AAC: Saving Time in the Classroom: Part 1

We have put Bruce Baker's excellent lecture about core vocabulary on YouTube. It is in 6 parts. My YouTube username is michaelbrianreed if you want to see all the movies I've uploaded. Here's Part 1 of Bruce:

25 July: Lily Was Here - Mick and Katy Style

A nice piece from cousin Katy and uncle Mick:

AAC and Transition: Scope filming at CM

New movie uploaded to YouTube:

AAC Keys: Writing from Pathfinder to Computer

This is how I wrote my 1 Voice Teenagers 'Moving On Up' story.

My Pathfinder writes to any computer that has AAC Keys installed.

I connect my (old) Pathfinder to a laptop with a serial cable. Newer communication aids have USB and bluetooth. I'm buying a USB to Serial converter from eBay so I can write to our Mac PowerBook.

AAC Keys is a keyboard and mouse emulator offered as a free download from the AAC Institute:
http://www.aacinstitute.org/Resources/ProductsandServices/aackeys.html

3 - 5 July: Headlines Activity Weekend

Had a great time wall climbing, bridge building, rafting, and having fun in the pool and around the campfire. Headlines Teenagers' activity weekend was at the Pioneer Centre, Kidderminster. On Sunday I interviewed some friends about the weekend and about their talents for Shine Week, a UK national festival of young peoples' talents.

Here's my first wall climb:



Headlines supports children and young people with craniofacial conditions including Apert, Crouzon, Muenke, Pfeiffer and Saethre-Chotzen Syndromes. I have Apert Syndrome. http://www.headlines.org.uk

You can watch our rafting, rope bridge and campfire movies on YouTube. Search my username: michaelbrianreed

24 June: Engage TV: Out of the Box

Out of the Box is a three minute documentary made about me for the Community Channel. It premiered at the Baltic theatre, Newcastle 24 June 2009. Engage TV filmed me in different places and I recorded the voiceover on my Pathfinder communication aid.

24 June: Radiowaves and Diana Award Campaigns

Kate from Radiowaves interviewed me about the campaigns I am using Radiowaves to promote. I've made a movie of me reading out my AAC Campaign Questions. Here they are on YouTube:

23 June: Radiowaves Shine '09 Filming

Kate and Tim from Radiowaves came to film our group FaCE at Chilton Community College. They are filming one Shine reporter from each region. FaCE stands for Facilitating Communication Everywhere. We do Art & Multimedia projects about language and AAC.

Here is me interviewing Andrew about his talent for Shine Week:

19-21 June: 1 Voice Teenage Project: Moving On Up

1 Voice Teenage Project 'Moving On Up' was at the Hayes Conference Centre, Derby 19-21 June.

We were given an outline of the workshops so we could programme our communication aids before the weekend with introductions, special interests, who we like talking to, who our role models are, and the different ways role models can tell people about AAC.

We talked about reasons for using communication aids with different people in different places, and made a collage with photos we brought with us and some we took on the day.

I interviewed the speech therapy students to find out what they had learnt about about AAC after volunteering on a 1 Voice weekend.

On Sunday we gave talks and practiced the presentations we will be giving at the Communication Matters conference in September. Nadia tells us the history of 1 Voice:



Watch more 1 Voice movies on YouTube. Our YouTube username is 1voicemovies.

1 Voice is a group of children and young people who use communication aids and their families, friends, role models and volunteers.

Some of us have been coming to 1 Voice events for 10 years now and we graduated as AAC Role Models at the weekend.

16 June: DADLG Quad Bikes BBQ

Better than ever this year!