TEACHx 2026

Previous registration required, sponsored by Perusall

Podcasting has emerged as a powerful medium for innovative and experiential learning, enabling students to engage in authentic communication, collaborative knowledge production, and multimodal literacy development. This interactive workshop presents a classroom-tested model for integrating podcast creation into university courses across disciplines and proficiency levels, combining pedagogical design with accessible technical implementation.
The first part of the session introduces the pedagogical foundations of podcast-based learning, drawing on task-based and project-based teaching, student agency, and audience awareness. Participants will explore how podcast projects foster research skills, interviewing practices, critical listening, and collaborative storytelling while aligning with course learning outcomes and inclusive teaching strategies.
The second part focuses on the technical dimension of classroom podcasting. A learning designer will demonstrate workflows for recording, editing, and publishing podcasts using low-barrier tools and sustainable production practices.
In the hands-on activity section, participants will work in small groups using their phones as well as portable recording devices to plan and record a short podcast segment, modeling the student experience and providing practical strategies adaptable to diverse teaching contexts.

As digital accessibility requirements under WCAG 2.1 AA and ADA Title II become increasingly stringent, higher education institutions face significant challenges in providing compliant audio descriptions (AD) for visual-heavy instructional videos. This session presents the results of a pilot project that established a cost-effective, scalable workflow for creating ADs in educational videos in collaboration with human describers/reviewers and Artificial Intelligence (AI).   
Focused on an online Bachelor’s program, the project implemented an iterative process to develop a hybrid workflow: 1) auditing video content by human reviewers based on instructional reliance on graphics, 2) generating baseline descriptions using AI and by human describers, 3) conducting human reviews to ensure pedagogical alignment, and 4) providing feedback on description for AI training and usability experience. We will discuss the challenges and successes of this hybrid workflow. The collaboration highlights refinement areas: humans corrected AI misalignments of on-screen events, adjusted overly detailed descriptions of temporary visual elements, and ensured context was introduced effectively.  
The AI tool will be introduced with AI-created descriptions for sample videos. The presenters will share visual description guidelines for structuring descriptions of technical visuals, such as diagrams, tables, and software for UI interactions. This presentation offers an actionable roadmap for leveraging AI for sustainable and compliant video accessibility. 

For all the established benefits of implementing Universal Design for Learning (UDL), faculty face significant challenges putting it into practice, to the point development is done partially or abandoned entirely. In this interactive presentation, we guide instructors through the use of AI tools to reduce barriers to UDL implementation and reap the framework’s rewards. After comparing the pros and cons of various free AI models, participants will use a chosen tool and sample prompts to apply UDL principles to their own courses. Finally, we will leave everyone with baseline prompt frameworks that can be used for future UDL development.