for doing want to use, you know, they can get a tablet, they can use a reading Pentas can soften they can, you know, be there’s a little bit different tools, data recorders, whatever that we can provide for them rather than I can only get that because we have a lot of students from socioeconomically disadvantaged backgrounds as well who may not have access to these tools in any capacity. So giving them those options. And again, for me that’s very much about the kind of mindset we’re trying to provide is that it isn’t just These tools are just for anybody artist. And just this is something that should be available to everybody. So that’s an iTunes that we have a national access plan, which really talks a lot about mainstreaming this technology is a priority for all the universities. So it’s something that we’ve really taken on board. And like, we have seen that we’ve, I’ve had so many people in previous, you know, previous years, and even now with my colleague, William, you know, coming to us asking us for a specific, it’s just like 92. So everything I buy now, I try and buy as a global license. So people, and it comes at home and satellites as well. So now we can install it on your own personal device at home. So, you know, when COVID happened, there wasn’t that issue there either like, but in terms of that appetite, like what I’ve seen to COVID and since with you your work and the kind of new space that we’ve gone into, is that collaboration, that network style, where people are saying, oh, yeah, you exist now, can I come talk to you, and sometimes these little projects, and we had these, these four or five projects from the ACA, but now we’re after being given an official this pot of money, which is looking at kind of UD in a bigger, a bigger kind of sphere again, so we’re hiring a postdoc researcher, who we just hired recently. So their work is going to look at accessibility UDL and kind of inclusive practice on campus. So it’s not a case of just saying that, Oh, this is improving, we’re going to show evidence based research to show us what’s working, what’s not working. But it’s also about creating a baseline as to where we are. And so when we measure against it in two years, like we can say, this is where we are, this is, and this isn’t just, you know, a few stats on together, this is someone working full time, you know, on this research, and even getting a postdoc in and working with different apartments, their relationships, and in the way you start to build up because some of the stuff we’re doing has never been done in sense, like we’re trying to, I’m working in a student support role, which is working directly with faculty in HSS, who was supporting a postdoc. And so there was kind of a, an incentive for transformative learning that needed to lead, they’re going to be part of this. So it is, we’re already starting to see that intersectionality that that natural connectivity that’s starting to come together because people are realizing this is a much bigger tasks than what we first started or like, actually, even I said, UDL and it was practice. But when I talk about a lot when I know universities, that inclusive culture, and trying to that’s what we’re trying to ultimately achieve, rather than getting more investment. But the problem we see at the moment is though, whether it’s those projects, is that the funding is very short and limited. So it’s like you have a full one year, where’s the sustainability? And so for me, that’s always what I’m thinking about sustainability. And even now, in terms of UD, they’re trying to create new pathways for students with intellectual disabilities under these kinds of bigger UD umbrellas. And that’s another thing that’s coming down the line. And, again, like I was at a meeting this morning about, it’s about, how are we going to support this, what’s the money, we’re looking at longevity and sustainability. And for me, the in state, the state of believe inclusive culture is tied into so many different facets of what we do on campus. It’s not a case of this is just focused on inclusion. Like, it’s about our buildings, it’s about our environment, it’s about our digital infrastructure. They’re all interconnected. So it’s about senior management, understanding that and realizing that his left hand and his right hand, they don’t have to just talk to each other, they have to work really hard together to make sure that we’re meeting our obligations, you know, we we talk about in our strategic plans about equity and inclusion. And, you know, we need to show the actual implementation guidelines that go behind this, like in Ireland at the moment are trying to roll out this new national UD charter, and they want all the universities to sign off on it. But there’s a big commitment in that because a lot of universities are at different stages in there are kind of UD journey. So it’d be it’s an interesting time, and it’s an interest base, and it’s great to see it, but for me, for me, like a UDL journey is a 10 to 15 year journey easy and like for me, like human inclusion has never done so you could argue it’s a never ending journey. But say you had you said 10 milestones for 510 and 15 years, but oftentimes you don’t know the President or Vice President, they’re on seven year terms. So you’re trying to tell them to do something that’s going to benefit the person that comes after them. But they need to show for no ill for their own reasons, reasons. You know, I’ve achieved this I’ve achieved this so if you’re telling them that achievement doesn’t really come until after they’re gone, it’s it’s it’s difficult and I think our universities are designed in that way and like like for me in Tennessee, like no one says you should use the word capitalism when you’re talking about education or education, but it is very much rankings and all that stuff play an important role. And you know, for me, that’s another practice Boy makes a lot of what this you’re at work and if you do you do that project work so difficult. Is that the money is it research, marketing, or are taking a big chunk of the apple like you know, and so you’re trying to say no, I want more recent teaching learning business cases and trying to get that information. You just said why you should do it is quite difficult. So it’s always this kind of slow and steady burning. Like I know, creating inclusive culture is always going to be slow and steady, but There’s lots of pieces coming together, but I just find that you’re, you’re you’re fighting against so many different aspects. And then it’s so easy to set it back, you can do loads of good work, which could take six months, but someone could set back in an instant. And so you always have that kind of lurking fear that kind of sits there. So sorry, I’ve gone off.

Lillian Nave  40:19

Now, what you’ve like presented here is so much it says, what you’ve done at University of Limerick, which I think is a great case study in Ireland already had the badge, right. So you had done the badge, other folks had done the badge, but then you had this opportunity with extra funding to get something going, right, a UDL at UL, large scale one year project. And I think that’s really telling, it’s really helpful that we can hear about that. It’s not just webinars, your, you know, increasing awareness, but that you’re also trying to embed and reach out to all a lot of players, you know, with the inclusive practice and, and getting lots of experts. And how can you actually put that into practice. And then you do have that, where you’ve created new hires, you’ve got folks who are going to continue on this work, you’ve got long term plans, and you’ve got all those other organic things that have started like the increasing the mainstream assistive tech and, and embedding accessibility in so many things. And, and so what, you know, started out as maybe some webinars to let’s, let’s start thinking about it has really grown with ripples and moved out to so many areas that is now embedded. And that’s what I think is such a success story about this. And the reason why I wanted to talk to you is see how that could play out in one year, in essence, and with restricted funding, like, here’s what we have, and then what have you been able to do with it? So that’s why I really wanted to talk to you and see, wow, this is some great stuff that has come about pulling in people from outside of University of Limerick. And then what are you doing with the folks that are there on the ground who really know your students who really know what’s going on? And what’s going to really work for your particular institution. So for me, it’s a lesson that other UDL practitioners can take and say, Okay, well, we’re not University of Limerick. But what we can do is kind of take this as a strategy and see what we can do at our particular institution, because it really has made a big difference. It’s really changed what some priorities are, how you’re doing things. And as you’ve mentioned, the top down, bottom up, middle out, all of that has to happen for it to be a sustained, long term change. And, as you I think, brilliantly bring up in a couple different ways. It really depends on consistency, and management. And as you just said, things could change in an instant. So what are the things that we can do that helped to make the most difference for the most people and move this forward? So the way you’re full of ideas, you have so many different things you’ve been working on. And I really appreciate the chance to talk to you and hear about what you’ve done and how it’s going to move forward at the University of Limerick. So, I just want to say thank you, Thomas, so much for for the chance to talk to you today. was a pleasure. Thank you. You can follow the think UDL podcast on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram to find out when new episodes will be released. And also see transcripts and additional materials at the think udl.org website. Thank you again to our sponsor textile Texthelp is focused on helping all people learn, understand and communicate through the use of digital education and accessibility tools. Texthelp and its people are working towards a world where difference disability and language are no longer barriers to learning and succeeding, with over 50 million users worldwide. The Texthelp suite of products includes Read and Write equates to an orbit note. They work alongside existing platforms such as Microsoft Office and G Suite and enable them to be integrated quickly into any classroom or workspace with ease. Texthelp has changed the lives of millions worldwide and start tribes to impact the literacy and understanding of 1 billion people by 2030. Visit Texas dot help forward slash learn more. That’s l earn m o r e to unlock unlimited learner potential. The music on the podcast was performed by the Odyssey quartet comprised of Rex Shepherd, David Pate, Bill Folwell and Jose Cochez, and I am your host, Lillian nave. Thank you for joining us on The think UDL podcast