[senit] Notifications and Announcements

Hello everyone

Two notifications this week:

1.  From Simon Judge, Simon.Judge at sbpct.nhs.uk about the RAATE (Recent Advances in Assistive Technology and Engineering) conference on 27 and 28 November.

2. From Allan Wilson, Information Officer of CALL (Communication Aids for Language and Learning) Centre callcentre at ed.ac.uk, information on new courses, a book and a project.

For further details, see below.

Lesley Rahamin
SENIT Co-Moderator 
lesley.rahamin at btinternet.com

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1.  From Simon Judge, Simon.Judge at sbpct.nhs.uk:

the RAATE (Recent Advances in Assistive Technology and Engineering) conference takes place this year on 27 and 28 November:  

The programme is at www.raate.org.uk/programme - an all new conference website. There will be an excellent and varied programme and it looks to be a very productive meeting. The conference is over two days this year and includes a training program - an good way to get up to speed in an area of Assistive Technology you may not be familiar with. You must register as soon as possible particularly if you are attending a training course since there are limited numbers. The conference is being held at the Birmingham Botanical Gardens, an excellent and comfortable venue with easy transport links. There is also still time to submit a poster to the conference.

2. From Allan Wilson, Information Officer of CALL (Communication Aids for Language and Learning) Centre, information on new courses, a book and a project.

Courses

ICT to Support Students with Additional Support Needs in Scottish Qualifications Agency Assessments and Exams (9th November) will review the use of ICT for students who have issues with paper-based SQA external exams, NABS and 5-14 assessments. The course looks at SQA assessment policy and procedures, and how papers and assessments can be adapted and accessed using ICT. The course covers adaptation of downloaded NABs and 5-14 assessments, software and techniques for scanning papers into the computer, and tools for magnifying and reading assessments with text-to-speech, and for answering questions. We will also discuss the recent CALL-SQA project that piloted question papers in digital format for candidates to complete on computer A number of pupils with reading or writing difficulties used these methods to pass SQA exams in 2006 - come along and see how your pupils might be able to do it in 2007! Full details are available at: http://www.callcentrescotland.org.uk/training (click on Courses).

Interactive Whiteboards (7th December) will look at issues surrounding the best use of Interactive Whiteboards to support the learning and teaching of children with additional support needs. A range of curricular software and websites will be investigated and software that can be used to create resources will be demonstrated. Again, full details are available at: http://www.callcentrescotland.org.uk/training.

New Book

Practical Solutions to Support Communication is the latest in the series of Augmentative Communication in Practice: Scotland books and will be released to coincide with this year's study day to be held on 7th November. You will be able to buy it online from the CALL Centre shop (http://www.callcentrescotland.org.uk/shop) from that date. Information will also be available shortly on the Augmentative Communication in Practice: Scotland web site (http://www.acipscotland.org.uk).

'Books for All' Project

The Scottish Executive Education Department is funding CALL to carry out a project over the next six months to investigate the need for books and other learning materials in alternative, accessible formats. Some of the things we want to find out include:

o  approximately how many pupils with additional support needs in Scotland have difficulty reading printed curriculum materials (not just books), or writing/ recording their responses;

o how many of them might benefit from having printed materials in alternative formats for reading, study, writing or recording;

o  what might be involved in making curriculum materials available in accessible or alternative formats to pupils with additional support needs.

We also want to consider ways of providing such materials and to outline their associated advantages and disadvantages.

If you feel that one or more of your colleagues could also help us with this work we would be delighted if you would put us in touch with them, or let them know our contact details if they would prefer to get in touch directly.

Paul Nisbet                               Stuart Aitken at

0131 651 6235                           0131 651 6235

Paul.Nisbet at ed.ac.uk               stuartai at staffmail.ed.ac.uk

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