What does the Assistive Technology and ASN job involve?

Posted by Paul Nisbet on the 21st March, 2023

If you're interested in applying for this new post, you might want to know a little more about the part of the job that concerns developing and coordinating CALL’s Professional Learning online and in-person opportunities.

Shirley Lawson does an amazing job of coordinating our Professional Learning, as well as delivering a lot of it, and I thought it would be worth highlighting what this involves for any prospective applicants. The Professional Learning programme is a team effort (like everything else we do) - the whole team come up with ideas and prepare and deliver the content; Robert creates the web interfaces and technical back end for bookings, communication, invoices and bookings; Sarah manages the administration.

The 2021-2022 CALL Annual Report has a lot of detail about what we provided last year, so if you're interested, take a look. A summary:

Online CALL Courses

We ran 17 online courses over the session, attended by 274 participants. The development of the online format was of course driven by Covid but we plan to keep using it:  it reaches a wider range of people across the country and it's more accessible for educators and parents. It's not as much fun as a full day of hands-on training in Edinburgh but we think the advantages outweigh the disadvantages. The sessions are recorded so that participants have the chance to review the material. The courses cover a wide range of topics, for example:

• Communication and learning activities for pupils with complex needs.
• Inclusive Practice through technologies: an overview for Pupil Support Assistants. 
• Talking to technology: speech to text for learners with ASN.
• Technology in SQA digital assessments.

This year our courses are one hour long and cost £30 per person.

INSET courses

In 2021-22 we provided 43 INSET sessions of Professional Learning for 1,169 people (teachers, Support for Learning staff, classroom assistants, education psychologists, Speech and Language Therapists, parents/carers, etc.) across Scotland. Most of these were online, but a small number were delivered on site in schools. The online sessions are often hosted by the school or local authority and from one log-in there could be multiple viewers so we do not always have accurate figures for the number of participants. A full list of the courses is in the annual report. 

The graph below illustrates the number of people attending the courses in CALL or via INSET:

CALL webinars

The free CALL webinars are organised by Shirley, set up by Robert, and hosted by the CALL team, in particular, Craig Mill. They started a few years ago and are a huge success. The webinars happen on Wednesday afternoons and last 20 to 30 minutes. They are presented by the CALL team, technology suppliers and practitioners and are recorded for anyone to view on the CALL YouTube channel. There were 24 webinars in 2021-2022; 5,598 people registered and 1,076 viewed them live.

ASL & Technology Conference

Prior to Covid, our annual Additional Support for Learning and Technology Conference and Exhibition was usually held across two days in Edinburgh and another venue in for example Glasgow, Aberdeen, Dundee or Inverness, in June. In 2020 with school closures we experimented with moving the conference online and continued this in 2021 and 2022. The online format is very popular and our 2022 event offered 24 presentations from Assistive technology suppliers, CALL Scotland staff and practitioners. 195 practitioners and parents registered for the event at a cost of £5, which provided access to the live presentations and also the archive of all the presentations at the end of the event. Sarah and Shirley take the lead in organising the event; Sarah in particular liaises with presenters; Robert creates the web site and the sessions; the CALL team support and host.

Excellent day - very much worth the money.  It is rare to get so much for so little!  Well done to all who made this happen - you are all STARS!

Conference Presentations

The CALL team presented at 12 conferences last year, including our own ASL & Technology, Closing the Gap in the USA, Dyslexia Scotland and Communication Matters. Shirley presented a Keynote speech and workshop at the Dyslexia Scotland 2021 Education Conference.

Talks for parents and voluntary groups

Parents are obviously enormously important agents for supporting learners and we provided online sessions for four parent groups.

Teacher training

The ASL Action Plan in October 2020 specified actions to ensure that teacher education and development supports teachers to meet the needs of children and young people with additional support needs and in response we offered to provide teaching on the Moray House teacher education courses. In 2021-2022 we provided teaching on 6 Moray House courses for 300 students.

Inclusive Digital Technology Professional Learning

The 10 week Inclusive Digital Technology Professional Learning course is run in conjunction through the Moray House Professional Learning program. Craig and Shirley lead the course and the CALL team all contribute to the learning materials and deliver teaching over the 10 weeks. 40 participants attended in 2022.

Technology to Support Dyslexia in Education 5 week course

Reflecting on the 10 week IDT course, we felt there was a need for a shorter, cheaper and more focussed professional learning around technology for learners with dyslexia and so we created and ran one in October 2022. Five weekly online sessions were supported by self-study resources and 23 colleagues took part.   

Online AAC and Inclusive Digital Technology Learning Modules

The CALL team created online Learning Modules on an Introduction to AAC and AAC in Education in 2014 and 2018; the Introductory modules have been completed 11,973 times and the Education modules 4,160 times. We felt that practitioners were likely to welcome similar resources targeted at the use of technology to support learners with additional support needs arising from other factors, such as for example, dyslexia, and on specific technologies.

Craig developed and published an online learning module on Creating Accessible Documents to accompany 11 videos he created in 2021. As more and more learners are provided with personal digital technology, it is essential that digital learning resources are accessible for learners with additional support needs, and Craig’s module provides a comprehensive introduction to the topic.

Summary

So that's a little of what the job involves. Remember that Professional learning is only one part of it - you will also go out to schools and provide assessment and support for learners; respond to enquiries coming in to CALL; develop posters, videos and resources; and contribute to the overall CALL Scotland strategy.

Are you up for it? There's never a dull moment! Read more and apply here if you are interested.