Use ICT to support different styles of learning
The World Wide Web offers far more than documents and text. It is an excellent resource for images,
sounds, movie clips, animations and symbols. Pupils can browse different sites to search for images
and clip art. A range of useful sites is listed below. Be aware though your local authority may have
placed access restrictions so that it is difficult, if not impossible, to access resources on the internet
without the correct password.
Learners with social, emotional and behavioural difficulties may appear withdrawn and can be
isolated from social interaction. Social, emotional and behavioural difficulties may take a number of
forms, for example:
This book was produced by Augmentative Communication in Practice: Scotland, an open group composed of people who have an active interest in augmentative communication, including users of AAC, families, carers and professionals from a variety of different disciplines. The main activity is the organisation of an annual Study Day on AAC. The CALL Scotland publishes this book on behalf of the group.
This checklist provides you with an overview of recent developments in Scotland on additional
support needs policy and tells you where to find key documents that relate to the use of ICT.
The following checklists are designed to help you work out how to make classroom ICT accessible to
pupils with additional support needs and disabilities as well as others in the class.
Ever since we first produced our wheel of iPad Apps for Learners with Dyslexia / Reading and Writing Difficulties, we've had regular requests for a similar wheel for tablets and smartphones that use the Android operating system. IPads are used much more frequently than Android devices in schools, but over the past few years more schools have started to allow the use of Android tablets and many parents have been buying them for home use. More educational apps are now available for Android tablets and smartphones.
The first version of our Android Apps for Learners with Dyslexia / Reading and Writing Difficulties was created in October 2015. During its first few months it was downloaded nearly 400 times a month. It attempted to categorise a number of apps that may be useful for people with reading and writing difficulties, such as:
text readers;
tools to support writing;
ebook readers;
mindmapping apps;
and many more.
The 2nd edition was published in October 2016. It keeps the same broad categories, but the following apps have been removed, either because they are no longer available, or because other apps proved significantly more useful for people with reading and writing difficulties: Comic Life, Our Story, My Story Builder, Talk - Text to Voice, Scoop It!, Brain School, Wunderlist for Education. The following apps have been added: Comic Strip pro, Book Writer Free, Kids Story Book Maker Free, Type and Speak, Xodo PDF Reader, KNFB Reader, Livescribe+, Memory Games, Mind Games, Life Reminders.
A step-by-step guide in the form of a question and answer checklist helping you to identify problems and suggesting a range of practical technology focused solutions to support pupils with writing difficulties.
Many iPad apps are available to support learners with reading and writing difficulties. This 'Wheel of Apps' is not comprehensive, but attempts to identify relevant apps and to categorise them according to some of the difficulties faced by people with dyslexia. It was originally published as an A3 poster, but works equally well as an A4 leaflet. Links on the electronic version are 'clickable, taking you to information about the individual app on the iTunes site for the UK.
iPad Apps for Learners with Dyslexia / Reading and Writing Difficulties was last updated in October 2016. The main change is the removal of the section on Visual Stress, as the introduction of 'Display Accommodations' in the iOS 10 Accessibility Settings makes the apps in this section redundant. The removal of Visual Stress has allowed us to separate the keyboard apps in Writing Support into a new Keyboards section. SuperKeys and Fleksy have been added to the Keyboards section, while iWordQ and WhiteSmoke have been added to Writing Support. Audible, GoodReader, vBookz, School Writing, Number Line, Clear and Google Keep have all been added to the appropriate section, but Forgetful and iTakeNotes have been removed as they are no longer available.
A step-by-step guide in the form of a question and answer checklist helping you to identify problems and suggesting a range of practical technology focused solutions to support pupils with writing difficulties.
The infograph is available as an A2 poster, and also as a PDF with clickable links that take you to sources of information on the internet.
Following on from the evident world-wide success of our iPad and Android App Wheels for learners with dyslexia, we have been encouraged to produce a similar poster for ChromeBooks, which have become very popular in the USA and are starting to make inroads into schools in the UK. In view of the distinction between Apps and Extensions in the Chrome operating system, we quickly realised that a 'wheel' would not work, so we opted for a 'wall', with Apps represented by yellow bricks and Extensions by red.
As with the app wheels, we have attempted to categorise the apps, but this has not always been easy. In the case of some of the multi-function extensions and apps, e.g. Read&Write, we tried to place them into the most appropriate category, but we recognise that they could easily be placed in more than one category.
The Apps and Extensions included in the wall are not intended to form a definitive list of the 'best' options, but to give people an idea of what might be worth considering. There are many other apps that could have been included and we will review the contents of the wall at regular intervals to decide whether to add new Apps and Extensions, or to remove others.
