Author: AccessAbility Smyles

At the Inclusive event today Bob the builder made an entrance and gave a cheque to the Manchester Children’s hospital of £80,000 as proceeds from the Bob the Builder switch accessible software.

A truly remarkable speech by Martin Littler where he literally named every one  in the room with some event or activity we had done with him over the past 20 years! Nice touch Martin

Inclusive were presented with the Queen’s award – a glass bowl seen here

Lastly this is a photo of the first toy made to be used with a switch . Awwww!

And the future look rosy with Insight eye gaze tracking software that will collect data for analysis that will be fed back to the teachers giving them a window into the mind of eye gaze users. This is launching this month watch this space!

Today I am sharing in the celebration of Inclusive Technology receiving their Queen’s Award for Industry at the Museum of Science and Technology here in Manchester. Huge respect for Inclusive’s acheivement ! Well done !

I am sending this out through my blog as I think it’s a fascinating aspect of special needs – to consider the spaces we live in and move through. As a student at Art College I studied interior design and learnt key design principles which had been proved in my work life as I firmly believe that good design raises well being and acheivement . I have see this for myself as pupils with complex autism raised their Behaviour in an environment designed for them. Should be an interesting conference:-

Hi
Apologies if you already know, but incase you don’t, I’m organising a Schumacher Institute “Designing Environments as if People Matter?” conference in London on the 15th November.   
Perhaps you, your colleagues and contacts will be interested?
Designing 
Environments as if People 
Matter? 

15 November 2016, 
Coin Street Conference Centre,
London SE1 9NH
#PeopleMatterConf   

The Schumacher Institute for Sustainable Systems and MEM are delighted to have teamed up to launch a London-based conference series under the banner of “People Matter.”
There are many pressing challenges facing society today – health, housing, work styles, economy, climate change and resource depletion to name but a few. Consequently, policy makers and professionals are poised to instigate major infrastructure investments and urban/settlement expansion in order to alleviate the challenges that we all face during coming years. However, there is a significant risk that mistakes of the past will be repeated if a collaborative and robust people-focused approach is not taken. 
How can we avoid these mistakes? We are actively bringing together a variety speakers at this conference to cover topics such as health, housing and work. Cross-cutting themes will include resilient communities; engagement and inclusion; and sustainable social, economic and environmental ecosystems. 
Full details are on our website, but in brief our programme includes: 
People Matter – Keynote Presentation

– Paul Morrell
The Fourth Industrial Revolution

– Paul Fletcher, through…
Inclusive Design Education and Training – Do you have the skills, knowledge and confidence to deliver inclusion in all your projects?

– Julie Fleck, OBE MRTPI
Designing communities for an ageing society

– Tony Watts, Hartley Watts Communications
Rethinking Parks

– Lydia Ragoonanan, Innovation Lab
Engagement and Involvement

– Michael Kohn, Stickyworld
Sustainable Quality of Life in Social Housing

– Paull Robothan, Aequus Developments
The day will be chaired by Michael Clinton and Steve Maslin of The Schumacher Institute
Who should attend? 

Professionals involved in architecture and planning, social housing, workplace design and management, health and education estates, environmental health, the health service, equality and access, sustainability, energy and transport. 
Early Bird Registration is open now at the rate of £185 + VAT. To view full details of this event and to reserve your place please click here.
We hope to see you there!
Kind regards
Steve
Steve Maslin RIBA NRAC FSI
K

BATA (British Assistive Technology Association) have discussion groups that you can join which gives colleagues and non- members of BATA a chance to discuss Assistive Technology issues relating to education. BATA members comprise of suppliers, consultants, professionals from a wide range of special needs. This forum offers chances to look at current issues relating to:-

• new innovative technologies
• policy changes ( as we represent and lobby for  AT interests)
• teaching and learning using AT – Webinairs and Video Conference meetings

if you are interested in joining then please send an email to myles@accessability123.onmicrosoft.com  with the subject heading ” Count me in BATA!”

If you are a SENCO or a teacher in school with a child with special needs or a headteacher or professional this may be of interest to you about training :-

Apps – do your pupils or staff need training?

Crick software have announced today an exciting conference for those work at and with Special Schools. This event will take place in London on Thursday 17th November at the The Hilton Euston London. It will also have a delicious 3 course lunch!! All for £99 per delegate.

Apart from the lunch it will be a time to be inspired at the beginning of an academic year to see and learn about transformational technology helping pupils. speakers include Carol Allen and John Galloway.

For more details click on the link below:-

http://www.cricksoft.com/uk/training/CPD-day.aspx

The last post  about what pano can do on Facebook got me thinking about how I could achieve that on own website . Using a website called Demander and the share option ( you need to sign up and make an account first) you can create embedded code use the iframe option and you can see the result for “Atrium@The Met” click on the link below:-

//www.dermandar.com/p/evBPGN?a=1&c=1&f=1

Are you aware that you can create magnificent 360 degree images using your iphone pana mode in Facebook? The feature appeared a month or two ago and as you move your iphone in space you can explore the image on your Facebook page as if you are there. Cool, uh?

For more details check out this link – great to use with your VR set as well!

http://www.idownloadblog.com/2016/06/09/facebook-panoramic-photos/

Also Messenger includes audio and video now which appears to be really good as well. I connected in the states with my son in Australia using it.

On holiday in the states I came across many instances of missed communication. For instance the first t-shirt messages leaves me mystified as to what the meaning is, does it  you?

Often we do the same in the IT world . We think we have got our meaning across but because there is no shared culture it plainly didn’t communicate. The same applies in training. We think our presentation has communicated but did we really consider the following:-

• The audience perspective
• Level of content used
• Clarity of the slides used

Feedback is tremendously important. Using IT can provide instant feedback from multiple sources. Research demonstrates that this high levels of engagement and encourages better understanding. The principle of you learn more when you do something is clearly important. So why not offer more opportunities for feedback during your presentations.

Here are just a few suggestions :-

Invite open ended answers by the use of open ended questions. Use phrases like what do you think about that? How would you use this? What problems do you see? What can be gained by doing this?

For checking understanding use apps like Socrates, Nearpod to quiz the group and modelling 21st century methods of instant feedbacks by all the group at the same time.

Use a summative survey that deals with higher level feedback regarding performance, content and delivery by saying what will you use tomorrow or how could you make it more simpler to understand.

i think that using these methods would give you more understanding of what learning has taken place ( good or bad!) and also how you have performed as a trainer or teacher.

AbilityNet have produced materials to publicise their free service , telephone number and ITCanhelp volunteer support