Jane Farrall Consulting - Page 15 - Literacy, AAC & Assistive Technology

Self-selected Reading for Early Readers of All Ages

Mar 7, 2013

Today's post is brought to you by the two guiding rules of self-selected reading. It isn't self-selected if you don't choose it yourself. You can't get better at it if it's too hard. One of the literacy activities that we want students to engage in is self-selected reading. Self-selected reading has many purposes: it gives

Putting Tar Heel Reader books into iBooks - with Speech!

Mar 4, 201324 Comments

I am a HUGE fan of Tar Heel Reader - and have blogged about it before. However, Tar Heel Reader has had a big upgrade and has some great changes that I am going to write about over a few blog posts. Today, I'm going to focus specifically on the ability to put your Tar

PCS High Contrast: A valuable resource

Jan 2, 20139 Comments

This morning I have been making up a couple of communication books that I want to trial with students in the coming term. The following photo of my dining table is submitted as evidence! (And I'm hoping the Christmas decoration still on the table is extra proof that I actually took this photo today!) I

Lots of alternatives - "pencils" for everyone

Dec 19, 201213 Comments

When I first started teaching literacy I focused on teaching reading. At the time, I was working with adults with physical disabilities and writing seemed so hard. None of my class would be able to use a pen or even a keyboard and mouse, which was all I had access to (or so I thought).

Using USB switch interfaces with switch accessible apps on your iPad

Dec 18, 201210 Comments

This is a very quick blog post to share a great resource from Bill Ziegler, Apple Distinguished Educator and Assistive Technology Consultant. Bill has created a very informative Vimeo about how to use a USB switch interface for a computer to access switch accessible apps on your iPad. This is a question I often get

Abilipad - still the Write tool for the iPad

Dec 13, 201213 Comments

It's a time of the year when we do lots of writing - cards, thank-you letters, emails, Facebook status updates, Tweets, reports and (apparently) blog posts! Since I am spending so much time writing at the moment, I thought it was time to write about my very favourite writing app for the iPad - Abilipad.

Introduction to Guided Reading: Presentation at Ascot Vale Special School

Nov 28, 2012

Edited to add: Many of the links in this blog post are no longer current The handout can be downloaded by clicking here. Other resources I mentioned in the presentation are: Four Blocks to Literacy website Four Blocks in Special Ed Wiki Centre for Literacy and Disability Studies, University of North Carolina My Guided Reading

How do I use a Switch or Joystick with an iPad? – October 2012 update!

Oct 29, 201216 Comments

This blog post has been updated. Please see the new entry at http://www.janefarrall.com/blog/2013/09/29/how-do-i-use-a-switch-with-an-ipad-ios-7-overview/ I last blogged about overall switch access to the iPad/iPhone/iPod touch in June - and there have been quite a few changes in the meantime. So - time for an update! At this stage, there are two sorts of switch access to

Fat Cat apps - thinking beyond the box in AAC

Oct 19, 20124 Comments

Please note: the Fat Cat apps have all been discontinued I spent most of yesterday updating my AAC Apps list (edited to add: this list has been discontinued). There were a lot of changes to the list this time - over 60 app updates and 27 new apps. Three of the new apps were additions

ISTE Webinar on iOS6 Accessibility and Alternative Access to the iPad

Oct 9, 2012

Last week I was lucky enough to team up with Luis Perez and deliver a webinar for the International Society on Technology in Education (ISTE) Special Education Technology Special Interest Group (SETSIG). The ISTE SETSIG has now made the resources from this webinar available on their website. You can access the webinar recording, the PowerPoint