Luis F. Pérez
As the Disability & Digital Inclusion Lead for CAST, Luis promotes the creation, delivery and use of high quality accessible educational materials and technologies to support equitable learning opportunities for all students. Luis is embedded with the Postsecondary and Workforce Development group at CAST that works to increase access to middle- and high-income careers for populations underrepresented in the workforce, including people with disabilities. Luis’s perspective is informed by his own lived experience as a person with a disability and multilingual learner.
Luis was recognized with an International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) Making It Happen! Award in 2020. Other recognitions include Apple Distinguished Educator (2009) and Google Certified Innovator (2014). He has published three books on accessibility, mobile learning, and UDL: Mobile Learning for All (Corwin Press), Dive into UDL (ISTE) and Learning on the Go (CAST Publishing). He currently serves as a Transition and Workplace Accessibility strand advisor for the Assistive Technology Industry Association (ATIA).
In addition to his work in educational technology, Luis is an avid photographer whose work has been featured on Better Photography magazine, Business Insider, the New York Times Bits Blog and the Sydney Morning Herald.
My Inspiration
Turn to the light. Light is important for me both as a photographer and as someone who is committed to social justice, which starts with finding the light in others. I was fortunate to have a number of mentors who supported me in making the difficult transition to new cultures when I first arrived in the U.S. from the Dominican Republic and later when I left home at a young age to attend boarding school. Without these educators, I would not be where I am today. They were my light and I hope to be the same for those I serve.
TED Ed Talk
Luis was selected as one of the first educators in the U.S. to go through the TED Ed Educator Talks program. His submitted talk at the end of the program was chosen for presentation at the 2018 International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) Conference. A version of the talk was then delivered at the TED studios in New York and is available as an exemplar on the TED Ed website.
Education
Ph. D., Special Education, University of South Florida
M. Ed., Instructional Technology, University of South Florida
B.A., Political Science, Haverford College
Selected Publications
Perez, L. (2018). Learning on the Go (Skinny Book Series). Wakefield, MA: CAST.
Grant, K. & Perez, L. (2018). Dive into UDL: Immersive practices to develop expert learners. Eugene, OR: ISTE
Pérez, L., Gulley, A., and Prickett, L. (2016). Improving access to higher education with UDL and switch access technology: A case study. In M. Mills (Ed.), Empowering learners with mobile open-access learning initiatives, Hershey, PA: IGI Global.
Pérez, L., Grant, K., and Dalton, E. (2016). Universal Design for Learning and online learning. In S. Bryans-Bongey and K. Graziano (Eds.). Online teaching: Issues, methods and best practices for K-12 educators. Eugene, OR: International Society for Technology in Education.
Pérez, L. (2013). Mobile learning for all: Supporting accessibility with the iPad. Thousand Oaks, Cali- fornia: Corwin Press.
Pérez, L., and Bryant, E. (2013). Mobile Learning for All: Accessibility considerations for mobile peda- gogy. In D. McConatha, C. Penny, J. Schugar and D. Bolton (Eds.). Mobile pedagogy and per- spectives on teaching and learning. Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing.
King, K., Pérez, L., Sterner, D., and Bryant, E. (2013). Proactive solutions for accessibility in higher education: Meeting governmental policy and legal demands through universal design. In B. Ran (Ed.), Contemporary Perspectives on technological innovation, management and policy. Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing.
Dalton, E., Pérez, L., and Grant, K. (2016). SOOC: Addressing varied learning needs through online professional development and UDL. Journal on Technology and Persons with Disabilities, 4. Available online at http://scholarworks.csun.edu/handle/10211.3/180099.
Caruana, V., Woodrow, K., and Pérez, L. (2015). Using the Learning Activities Survey to examine transformative learning experiences in two graduate teacher preparation courses. InSight: A journal of scholarly teaching. Volume 10.
Allsopp, D., Colucci, K., Doone, E., Pérez, L., Hohlfeld, T., and Bryant, E. (2012). Interactive whiteboard technology for students with disabilities: A yearlong exploratory study. Journal of Special Education Technology, 27(4).