Self evaluation!

Dr Simon Ball from Techdis gave us another short and informative webcast last week on the latest offerings to improve accessibiltiy and inclusion for the HE community. Those inlcude;

• A new accessibility self evalauation service run online: http://www.techdis.ac.uk/getevaluated.
  

This service is open to all HE departments . It's a tool thats been proven and can really make a difference to your disability provision. Rememeber the latest SENDA regualtions put responsibility for A&I at indivual level. You can't hide behind ignorance any more. If a student feels that they are being excluded for any reason, any resulting litigation could fall on the lecturer delivering the learning - not the organisation!

• The Academy are funding organisations to the tune of £500.00 to run a seminar in 2009 focussing on the following thre strands: ethnicity, disabiliy, and widening participation. Contact inclusion@heacademy.ac.uk

• Latest accessiblity tools from Simons update:

• scan text using you mobile phone : www.scanr.com
• change your voice with morphVox
• highlight you mouse with Sonar
• The Sage dictionary & Thesaurus
• Create QR codes
• Virtual Magnifying Glass

• A free course covering Cognitive Behaviour Therapy. The course has been written by a Psychiatrist who has many years of experience using a Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT) approach and also in helping people use these skills in everday life.

• Simon is due to write a book chapter covering the use of Second Life to assist learners with disabilities. Academics have already used Second Life to simulate hallucinations associated with extreme schizophrenia. See also http://previewpsych.org/ . See also my previosu posting on serious fun, which covers education use of SL.
  

• Next HE TECHDIS updates (run online - all you need is a browser) - Feb 12th -11:30 - 12 pm. Feb 17th 14:00 - 14:30. Contact: help@techdis.ac.uk