Posts by Ian Bean
Useful FREE online resource
FREE Image Generators This month we’re highlighting this great set of online tools to allow you and your students to create a range of images using your own text. Create a newspaper clipping by simply adding a headline and a story. Great starter for desktop publishing lessons. Lots to choose from; movie clapper boards, banners and even a cigarette packet you can add …
Play School Art Maker FREE
If you’re working with younger children you won’t want to miss this great free app. Create animated scenes with your favourite toys from Play School. Choose a background, add the toys and move them around to create your ‘story’. The app records the movements and sounds automatically then plays them back for all to enjoy. For more information about this app please visit their …
Touch Skills Progression
Colleagues around the world are using the ‘Switch Progression Road Map’ that I wrote during my time at Inclusive Technology to help them assess, teach and record switching skills. Hilary Norton, an advisory teacher for ICT/SEN and inclusion wrote in an article for MJO, “This book should be in every classroom.” In my latest book, ‘Touch Skills Progression’, I explore the skills students with …
FREE Online Training
FREE Online Webinars Ian is delivering a series of one hour online webinars in association with Ablenet, a leading US supplier of assistive technology and communication devices. Taking part is really easy, simply register for the sessions you would like to see by clicking the links below. Ten minutes before the session, log in and call the 0800 freephone number and you’re ready to …
One, two, three… NO!
Many commercial switch training software programs feature a ‘switch building’ level where the learner is required to press the switch a number of times in order to ‘build’ either a pattern, picture or scene. With each press of the switch, another part of the image is ‘built’ until at the last press in the sequence the complete image is revealed and usually animated …
What’s the weather like there?
Like many of my colleagues, I’d often thought about setting up a link with an overseas school and running a collaboration project. The children I teach all have severe and complex learning difficulties and to be frank, don’t get out much. Only one of the ten children in the class had ever been out of the country and that was to Disneyland in Paris. …
Dates for your diary
Advance information about some of the courses that I am leading in the coming months. ABLENET – BETT Olympia, London: I’ll be delivering free best practice special needs ICT sessions throughout the exhibition on the Ablenet stand. Jan 2012. If you’re visiting, pop along and say hello. ICT and the Very Special Learner: I’ll be delivering training with Flo Longhorn at venues around the …
FREE Online Resources
Four brilliant resources this month: APPitic: Organised and fully annotated database of over 1300 ipad apps for education selected by Apple Distinguished Educators. http://www.appitic.com Sploder: Use simple tools to create your own online games. Includes shoot-em ups and platform games. http://www.sploder.com All Abilities Playground: Fantastic web site packed with games and activities for children of all abilities. http://www.allabilitiesplayground.net.au AAC Photocards: Make your …
“Press the switch”
You’re probably wondering what these Chinese symbols mean. They are the words ‘press the switch’ written in traditional Chinese. Why am I telling you this? When I worked at Priory Woods School, I used to take pride in just how inclusive my ICT lessons were. We worked hard to ensure that our use of technology was matched to the needs of the student …
SENICT – Special Educational Needs ICT: Ipads for Autism?
60 Minutes article on Apps for Autism On Sunday, the US news programme ’60 Minutes’ aired an article entitled ‘Apps for Autism’. As an assistive technology consultant it’s important for me to keep up-to-date with current practice in the use of technology to support people with disabilities. I watched it with interest. The article opens showing an Autistic young man who has no speech …



