[senit] Re: Who is providing you with support in the field of ICT and Inclusion?

Lesley
  apologies first for not replying to your question , below, but for myself it is due to time pressure that I did not, because as a practioner I just do not have the time to give  a lot of time and thought to things that are not directly applicable to my work, this is an excuse I know as the only way to get things done is to shout out about it or at least to make a contribution. At the moment I have my foot up in plaster so have time to read think and reflect . The fact is I am an AST and a pastoral and subject (ICT ) teacher and all my energy goes into that. I work in Suffolk and although we do not get huge support from the county as they are completely geared up for mainstream they do have a service called slamnet which does include special schools in its work. I hopefully will be working with SLAMNET to be trained in the roll out of learning platforms To get in on the ground floor of this means I will hopefully be able to develop an appropriate platform for my special
 school, to allow inclusion for the 11-19year olds with SLD and PMLD.
  The key stage 3 strategy consultants also offer us support even though it is more to do with  them finding out about special education, but hopefully I will get help from them next term to help me with a video project. They also arrange a conference for special schools and PRUS where we can share ideas. 
  I also really find this forum invaluable.
  Eileen Perrins
  Belstead School

  Lesley Rahamin <lesley.rahamin at btinternet.com> wrote:
  Hello everyone

I said I would summarise the responses I received when I asked the question,
"Who is providing you with support in the field of ICT and Inclusion?"
Although very few teachers responded, their provision ranged from 'nothing
formal' through SENIT to LEAs with good systems in place. More responses
came from those providing the support, describing the sort of support that
they provided and to whom.

I've ended up with more questions than answers. Here are a few:

Is the LEA support inclusive enough to be appropriate to those working with
learners who have physical and/or sensory difficulties or perhaps profound
and/or complex learning difficulties? Judith Stansfield asked the question
"Is the support for specialists and/or mainstream teachers and do they allow
people from outside the area or from independent schools to take part?" I'm
pretty long in the tooth now, and perhaps the inclusion movement has
resulted in a more inclusive attitude by the providers of training to
mainstream schools, but I remember having to work out for myself how I was
going to adapt the content of courses to the students I was working with.

Is the trend towards commercial suppliers providing separate information and
training on their particular products? Clicker Days, Inclusive Days etc
are successful in providing opportunities, not only to learn about their
products, but also for the attendees to talk to fellow practitioners. Where
else can practitioners (often isolated from others in similar situations)
meet? I am a great believer in email forums such as SENIT but they are no
substitute to meeting face-to-face. Becta used to put on conferences many
moons ago that provided just that.

Does the support go beyond access technology? How can assistive technology
practitioners assess a student's access needs if they do not know what the
student is supposed to be accessing? Finding a way of removing the physical
barriers to learning is only one part of the solution.

Sean O'Sullivan referred to the questions being asked by Adam Wait and John
Galloway and concluded that, ". this is another area in which we could
fruitfully ask ourselves to not only record what we have had so far, but
more importantly, what do we want and need?"

I know what has been most useful for me so far and that is the support of
fellow professionals working in the same field. But as to the future... for
once this is something that I feel I should not comment on because I (like
many others in our field) am approaching retiring age. It is up to
practising teachers to say what they want, as Sean has done. If we don't
ask we won't get!

Thanks to everyone who responded,

Lesley Rahamin

Education Consultant

Eileen

---------------------------------
 The all-new Yahoo! Mail goes wherever you go - free your email address from your Internet provider.