Throughout my educational career of seven years, I have spent two of these as a Learning Centre teacher working with students in grade 7-12 that have a range of diverse needs and exceptionalities. This experience of working in a Learning Centre has opened my eyes to the complex world that these students live in, and how much they need an inclusive setting within their school environment. Within my current school, it could be said that inclusion is present to a small extent, but that does not mean that the inclusion practices that are in place are effective.

Through my experience with professional development (PD) resulting from my position in the Learning Centre, I have gained a more heightened awareness of the concept and purpose of Universal Design for Learning (UDL). When encountering this principle in my school, it is easier to say that I have not. Unfortunately, the issue of students working independently, or as independently as possible, within a mainstream class with a separate binder of “their” work, that work being based on their Individual Program Plan (IPP), is a startling reality. It is time for this to change, and it has been time to change for a very long time, indeed.

As previously mentioned, as a Learning Centre teacher for the past two years, I have also become much more familiar with a variety of assistive technologies that can be used within schools alongside what I have learned so far through this Master of Education program, and as fate would have it, through facilitating online learning due to the global pandemic. Using technology each day with my students brings forward the thought and question of why technology isn’t more prevalent in all students' education lives within the four walls of a school, along with their personal lives? If it can create full accessibility to learning for one student, could it not be suggested that technology can create some degree of accessibility for all students?

I hope that this site will be of use to you as an educator and as an innovator of change with our number one priority in mind- Our students!