Posted by Paul Nisbet on the 14th August, 2017
Are you a Support for Learning or Additional Support Needs Teacher or a local authority Inclusion Education Officer? If so, you might be interested in taking part in a FREE pilot Professional Learning Course on Dyslexia and Inclusive Practice that has been developed by Fran Ranaldi of Education Scot...
Posted by Paul Nisbet on the 29th May, 2017
An updated version of the excellent Speech Recognition as AT (Assistive Technology) for Writing, by Daniel Cochrane and Kelly Key, has just been published and is now available. Speech recognition (where you talk or dictate to your computer, tablet or smartphone) can be hugely empowering for many lea...
Posted by Paul Nisbet on the 18th May, 2017
In today's blog for National Digital Learning Week 2017 we are thinking about learners with physical support needs. Assistive Technology has opened up a world of opportunities for people with physical support needs. Electronic assistive technologies are also becoming much more readily avail...
Posted by Paul Nisbet on the 22nd March, 2017
The Pupil Equity Fund is worth £120 million which will be directly allocated to schools to help reduce the poverty attainment gap. In a previous blog I suggested that it could be appropriate to use PEF to invest in Assistive Technology. So is there evidence that Assistive Technology does impac...
Posted by Paul Nisbet on the 10th March, 2017
On Wednesday March 8th, we were honoured to host the launch of the revised Addressing Dyslexia Toolkit, by John Swinney, Deputy First Minister, and Sir Jackie Stewart, president of Dyslexia Scotland. The event was chaired by Professor Charlie Jeffrey, Senior Vice-Principal of the University of Edinb...
Posted by Paul Nisbet on the 10th March, 2017
Many learners with additional support needs struggle to write, spell and therefore to produce high quality written work. Feedback from teachers and learners, and our recent Talking in Exams Project, suggests that modern speech recognition software has considerable potential to help learners with wri...
Posted by Paul Nisbet on the 22nd February, 2017
Last week I was working with a learner in primary 4 who has recently started using Clicker for writing and recording. He accesses the on-screen keyboard with a joystick to control the mouse pointer, and a separate switch to click the mouse button. But there's a big problem - when he activates th...
Posted by Paul Nisbet on the 20th February, 2017
Scottish Government recently announced the new Pupil Equity Funding scheme which will provide £120 million direct to 2,300 schools across Scotland. The funding is based on the number of learners who are eligible and registered for free school meals and will be around £1200 per pupil. Sho...
Posted by Paul Nisbet on the 24th November, 2016
The vision for education in Scotland described in the National Improvement Framework is: Excellence through raising attainment: ensuring that every child achieves the highest standards in literacy and numeracy, set out within Curriculum for Excellence levels, and the right range of skills, qualifi...
Posted by Paul Nisbet on the 10th November, 2016
On Wednesday I was in a school setting up some head switches with a learner, for driving a Smart Wheelchair on loan. Since most switches are made of hard plastic, over the years my practice has always been to glue some foam or Evazote on top of the switch to make it more comfortable - it's no fu...
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