Practical teaching activities

Please choose and complete one or more of the following activities:

1. Audit and catalogue hardware and software resources

Make an ‘audit’ of your classroom (or whole school). Identify hardware and software resources already available that could be used to produce picture and / or symbol based resources. Devise a system for listing and categorizing these that makes it easy for staff to find and use suitable ICT resources.

2. Audit and catalogue prepared graphic resources

Devise a system for storing and cataloguing symbol materials (both in electronic and paper formats) once you have made them, so that staff know what each other have made, know where they are, and can find what they need to use quickly and easily.

3. Preparing graphic resources

Choose one program from the ‘Making materials’ section and spend time learning how to make and print out:

• single symbols (e.g. for a ‘Snap’ or ‘happy families’ game)
• a symbol topic chart (e.g. the weather) or lotto base board
• a worksheet template

4. Management issues

Draw up a ‘shopping list’ for new resources that would be helpful. Identify staff training needs. Identify time-management issues, e.g. allocating time for staff to learn to use the software and – on an ongoing basis – to make materials and support users.

5. Functional use of communication

Choose a pupil in your class who has a speech and language difficulty. Describe the child’s difficulties, using reporting and observational techniques. Describe your plan for developing the child’s receptive / expressive communication through one specific activity involving ICT.

6. Software to develop language skills

Choose two pieces of software you are familiar with – one content-free, the other fixed-content. Describe your use of both with one of the following and critically evaluate the effectiveness of each:

• a pupil with a speech and language delay
• a pupil with a specific language disorder
• an AAC user

7. Inclusion – Signing / symbols

Describe how you would include a pupil who uses signing or symbols as his primary means of communication into your class. Include information on the teaching techniques and materials used, including photocopies where possible. Give examples of the ICT and AAC materials which you would use to support your work with the child.

8. Integrated software suites

Review, compare and contrast two or three of the integrated software suites relevant to language and communication. Discuss which type(s) of learner each would be most / least useful for.

OR

Review one of the integrated software suites relevant to language and communication, and comment on:

• its suitability for pupils with language and communication difficulties
• its feasibility as a programme, in a busy classroom
• how it fits together with other materials, other software, and with curriculum demands.
  e.g. BioBytes, Making Tracks to Literacy, Earobics, InSound, Oxford Reading Tree, Rhyme and Analogy

9. Learning objectives

Write a profile of a pupil you have worked with, who has language and communication difficulties. Write down your short, medium and long-term targets for this pupil, showing how ICT could be used to support the achievement of these objectives.

10. Sentence building

Study the examples that come with the software, and then create for a specific pupil that you know, a structured symbol-supported sentence building environment using one or other of Inclusive Writer, Writing with Symbols 2000 or Clicker 4. For example, use:

• a ‘sentence starters’ grid with a grid of words that might finish sentences off
• a ‘fill in the missing word’ grid or jumbled words
• colour coded grid, etc

Discuss why you have chosen the layout and vocabulary and sentence structures that you used.

Try using this with one pupil or a group of pupils. Write a report of how it worked and what you might need to do next.

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