Go Talk Now (lite) an easy start for AAC

Posted on September 30, 2019 by thclc

What is it?

One of the simplest electronic communication aids – so-called augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) – is the Go Talk. A physical device with a set number of squares in a grid that when pressed played a recorded message. They come in various sizes, and each can be loaded with a number of set ups which are then associated with an overlay to guide the user.

It is a system that has now been made into an iPad app which has retained much of that simplicity.

To get you started there is a no-cost ‘Lite’ version which is restricted to six pages, but within that these can include an on-screen keyboard, grids to build complete sentences, or single word responses. The grids can range in size from 1 to 36 cells, any and each of which can contain both text and images, or just either, and the option to speak either the words shown, or a recorded sentence, as well as switching to another page.

This flexibility means it can be used by those who can read, and by those who need images or symbols, and everyone in between.

Who is it for?

Anyone who needs a voice. This might be a child or young person with an autistic spectrum condition who is non-verbal, or else someone with a speech and language condition that makes their words indistinct, or even a learner with profound and multiple learning difficulties who is given two options to make a choice for what they want to drink.

It could be used by an individual, or shared and passed around a group, perhaps to build new vocabulary, or to rehearse language for social situations.

How do I use it?

The simplicity and flexibility of the set up mean that it can be used in myriad ways. It could be given to a learner to take everywhere to literally be their voice – whether that is in class, out in the playground, and even when they go home or go to the shops. It might also be a way for a pupil to join in a lesson. Grids with appropriate answers can be prepared so that he or she can answer teachers questions, or make choices about what is happening in the lesson, or maybe to give them options for what they want to do next.

For instance, a grid of numbers will allow them to join in a mental maths lesson. Initial letters might help with phonics, and adjectives with descriptive writing. It is also a useful assessment tool, both for literacy itself to ascertain reading levels as they read words to complete activities, or to assess understanding of what has been learnt.

What else is there?

There are a number of great communication apps on the market, such as Proloquo2go, Grid Player, and Clicker Communicator, all offering similar features. What distinguishes Go Talk Now (Lite) is that it can be downloaded and installed for free, albeit limited to six pages, then quickly edited and expanded. Whilst Grid Player is also free, you need to invest in Grid 2 to edit and create pages.

Because of its easy availability Go Talk Now is an easy point of entry into AAC.

Bett 2019 – What’s in it for you?

Posted on January 15, 2019 by thclc

The Bett Show is back at Excel from 23rd to 26th January, as big and as daunting as ever when it comes to finding what you want. The organisers have created an app to help you get organised which you can find here https://www.bettshow.com/download-the-official-bett-2019-mobile-app . But to help you get started I’ve had a trawl through the exhibitors and to identify a few that might help develop inclusive practice in schools.

If you want to see where technology can take us then some of the stands have examples of how it can provide multi-sensory experiences that would be difficult to create through other means. Immersive interactive (Stand H 361 www.immersive.co.uk) build multi-sensory environments with all round projection, surround sound and interactive floors and walls. Whereas a more personal, all-encompassing environment is provided by Avantis with their ClassVR system (Stand C205 www.advantiseducation.com) . You might also want to look at iSandbox (Stand F86 www.isandbox.co.uk) with their promise of a system involving both real sand and virtual reality. Whilst there remain questions over how far VR suppliers have thought about the actual needs of learners with SEND, the potential should be great.

Something else which so far has showed greater promise in the potential than in the practice is artificial-intellingence (AI). Century (Stand E192 www.century.tech) are offering a learning platform that, ‘uses learning science, artificial intelligence and neuroscience, to create constantly adapting pathways for students.’ Although it may be too much to hope that this extends to SEND.

Another futuristic offering comes from Connect Training (Stand A20 www.connecttotraining.co.uk) who provide real-time avatars to practise difficult conversations in a safe environment. These are intended to help improve performance in everyday job roles. I’m not sure whether this extends to teaching.

Avatars are also the basis for Mind Rocket’s approach (Stand 254 www.mindrocketsinc.com), only here they are used to teach sign language. It is a product developed in Jordan, so it may have a regional accent, but it could be helpful for children and young people, and the adults around them, to learn these skills.

We will also want to keep a record of what has been learnt in school, to provide evidence and to monitor progress. Both Bsquared (Stand C134 www.connectingsteps.com ) and Tapestry (Stand F62 www.tapestryjournal.com ) will be present, and talking about how their products support a post-Rochford approach to assessment.

You might also want resources to help them make progress in the subjects you are monitoring. In numeracy DoodleMaths (Stand E100 https://doodlemaths.com) continues to grow in popularity, particularly for use on tablets and touchscreens, whereas Numberfit (Stand G188 www.numberfit.com) eschews such a sedentary approach for one with lots of movement and activity. Also present will be Jellyjames (Stand A400 www.jellyjames.co.uk) with their Dynamo Maths, specifically targeted at pupils with dyscalculia.

In the field of literacy a couple of stalwarts will be present, including Crick (POD1 www.cricksoft.com) creators of the ever useful Clicker range of products, and Texthelp (Stand C141 www.texthelp.com) with their add on toolbar of resources to support literacy, including dictation, prediction and a screen-reader.

More specific support is on offer for both reading and spelling. For the former Yap (Stand C40 www.yapbooks.com) is offering voice controlled books to help develop reading skills, whilst Lexplore (Stand B303 www.lexplore.co.uk ) uses eye tracking to ‘to quickly and objectively determine a child’s exact reading attainment.’ Which sounds like a novel approach. It will be interesting to see how that copes with reading comprehension.

For spelling both The Spelling Shed (Stand FS141 www.spellingshed.com) and Magic Spell (Stand FS33 www.brainbox.games) promise fun ways to learn spellings whilst allowing adults to control the focus of the work.

And if science is what you are after then the Wellcome Trust’s Explorify Science (Stand G306 https://wellcome.ac.uk) is said to be ‘inclusive and accessible to all pupils.’

Finally, for older pupils, there is the all encompassing offering from Your Favourite Teacher (Stand C48 www.yourfavouriteteacher.com) which is an online classroom aimed at GCSE with ‘a focus on pupil premium, alternative education and targeted intervention groups.’ Which would be a welcome resource if it does what it says on the tin. The content includes videos, podcasts and animations with interactive activities and quizzes.

Whatever your area of interest there is bound to be something at Bett that’s useful. The challenge is in tracking it down.

Immersive Reader in Office 365

Posted on December 18, 2018 by thclc

What is it?

During 2018 Microsoft brought out a few changes to both their online product, Office 365, and updated their installed version, MSOffice. Both now have a ‘Dictate’ function, that can operate in several different languages. They also introduced a ‘Read’ function, which, in the installed version is a button on the toolbar.

However, the most exciting development was the introduction of the ‘Immersive Reader.’ This is available in both versions, however, I think it works best in the online product, so that’s the one I shall focus on here.

It is a tool to aid reading, and to analyse the make up of a text, through a number of easy to use functions. These include text to speech, changing the colour scheme, widening the space between letters, breaking the words into phonemes, and an on-screen ruler to isolate particular lines. There is also a function to highlight different parts of speech – nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs – to focus on them.

Who is it for?

It could be used by both teachers and students. When teaching from the board teachers can use it to make points about grammar, or to focus on spellings.

For pupils it offers ways to customize the text to make it easier to read, or to have it read to them, as well as helping them to make sense of it.

How do I use it?

Using it is fairly straight forward. Opening, or creating, a document in Office 365 puts the Immersive Reader option into the ribbon at the top of the screen. Clicking on this changes the appearance of the screen, taking away the usual toolbar and providing only the Immersive Reader tools, with a ‘Play’ button at the bottom of the screen, and the other options sitting at the side. Operation is simply a matter of clicking them on and off.

For instance, the Text Preferences button allows for enlarging the font, changing it to something that may be easier to read, increasing the spacing, and changing the colour scheme, to high contrast, perhaps, or to a blue background.

The Grammar Options are where you can highlight different elements of the text, and break it down into syllables, and the Reading Options provide the on-screen ruler, in three sizes. There is also an option to link to a Picture Dictionary (using Boardmaker PCS symbols) where hovering over a word brings up an image to illustrate it.

What else is there?

You can probably find a way to provide all of these functions in other ways. For instance, there are free on-screen rulers that allow you to provide a line focus. Or you can download overlays to change the colour of a screen, and there are now a number of screen readers, several of them free, to use as add-ons in your browser – such as Googlevox.

You could also put a text on a white board and use coloured pens to pick out the different elements of grammar. Or even load a document in MSWord then use the highlighter tool, in various colours, to provide the same sort of analysis.

What’s useful here, though, is that all these tools are available together, in a very commonly used product. They are easy to find, simple to use, and serve a very useful purpose, either for accessing the text, or for understanding it better.

Cosmo from Fillisia-Interfaces – fun and games with serious intent

Posted on November 18, 2018 by thclc

What is it?

This is a set of up to six large, white, plastic, buttons linked, via Bluetooth, to an iPad app. The buttons are switches, when pressed they make something happen. They can change colour and are touch sensitive, so the amount of pressure needed to trigger a response can be varied. Put together they provide myriad ways of working with pupils with SEND, whilst offering lots of fun to those without any learning needs, too.

Using the app, these switches can be programmed to become musical, each playing a note, or a sample of music when pressed. Perhaps each press plays the next part of a known song, or they light up in sequence to show the next note. As they are Bluetooth they can be positioned anywhere. That might be on the tray of a wheelchair, or dotted around a room to encourage movement.

They can also be used for other activities, such as memory games where players follow a sequence, team or individual challenges to find the next colour or note. All sorts of games and activities are possible. And beyond that, they are available to be used simply as switches, connected to laptops and computers to control what’s happening on screen.

Who is it for?

Initially they were intended for pupils with more complex SEND to join in with music lessons, however, they could be used by those with a very wide range of learning needs, and none. They can improve curriculum access for some, but also provide hours of fun for all, with children and young people working and playing side by side regardless of needs or abilities.

How do I use it?

The buttons, Cosmoids, come with a free iPad app. The simplest thing to do is to scroll through the games and activities, select the one you want, and play it. The settings will automatically be loaded onto the switches. However, you can also configure each one separately, adjusting colour, sensitivity, and response. It is very easy to get started, but with options to make that make usage almost unlimited.

What else is there?

Very little. In the area of music and disability there is Skoog http://skoogmusic.com a polyutherane cube that triggers midi files when squeezed. Also a clever device and one that is proving useful for access in all sorts of settings.

There are also Bluetooth and wireless switches available from companies such as Inclusive Technology http://www.inclusive.co.uk . Although some can be a bit flaky in operation, dropping their connections and needing re-configuring. Cosmo is pretty stable.

More information can be found at, https://www.filisia.com/cosmo .

Making games in Scratch

Posted on July 7, 2015 by thclc

Once we had the hang of programming things to move, and added appropriate sound effects such as ‘aaghs!’ when a shark bit a fish, or of the bubbles in the tank, we moved on to control the fish in the tank rather than just have them swimming randomly.

We set the crab to work by telling it to point at the mouse then move five steps. This has the effect of making the fish chase the mouse cursor, so we could keep it away from the shark by moving the cursor around the screen.

Next we introduced the idea of controlling sprites (the name for the things in a game you can program) using the keyboard. To do this we created a new game using a racing car, although we could have used the fish, perhaps having the shark moved with arrow keys and the crab with the mouse then playing against each other to see how long the crab could survive.

We began by drawing a racing circuit then importing a car sprite.

This is Nishat’s very colourful race track.

Once we had programmed the arrow keys to control the direction of the car we could get it to move around the track.

Aziz introduced three different cars all steered by different sets of keys so that people could have a race.

We also learnt how to make the car go back to the start if it crashed. To do this we found the co-ordinates of the starting point then told the sprite that if it touched the colour of the outer edge it had to go back to that point.

It didn’t take long before we were all racing each other around the screens.

Dance till you drop

Posted on June 11, 2015 by thclc

We spent a lot of time this week dancing.

We watched videos of Dance Dance Revolution, a game involving a dance mat that most of the adults remembered, but not many of the students. You have to follow directions on screen to move on a floormat, scoring points if you tread on the right square.

We also watched a video of a robot and decided that Dance Dance Revolution was like programming a robot, so we created our own dance programs. In groups we created short routines using simple sets of directions and numbers, then we tried them out to La Vida Loca, before joining them all together into one long dance. Aziz acted as our choreographer helping everyone to follow the steps in each program.

Whilst the commands were the same in each dance – Fd, BK, Lt,Rt, Wait and Repeat – the number of steps or time to pause changed in each routine. These we called “Variables” because they change whilst the actions remain the same. We also introduced a command “Repeat until the music stops,” to make sure the dance lasted as long as the tune.

After that we used Purplemash and completed the Bubbles activity.

As the bubbles drifted up the screen we had to click on them to make them disappear with a ‘pop.’ Some people added more bubbles and made them do other things, either changing direction or making different sounds.

Everyone thought it was a good fun morning.

Drag till we drop coding

Posted on June 4, 2015 by thclc

Today we started using drag and drop to code. This way you don’t need to type in the instructions but select the ones you want then join them together to build up the instructions.

We began by using a floormat and giving each other instructions to move around it. We had typed commands that we then added in numbers of steps or turns to. This could prove challenging remembering which way to turn.

Then we used the Angry Birds game in studio.code.org .

Next we used 2Code in Purplemash. We had to give fish in an on-screen aquarium commands to make them move in the right direction.

We all got to the point where we could add our own fish then program them to move when they were clicked. You could add as many fish as you wanted to. Nishat wanted to add a lot of fish.

She must like clown fish!

Some of them moved automatically. Others had to be clicked on to start them moving. We found you could click one fish and make a different one move.

Sometimes we had to think very hard to work out what to do. But everyone worked hard.

More steps in programming.

Posted on May 21, 2015 by thclc

Robots are machines that we can tell what to do and that will do that thing again and again and again, whenever we want them to. Rather like washing machines or microwaves. These have programs that perform the same function whenever we set them to do a particular thing. We talked about examples of this in the world around us and thought about traffic lights.

The first challenge this morning was to work out the sequence that traffic lights followed. Students used coloured discs to act out what traffic lights do. We watched a very boring video of a set of traffic lights and realised that the timing of each light varies. We then wrote a program for a set of traffic lights.

Repeat continuously:-

Red on 20 seconds

Red and orange on 2 seconds.

Red and orange off.

Green on 14 seconds.

Green off.

Orange on 4 seconds

Orange off.

We tried following this sequence with a set of three coloured torches, red, orange and green. It was harder to do than it looks.

We then moved on to programming on screen. The program 2Go is part of Purplemash from 2Simple. It has different sets of tools in it that mean programming with it can become more and more challenging.

At first we used buttons to move in a particular direction. Then we added a set of boxes, a flow chart, to program in.

Then we added diagonals . The next challenge was to program a turtle to write a letter from our names using diagonals.

‘F’ for Fatima.

Fatima didn’t need to use diagonals for her letter.

To work out the programs we wrote letters on graph paper then worked out the directions and the steps.

‘N’ for Nowrin programmed in 2Go.

Nowrin needed one diagonal. She needed several attempts to get it to be the correct length.

Tasmima’s letter T

Tasmima’s letter ‘T’ has four steps in the progam.

How to program a ‘W’ in 2Go.

Wasima programmed her ‘W’ quite quickly. She was pleased with what she had done.

There were lots of challenges. Nishat needed to use the whole flowchart of 10 steps to create an ‘S.’ Jack did a ‘J’ that filled the screen, and James managed to write his whole name.

Everyone worked hard, but they all enjoyed it.

We Robot!

Posted on May 20, 2015 by thclc

One way we use programming is to control electronic devices, such as microwaves and dishwashers. It is also how we tell robots what we want them to do. Some robots are like in films. They look like mechanical human beings. Others are machines that work in factories doing jobs where the same thing has to be repeated in exactly the same way time and time again.

We began the lesson with a sheet of 2×2 grids. The students had to work out how many different paths they could find along the lines to get from one corner to another. We then wrote these out as instructions using Forward, Left and Right. Some of the students gave a number of degrees to turn by. One route was:-

Forward 1

Right 90

Forward 2

Left 90

Forward 1

Next we marked out grids on the floor with masking tape and tried out our instructions, taking it in turns to be robots being programmed. It was sometimes hard to use the correct words, and to ignore the wrong ones.

There were also some more complex routes involving diagonal lines so we had to work out that half a turn was 45 degrees.

We had a short break then tried out what we had learned on some ‘real’ robots.

This is Ritchie the Robot. He works by remote control. He is only a toy really, but he moves and turns when you press the keys. It could be quite hard to get him to go to where we wanted him. It was easier if you stood behind him. We couldn’t really program him.

This robot is a Bluebot. You program him by pressing a sequence of buttons on the top then pressing the ‘Go’ button in the middle.

He would follow the same route every time because the instructions didn’t change – just like a real robot.

Some of us also tried out the Beebot app to make him go follow the correct path on an iPad.

First steps in programming

Posted on April 30, 2015 by thclc

Students from Langdon Park and Mulberry Schools are starting a ten week course in computer programming. To get started we thought about sequences and putting things in a logical, regular order that is always the same. Like you have to do in Line Up from Busythings. The Langdon Park group picked this up very quickly and took it in turns to put in the correct answer. The problems got harder using more colours and shapes, and changing the spaces that needed to be filled.

Once they had that cracked we moved on to an activity needing logical thinking. In Block-a-doodle-doo you have to move vehicles out of the path of the chicken in the green car who is the worst driver ever, carrying on in a straight line, banging into things, and expecting everyone to get out of the way. If the monster on the motorbike catches the chicken he eats him.

We talked about sequences in everyday life, things we do regularly without even realising we are following the same set of actions every time, like when we cross the road.

We went on to program a chicken to move through a maze picking up jewels on the way and avoiding monsters in Path Peril. This got harder and harder until there were five jewels and three monsters and no way to avoid them except by timing your moves right. It brought lots of laughs as the chicken got grabbed, gobbled and blown up.

For the final activity we use J2Code and found the parking problem. Here a sequence of instructions is coded into a program to move a car from one parking bay to another. We watched as each line of code was run through then added and deleted lines to debug. We left the car park with several damaged cars!

In our second session a week later we transformed one of our teachers into a Human Robot who only understood clear instructions: “Forward (x)” “Backward (x)” and “Turn right”, “Turn left” where X is the number of steps we wanted the robot to take. We had fun making the robot travel round the room and then describe some shapes.

Then we programmed the Mole to get the worm in the TES iboard activity Mole Maze We made it move one step at a time, then made a list of all the instructions before pressing Go. Remembering right and left was a bit tricky for some, especially when the Mole was facing downwards. We spent a very little bit of time remembering why we had to put “90” for a right angle, “180” for a half turn etc.

This activity comes with three levels and we all started on the easy level first.

We logged onto Purple Mash and used 2Go to programme some letters and other shapes.

Assistive Technology and Inclusion

Advice and ideas from Tower Hamlets

Tag Archives: SEND

Go Talk Now (lite) an easy start for AAC

What is it?

Who is it for?

How do I use it?

What else is there?

Bett 2019 – What’s in it for you?

Immersive Reader in Office 365

What is it?

Who is it for?

How do I use it?

What else is there?

Cosmo from Fillisia-Interfaces – fun and games with serious intent

What is it?

Who is it for?

How do I use it?

What else is there?

Making games in Scratch

Dance till you drop

Drag till we drop coding

More steps in programming.

We Robot!

First steps in programming