You Need
the Special Needs Fringe Seminar Programme
the Special Needs Fringe ICT seminars are a great way to keep abreast of new developments, discover the latest products and find inspiration for using technology to support your learners. They are free to attend and you don't need to book places.
Wednesday 10th January 2006 - Communication
Thursday 11th January 2006 - Severe and Complex Needs
Friday 12th
January 2006 - Supporting Pupils with SEN in Mainstream Schools
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11:00
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| Prentke Romich International Find out what’s new! Presenter: Mark Street Find out about our communication aids, support and services and find out what’s new! The latest developments are: Teach and Talk! communication software with lesson plans, for students working at levels P2(2) to P5; Picture WordPower – New PCS and Unity versions of this popular programme; lesson plans for LLL15 and LLL45 programmes on Vanguard and Vantage and for LLL128 on the Pathfinder; and PASS software that enables you to create support materials and program on your PC. |
12:00 | Possum Controls Ltd Lifeskills and AAC training - a giant leap into the 21st century classroom! Presenter: Hector Minto This seminar will help develop an understanding of the vast array of possibilities that a lifeskills room can bring to a school. The Clubhouse room at Greenfields School offers its pupils and others from the locality an opportunity to experience environmental controls, lifeskills roleplay, AAC training and huge amounts of fun. Experience some of the exercises which have been developed by the pioneering work of this school! |
13:00
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| Attainment Company, Inc. Simple AAC from single message to 100+ messages Presenter: Dan Hanson - Vice-president This session will include helpful ideas and a hands-on demonstration of recordable augmentative communication devices, from small single message devices like the Personal Talker and GoTalk Button, to the versatile 100+ message GoTalk 20+. See how these simple devices can be used for both expressive and receptive communication. |
14:00 | AMDi Bridging the gap between static and dynamic speech generating devices Presenter: Rob McPherson This presentation will explore the different ways AMDi’s Tech/128 (a static device) can be used with a diverse population incorporating traditional and new methods of communication displays on a single device. The use of Visual Scene Displays will be highlighted and examples will be demonstrated as they relate to a static communication device. As an evaluation tool the Tech/128 can be used in place of an array of different devices making the process more efficient. Participants will discover how the device can provide a bridge between static and dynamic devices. The ease of programming the device will be demonstrated. |
15:00 All pupils have an entitlement to express their thoughts and needs and to fulfil their potential whatever their ability, and ICT can enable learners whether in a special or mainstream setting. We live in exciting times; technology moves forward quickly and is an everyday part of young people’s lives. It can be used to stimulate language, for play and for environmental control. The opportunities for use within school are endless! At Woodlawn School we work together as a multi-disciplinary team to ensure that pupils' needs are assessed and met using the appropriate technology. This is followed by intensive training for pupils, parents and staff to ensure that any equipment and software is used to its full capacity. By removing the physical barriers to learning, we allow the pupil to access the curriculum, to communicate, to play and to take some control over their immediate environment. ICT enables them to have a greater self-esteem and raises the expectations of others.
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11:00 Join ICT in Practice Award winner Ian Bean for this lively session which will demonstrate through practical classroom examples how ICT can be used to support teaching across the whole school curriculum for learners with severe and complex special needs.
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| QED TOM - wooden objects and IT working together! Presenter: Nadine Farris TOM is extremely versatile, using physically concrete tactile tools to facilitate learning. This system is an exciting resource that links the use of objects of reference to a comprehensive software based activity programme. Activities cover a wide range of developmental skills including: visual cognition, auditory cognition, memory training seriality, and number and letter work. |
12:00 | Smartbox International Communication with The Grid 2 Presenter: Barney Hawes The Grid 2 has many features to aid more efficient and accurate communication, and also new features to allow users to communicate by email and text message. Prediction has proved a valuable tool to aid word-finding, spelling and communication speed. The Grid 2 can now display pictures in prediction cells, further improving the usefulness of this tool. The new "sounds like" and "spelled like" features provide users with suggestions, with pictures and speech to help identify the correct word. Beyond communication, the music player, Internet access and other tools remove barriers and help with motivation. |
13:00
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| The Advisory Unit New technology from Greenside Presenter: Andrew Martin Andrew Martin, deputy head of Greenside School Stevenage, will be showing a P Scales Assessment Package and The Green Box which is an electronic storage system for evidence of achievement. He has developed these to use in his own school and they are also being piloted in a number of other schools including The Bridge School, Islington. If you are interested in taking part in the pilot or just finding out more then come along to this session. |
14:00 | Inclusive Technology Cause and effect - what next? Presenter: Roger Bates Come along to this informative presentation and see a range of technology that can be used with pupils with multiple difficulties. Experienced practitioner Roger Bates will suggest ways in which this equipment can be used to provide opportunities for learning and communication. It will include a selection of switches and other alternative input devices such as the IntelliKeys keyboard, as well as lots of educational software. |
15:00
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| Penfriend Ltd Extending Clicker 5 and Penfriend Presenter: Craig Mill This session will explore innovative ways in which Clicker 5 and Penfriend can support learners with additional support needs, made possible by the recent release of Clicker 5 version 5.2 which integrates with Penfriend. Discover how, using the two programs together, you can create more inclusive resources and provide new ways of teaching MFL and EAL. We will also demonstrate some of the new features in Penfriend which make it the most elegant, intuitive and only multi-language prediction software available. |
12:00 | Lexion A Look at Lexion Presenters: Olof Gunnilstam & Martti Martens Lexion is a computer based system for assessing and training individuals with dyslexia, aphasia and other language related disorders. The assessment part automatically generates exercises that can be sent home or to another computer for extended training. The 94 exercise modules are arranged into logical groups: phonological awareness and processing, letter/sound correspondence, syllable processing, spelling and decoding, comprehension, vocabulary and conceptual understanding, spatial relationships, clocks and time, and arithmetic. Practical advice on how Lexion fits into mainstream or special education will be demonstrated. |
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| 14:00 | AbilityNet Free and cheap ICT solutions for including dyslexic students Presenters: John Liddle and Adam Waits There are some fabulous commercial packages available for supporting dyslexic students. However, most people are unaware of the huge range solutions which are available freely and cheaply (and are often already available on the computer!) We will look at what is possible for dyslexic learners through built-in free solutions, little known tips for making the most of your application software and free applications available for download from the web. Solutions range from old favourites such as autotext and autocorrect, through the likes of home made word banks in Microsoft Word and on to free word prediction software and other utilities available on the web. |
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