Category Archives: Techniques & Tips
Willans Hill One Year On – still providing literacy for ALL students
Posted in Latest News, Techniques & Tips
Jane Farrall April 5, 2012
Jane Farrall April 5, 2012
Reposted with permission from www.janefarrall.com/blog Last year I wrote about the exciting literacy project I was involved with at Willans Hill School in Wagga Wagga on the Spectronics blog. The inspiration for my original blog (apart from overwhelming excitement about the changes we were seeing) was an interview with Prime Television. Last week, the school was visited …
Creating and saving a new symbol in Boardmaker
Posted in Techniques & Tips
Charlene Cullen April 4, 2012
Charlene Cullen April 4, 2012
When we are using the Boardmaker Software Family we can get creative with making our own new symbols from the existing PCS (Picture Communication Symbols). One symbol I like to use frequently when I am making a visual schedule is the black and white checks for “finished”. It’s one symbol that I have had to create myself. You …
How to activate and use Voice Dictation via the iPad and iPhone onscreen keyboard
Posted in Accessibility and Access, Apps and Mobile Learning, New Technologies, Techniques & Tips
Greg O'Connor April 3, 2012
Greg O'Connor April 3, 2012
The onscreen keyboard on the iPhone 4S and iPad (3rd Generation) has a new feature, Voice Dictation. This will provide speech recognition capabilities integrated right there via the keyboard. To activate this feature open the Settings app on the iPad or iPhone, select “General’, then select “Keyboards”. Here is a screen shot from the iPad. The “Dictation” option …
Guided Reading for ALL students
Posted in Techniques & Tips
Jane Farrall March 6, 2012
Jane Farrall March 6, 2012
Reposted with permission from www.janefarrall.com/blog Guided Reading is the process by which we can help students to be strategic in their reading – and improve their skills at getting information from books. It is a crucial part of balanced literacy instruction and is part of the Early Years classrooms in Australia, the National Literacy Strategy in England and …
Boardmaker Studio – now even more templates to SAVE YOU TIME!
Posted in Latest News, Techniques & Tips, Tools & Resources
Katie Lyon March 6, 2012
Katie Lyon March 6, 2012
Boardmaker Studio has been around now for a little while now and it really is creating a buzz in schools and services across Australia and the rest of the world. Its no wonder really, when the ready made studio starter templates and gadgets save people oodles of time. Dynavox Mayer-Johnson have invested a lot of their time to …
One, two, three… NO!
Posted in Techniques & Tips
Ian Bean December 8, 2011
Ian Bean December 8, 2011
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 …
What’s the weather like there?
Posted in Techniques & Tips
Ian Bean November 30, 2011
Ian Bean November 30, 2011
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 …
“Press the switch”
Posted in Techniques & Tips
Ian Bean November 2, 2011
Ian Bean November 2, 2011
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 …
Complex Needs and Switches: It Could Be You!
Posted in Techniques & Tips
Ian Bean October 8, 2011
Ian Bean October 8, 2011
I had a lovely day yesterday. I spent it in the company of five colleagues from a special school in the Midlands who had asked me to work with them to develop their use of switches in school. This was a good school where ICT is used in a way which was meaningful and appropriate to the needs …
Symbols 101 Part 3
Posted in Techniques & Tips
Ian Bean September 23, 2011
Ian Bean September 23, 2011
“What symbol do I use for ‘pursuant’?” I recently delivered symbol training for an organisation that provided sheltered housing for people with learning difficulties. Like many organisations working in this sector they wanted to ensure that their written communications with their tenants were accessible. They purchased symbol processing software and asked me to help them. The training went …
