Welcome Back! After a summer of rest I'm ready to go again and  welcome our new students on Monday. 

Scrap Coloring is a useful  site . I will be using it when we make name cards. This year I have students who can't hold a pen but can use the computer keyboard and mouse. The site does warn that better results are obtained when using FireFox rather than Internet Explorer,so worth trying it out first. Names can be printed or saved to the computer.

Wordle is also a useful whole class activity.Everyone can type their name in to the Wordle  template and  an instant class list created. Requires JAVA,so again try it out first.

What to sow and grow in April

Thompson and Morgan have a guide to planting in April Click on this link to go to their website.

The Crash Reel

During the Easter break we rented out The Crash Reel

On the website it is described as  
The dramatic story of one unforgettable athlete, Kevin Pearce; one eye-popping sport, snowboarding; and one explosive issue, Traumatic Brain Injury. A comeback story with a difference.

I really enjoyed the film.It gave me some insight into Traumatic Brain Injury but it also included  a look at Down's Syndrome,dyslexia and drama !

The website has resources  on Traumatic Brain Injury: LOVEYOURBRAIN

Train Safety

  not available 

A good journey is a learning package that looks at all aspects of traveling safely on the railway and respecting our fellow passengers and railway staff.
It is not designed specifically for young people with a learning disability but some videos and photos may be useful.I will use the short clip on standing behind the yellow line in Staying Safe at the station.

 

Also the train section of OUT and ABOUT in LONDON  MY GUIDE

Lost and Found Entry 1 Literacy

Excellence Gateway Literary resources 
were published some years ago but still provide some useful resources.

They include
 Entry 1 unit 1 Lost and Found 

and  the accompanying Teacher Notes and Audio files

 Unit includes a story about Pickles and the World cup  which should tie in with the Football World cup this summer.

Skills workshop have a number of resources linked to Pickles

1. In a Pickle! - Adult Basic Skills Resource Centre

   
   

2. 1966 World Cup - 5 onscreen activities | Skills Workshop

   
   

3. In a Pickle - teaching notes and transcript. UK Adult Literacy -

   
   

4. My story about Pickles - writing for Entry Level 1 UK adult literacy.

   
   

5. In a pickle! Cloze 2 for Entry level 1 UK Adult Literacy.

   
   

Some more personal safety links

How to stay safe when out and about         ( put easy read in the search on the Surrey Police  website and lots of Easy read keeping safe guides come up )   
                                  A  PDF Easy read guide from Surrey Police

THESE HAVE ALL NOW MOVED BUT ARE STILL AVAILABLE VIA SEARCH ON THE SURREY POLICE WEBSITE 

A complete list of their easy read documents can be found in their Personal safety section
Including:

 

Mate crime - staying safe from people who pretend to be your friend



How to stay safe when you are travelling

Living with Autism

 BBC 2  Horizon 9.00 Tuesday April 1st 2014 

Duration: 1 hour

'When pioneering developmental psychologist Professor Uta Frith started her training back in the 1960s, she met a group of beautiful, bright-eyed young children who seemed completely detached from the rest of the world.
It turned out they had just been given the then-new diagnosis of autism. Uta passionately wanted to know more about these children, and they inspired her to dedicate the rest of her career to studying the autistic mind.
On the eve of National Autism Day, Horizon reveals how Uta's lifetime study of people with autism has transformed our understanding of this mysterious condition.
In this film Uta shows how people with autism perceive and interact with the world and how, for them, another kind of reality exists. She meets people with autism who have extraordinary talents, and explains why they often fail to understand jokes. She also explores whether many of us could be just a little bit autistic' BBC website 

Exploring EyeGaze

 I hope to find out more about Eye Gaze in our next development day.
 I've read 

• the Eye Gaze Wiki  http://eyegazesen.wikispaces.com/ 
• James Winchester's posts on eye gaze
• Why "Prove it with Low Tech First" Doesn't Work from Teaching Learners with Multiple Special Needs
• Teachinglearnerswithmultipleneeds : Free-and-low-cost-head-and-eye-gaze  from 2009
• Articles and videos on The Bridge School website 
• Eye Gaze in the classroom from SMARTBOX
• The eye gaze learning curve from Sensory Guru 

  I've listed a few websites to try out .  
                                                                                      
From Sen teacher  download  Lightbox Light Box has 21 abstract scenes which encourage exploration of basic cause and effect. A range of colours, contrasts and background options are provided.
The desktop version includes support for switches, Leap Motion, mice, head and eye trackers. 

The best setting when using Camera mouse is
Glide and Midas touch ,the cursor has a circle round it so you can see where you are pointing.
 Jackson Pollock

 Wildcard

http://www.thisissand.com/

 

  Wonderful Rainbow
Grains of sand build up to make a picture .The sound effect of the gentle dropping of sand is an option and you can save your work to the gallery,then download.


Boobah Zone

http://www.boohbah.tv/zone.html

I have  downloaded Camera Mouse 

and HeadMouse 

 and a 30 day trail on  Dwell clicker

They are both easy to set up (so far only on the laptop -Windows 8)

This isn't eye gaze :
Tobii PC eyego
or
EYEGAZE Foundations
or 
any of these packages
 but may be a start as we begin to look in to systems and assessment. So far my student has controlled Camera Mouse and created a Jackson Pollock picture!

Independent Working ICT 3

I want my students to work independently this week. I usually host my worksheets on our college Moodle site.
The problem with this is the  password . This hurdle of entering a user name and password stops learners getting on with their work.
They all have http://studentswithlearningdifficulties.blogspot.co.uk/ bookmarked and should be able to get on with their work without too much help. 

Independent Working ICT 2