Unless specific media and materials are critical to the goal (e.g., learning to paint specifically with oils, learning to handwrite with calligraphy) it is important to provide alternative media for expression. Such alternatives reduce media-specific barriers to expression among learners with a variety of special needs, but also increases the opportunities for all learners to develop a wider range of expression in a media-rich world. For example, it is important for all learners to learn composition, not just writing, and to learn the optimal medium for any particular content of expression and audience.

• Compose in multiple media such as text, speech, drawing, illustration, comics, storyboards, design, film, music, dance/movement, visual art, sculpture, or video
• Use physical manipulatives (e.g., blocks, 3D models, base-ten blocks)
• Use social media and interactive web tools (e.g., discussion forums, chats, web design, annotation tools, storyboards, comic strips, animation presentations)
• Solve problems using a variety of strategies

There is a tendency in schooling to focus on traditional tools rather than contemporary ones. This tendency has several liabilities: 1) it does not prepare learners for their future; 2) it limits the range of content and teaching methods that can be implemented; 3) it restricts learners ability to express knowledge about content (assessment); and, most importantly, 4) it constricts the kinds of learners who can be successful. Current media tools provide a more flexible and accessible toolkit with which learners can more successfully take part in their learning and articulate what they know. Unless a lesson is focused on learning to use a specific tool (e.g., learning to draw with a compass), curricula should allow many alternatives. Like any craftsman, learners should learn to use tools that are an optimal match between their abilities and the demands of the task.

• Provide spellcheckers, grammar checkers, word prediction software
• Provide text-to-speech software (voice recognition), human dictation, recording
• Provide calculators, graphing calculators, geometric sketchpads, or pre-formatted graph paper
• Provide sentence starters or sentence strips
• Use story webs, outlining tools, or concept mapping tool
• Provide Computer-Aided-Design (CAD), music notation (writing) software, or mathematical notation software
• Provide virtual or concrete mathematics manipulatives (e.g., base-10 blocks, algebra blocks)
• Use web applications (e.g., wikis, animation, presentation)
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