On robust resources

Al Noor DubaiLast week I was working at the Al Noor Center for Special Needs in Dubai where they were holding a  tech expo to raise awareness of assistive technology and how their students benefit from it. A major feature of the expo was an exhibition which blended stands from assistive technology vendors together with stands run by staff and students from the center where they demonstrated how their students benefited from the various technologies. A rather brilliant idea which helped visitors understand who and what the technology was for.

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Bye Bye Slideshow Maker

After hearing about the problems some colleagues have been facing when running the activities they have downloaded from my web site (need admin rights), I decided to move away from the open framework program I was using and write something new. All of my new ‘slideshow’ activities will be published in a new format which will make them accessible to pretty much everyone.

Access

The new format has specific sections for switch users at cause and effect level with both auditory and visual prompts. A touch screen section puts large targets around the screen which students will need to find and touch. Mouse or other pointing device users get a section with a huge mouse pointer and targets that change colour when the mouse pointer is over them. Finally eye gaze users get their own section with large targets and a cross hair cursor to help them pin point the targets. (more…)

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Guided Access on the iPad: Step-by-Step

Guided Access on the iPad

Finally found a few spare minutes to make a short video and write a step-by-step guide to using Guided Access on the iPad. This accessibility feature has improved so much since its release with IOS6 back in 2012. I especially like the in-built timer function which will help those students who may have difficulties with sharing or those who like the iPad a little too much.
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Creating Switch Recipes in IOS 9: Step-By-Step

Switch Recipes IOS9

Apple made a few changes with IOS 9 including adding ‘switch recipes’ to the long line of accessibility features on their mobile devices. Switch Recipes has huge potential for special education, enabling us to make bespoke switch actions for specific apps or students. This will open up even more iPad apps to our switch users. I’ve put together an example using the app ‘Drawing with Stars’. The two minute video below shows the process and there’s also a step-by-step PDF if you need it.
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