Category: Uncategorized

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.

Assistive technology has the ability to transform the lives of your children who have dyslexia. Along with other more traditional strategies, we could see a generation begin to fulfill their potential . Can’t stress enough how AT impacts self-esteem. 

“The Power of AT” is a project that is close to my heart. 80% of schools in the UK have Assistive Technology. But how well is it used and how fit for purpose is the hardware and infrastructure in schools to benefit from it?  But there is something you can always do – even minimally. This series of films we want to give freely to schools shows its importance. 

We are also in an era where interoperability between the different platforms makes that dream of access possible. Two single most elements that are now in the mainstream operating systems are text to speech ( the computer reads to you) and speech-to-text ( you speak to the computer). Coupled with other technologies that will be demonstrated such as word prediction. They are powerful to enable your child or children who have dyslexia to benefit from AT and help overcome their barriers to recording. ​

Text to speech with highlighting can enable a student to hear and see the word being spoken in context. This can now be done in browsers. Also via extensions in Google Chrome using the ReadWrite extension or even Hyperbird  or Natural Reader free extensions. ​

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The value of cloud-based learning is that work can be saved and retrieved on any device in any location. 

The same applies to Microsoft 365. From Office 2016 and upwards the use of Dictate on the Home menu gives you speech to text whilst Immersive Reader allows any work put in to be read back and highlighted. At home this is powerful and not embarrassing to the child. Microsoft Edge has Read Aloud which allows any website to be read back and you can even change page backgrounds to make the reading easier. ​

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You can also have word prediction on your Windows 10/11 machine switched on by going to Settings and typing in Typing settings and switch on suggest as I type option.

Must mention Grammarly as useful tool for my grammer and your child’s grammar there is also a useful add-in to Word (https://www.grammarly.com/office-addin)

This is a short list of apps that I have found useful to suggest to parents.  Details of how to get hold of them and the costs involved are below:-​

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Claro ScanPen – £9.99 Claro ScanPen on the App Store (apple.com)​

Claro Speak – £free – ClaroSpeak – Literacy Support on the App Store (apple.com)​

Remember the Milk – To-Do List – £free –Remember The Milk: To-Do List on the App Store (apple.com)​

Class Timetable -£free – Class Timetable on the App Store (apple.com)​

Dyslexia.ai – Smart Phonics – £free Dyslexia.ai – Smart Phonics on the App Store (apple.com)​

Clicker Writer – £free –Clicker Writer on the App Store (apple.com) 

New Kid on the block – Chatgpt

This is controversial as it does the work for you! So in schools, this would be classed as plagiarism. It is using artificial intelligence to answer questions you put it and provides you with text. There are pros and cons.​

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Pros​

Enables children to find out things – like Google Search – buit have presented in a literate form​

Very fast – in seconds​

Gets children to learn how to ask the right questions​

It’s impressive ​

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Cons​

Not always accurate or up to date – so needs checking. Bing ChatGPT gives sources ​

Does the work for you when the teacher is asking a child to compose it themselves ​

Schools don’t know yet what to do with it​

I don’t know yet what to do with it!!​

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Comes with a warning! Maybe used for secondary aged children doing research. I think children should state they used Chatgpt to do their work

Customising your Browser

You can make your browser experience more accessible. Dark Theme may help your child to make reading a bit more bearable. Live captions are on Windows 11 and Google Chrome. Just follow these instructions:-​

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Microsoft Edge​

1. Go to settings​
2. Then Appearance – select “Dark”​
3. Then Theme – whichever colour you want your display ​
4. ​

Google Chrome​

1. Go to Settings​
2. Then Accessibility – live caption