Sense College Loughborough is hosting an Assistive Technology Week, titled “Limitless by Inclusion,” from Monday, May 19th to Friday, May 23rd. This event is organized in collaboration with the National Student-led campaign, Access and Assistance for All (AAA), which is supported by Thomas Pocklington Trust (TPT) and University College London (UCL). The campaign’s goal is to enhance access to assistive technology and promote accessibility by design in Further Education (FE) colleges.
Assistive Technology Week was conceived during conversations among the Sense College Ambassadors. They invited College Principal Gary Hyndman and Learning Technology Coordinator Kingsley Saba to provide feedback and report on the Student Voice Parliament meeting hosted by NATSPEC, which some of the ambassadors attended to represent the college.
The momentum for Assistive Technology Week increased when Kingsley Saba, the Coordinator for Sense Technology, participated in a meeting in London with Members of Parliament, part of the AAA initiative aimed at ensuring that all young people in need can access assistive technology.
With this goal in mind, Kingsley organized a meeting with key staff members essential to planning the event. We discussed potential invitees, the schedule for the day, and which external technology companies we would like to involve. We also considered the workshops we wanted to offer, the facilitators for these sessions, fundraising strategies, and logistics such as parking and venue arrangements. There was much to contemplate.
Fundraiser – Sense College Loughborough loves cake – so of course our fundraiser has to include cake, made by our Bell Bar staff. Students and staff have bought cake and a drink for £1, plus a Guess the Number of Sweets Jar and we raised £180 to pay for goodie bags for visitors and some 3D printed Assistive Technology items.
We introduced our 5 Tech Champions during the fund raiser and they had their own T shirts with Tech Champions on decorated by our craft tutor.
The event was linked to most of the Enterprises – from College Office printing the invites and organising the fundraiser, to the Bell Bar making the cakes and Craft decorating the T shirts. So the whole college was involved.
We sent out invites to both large and small technology companies, and although not everyone responded, we have managed to get some companies attending on Tuesday and Thursday for our live events. We will have demonstrations on display from Smartbox, Aventido, Texthelp, Bodyswaps and Music and Assistive Technology plus display stands with communication devices and hearing and sight loss technology. There will also be a number of speakers including Thomas Pocklington Trust and a workshop for music and assistive technology.
The other 2 days will be filled with different technology demonstrations, some workshops run by Sense College staff – our Speech and Language Therapist Rosie Marten, MSI technology – run by our MSI specialist Jo Guthrie and QTVI Anna Janickyj, Use of JAWS – IT Tutor Jules Banks, and lastly talking about Limitless by Inclusion and accessibility via Microsoft Office by Kingsley Saba. There will also be other online speakers including Thomas Pocklington Trust, Texthelp plus others. The final day will, hopefully, be a visit to Amazon for our students.
The run up to the event continues to be busy as we make room plans and layouts and send out invites to parents, governors and employers, plus letters home about the event. We really hope that it is a success and that it is something we can run every year. We will keep you updated.
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