Special Ed

Fweep is back after a long absence and has now found a new home at Area 51 Education – a new education and training centre for people with severe and complex learning difficulties in Haringey, North London.  You can find out more about Area 51 by clicking here.

To start us off again, here is a great site with a range of interesting ideas and DIY projects for switch-based activities – have a look at www.oneswitch.org.uk.  I am especially liking the DIY switch toys!

Thanks to Geoff Harback’s post on the SENIT list for posting the link to One Switch!

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A fun post, just to show some of the things possible with a video camera and some willing performers.  Our SLD group produced this film using iMovie, the Nickelback song on MP3 and a video camera – not quite sure where the hats came from, they just seemed to appear!!

You can watch it here!

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In reading an article by Seale (2007), i have come across this site “Common Knowledge”.  They are based in Glasgow and have done some work with adults with learning difficulties around accessing the internet to tell people about themselves and their lives.  I havent quite worked out how you reach the personal web pages as yet, however, it is a nicely presented site which demonstrates some good principles of organising and presenting information in an accessible format.  It shows what is possible when you are not restrained by organisational network policies as many of us are within schools and colleges!!!

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edublogs have this site listed today, as one of the sites of the hour, and i agree! Its got lots of downloadable / interactive resources, grouped by curriculum area, some of which have good application to special education. I’m putting the blog site in my links down belw, but here it is in case you are desperately keen to get there and cant wait to scroll down the page!

Free resources from the Net blog

Also, one of the links i explored is below – a page of freeware software for PC, Mac, Linux etc that teach basic skills.

Basic Skills software

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I came across this video, seemingly produced as part of an e-twinning project between special schools, which i really like the sound of! Because our students are in and out at different times, we’ve struggled to get any kind of “e” project up and running, although i would love to give our students the chance to meet, virutally, others from around the world. Anyone out there who’s interested. please get in touch!!

Anyway, i really liked the animation and am going to show my ICT students this clip to get them going on their own animation projects this year!! Have a look..

Animation Shorts:

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I like this too – a lnk to a drum web blog, featuring some work done at a SLD school

Drummers

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Hi all,

“Parenting a Special Needs Child”

This site belongs to a parent with a son with complex needs. The site itself is quite interesting, but the most recent video post really cracked me up – it certainly rang some bells here!!

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I hope you find the new look easier to manage. I had some feedback that it was hard to read some of the text in the side bar boxes, so i’ve changed themes to this one.

The header image is taken from work by Kevin Chettle, an artist who has illustrated his experiences in a long-stay hospital – i think they’re brilliant!!  You can see all of them by clicking here 

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After buying an entertaining book on Guerilla Art, check out the page on Grafitti and Communication (Pages menu) for a communication class project!

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Ok, my next project is going to be thinking about how to teach symbols to adult learners.  I’m going to set up a page to track how i get on, but any comments, tips etc – please post!!  We have decided at work that our symbol system will be Makaton, but the vocabulary isnt really wide enough to cover college life!!  So we add in rebus and PCS to suit, and also now are looking at buying in ready-made PECS symbols because its too resource-intensive to make symbol sets that will last for every student that needs them…aarrghh…where do you start?!

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