Author: AccessAbility Smyles

It looks as if I will be travelling throughout this summer outside of the UK.

In August I will be attending the A11y Accessibility Conference in North Idaho at the invitation of my good friend and colleague Jeremy Seda. If you want to join us please click on the conference link above. I will be speaking about the BATA project “The Power of Assistive Technology ” film series.

In September I have been invited to speak again at the ABLE Summit in Beirut, Lebanon. Same subject but different audience. I hope it will transfer to different cultures as the message is Assistive Technology transforms lives. Again if you are in the Middle East and want to join us click on the title link for further information.

I feel extremely fortunate to have these opportunities at the later end of my career and look forward to seeing old friends and make new ones too!

At home I have BATA’s AGM and nasen live to attend. At nasen live I am there with Juliua Clouter who is speaking on our joint collaboration the nasen mini guide for Assistive Technology. This work compliments The Power of Assistive Technology project and provides part of the strategy by helping SENCO’s to implement Assistive Technology into their settings.

The Power of Assistive Technology film series features pupil voices explaining how their journey with assistive technology has changed and transformed their lives. It’s a honest snap-shot of where we are in schools on the use of Assistive Technology. We hope to release this series in September but click on the title to see our teaser about the project on YouTube. Please share the link through your networks.

Dolphin have released a tool to enable the first steps of discovering what kind of technology would best help you. It is not diagnostic but a signposting tool to begin a journey of finding the right assistive technology to meet your needs in work, home and community. To find out more go to:-

https://yourdolphin.com/Be-My-Best-Self

Want to have an event that is truly inclusive – either online or in person then look at Attendable. I know Catherine Grinyer through our work at BATA and AbilityNet. I also thought doing such a thing from the angle or lens of inclusivity would be a great idea to maximise the technology to meet those who would find attending a physical meeting daunting. So hats off to Attendable if they can make this happen. For more information click on the link in the last sentence.

Maybe one day they will! The present situation as pertains to my experience is that we have a long way to go before that statement is true. This comes after a recent news item saying one of the experts of AI left Google last week because of fears over AI taking over our lives. Sounds like I,Robot and Asimov’s Laws of Robotics coming true!

Chat GPT and GPT-4 is what this is about and having tried them it is impressive but in Chat -GPT’s case only information up to 2021 is available. GPT-4 is Chat GPT PLus on a monthly subscription of $20. It boasts faster times and availability and access to new features which are not stated.

Bing Chat GPT is interesting and I like the fact it gives the references where the information is being drawn from. Pupils and students are using these tools for their work so educational establishments will have to come to terms with this pretty quick and work out some ground rules. May I suggest the following guidelines:-

• Those using AI have to declare it at the outset
• Is this original work or work produced by someone else? This is an important point and one to debate – you could say it’s the result of any search on Google – just smarter. If so…
• Should pupils be marked on the questions they used to get that information? The quality of the information is dependent on the questions posed.
• All work should be edited and checked for accuracy
• Should certain topics be excluded or banned from using AI to test the thinking and understanding needed behind the topic. In other words, teachers decide what the learning is and ringfence it against AI
• Conversely, some topics could also be encouraged to use AI examples would be current affairs, presentation of facts and research topics

These are just some thoughts about what is an exciting but challenging development in education in the 21st Century. Rather than loosing it let’s use it. Maybe, begin a debate on the subject and work out some strategies to benefit pupils. For instance, for those with neurodiversity needs it could help produce work that is better phrased and helpful to them to take out the mechanics of grammar and to produce better work. In any case there needs to be a debate on the subject.