Clare is interested in education and the accessibility of ICT. This site documents her process of setting up a WordPress site integrated with a MediaWiki. At present just 2 sites with links but the hope is that they will be meshed together around the themes of education and accessibility and how this can be useful for issues in education.
She plans to try out other content management systems such as Tikiwiki and Moodle but not just yet. This site is kindly hosted for free at wordpress and will be useful for trying stuff out and getting a better idea of how it all works plus how to organise and structure a site using postings, pages and static pages. This site is different to the sites she’s developing elsewhere which enable the use of the full set of WordPress features. However it will also be useful to compare the two.
She’ll be adding access keys and an accessibility page soon.
Summary of Educational Qualifications and Experience
- BA Hons English (Sussex, 1991)
- PGCE English (Reading, 1993)
- Certificate in Assessing and Supporting the Adult Dyslexic Learner (South Bank, 1998)
- Teaching and Study Support Experience in Primary, Secondary, FE and HE Sectors totalling 9 years
- MA IT in Education Awarded a distinction
- Consultant/ Assessor for Abilitynet and Lead Assessor for Progressive Conditions and Lead Technician for Linux and Open Source Solutions for 3 years
- 6 months of a PhD in Assistive Technology at Kings College London
- 730 RTS Part 1 FE *Identifying and Helping the Dyslexic Child (WEA and British Dyslexia Association)
- Helping Dyslexic Children Learn (WEA and British Dyslexia Association)
- City and Guilds 9282 Initial Certificate In Teaching Basic Skills
- Certificate in Assessing and Supporting the Adult Dyslexic Learner (Cynthia Klein, LLLU, South Bank University).
- CACDP introductory (BSL)
- CACDP certificate in Deaf blind awareness and Deaf blind support work.
- youth work certificates including ones in youth work curriculum on video and photography
I am a qualified secondary school English and English as a second language Teacher and hold initial teaching qualifications in FE teaching and adult literacy. I have worked in FE for several years and ran study support on a site, managing a team of approximately 12 staff including 3 full-time lecturers, part-time lecturers and LSAs. I was responsible for driving the intergration of assistive technology into computer networks across the college and at department level, wrote an IT strategy for the college and made 3 successful bids totalling 70K for adaptive technology hardware and software to enable users with disabilities to access computers. Before my current work I did 6 months of a PhD at Kings college London around assistive technology. During this time I worked on a literature review which included computing self efficacy which is about people’s feelings and confidence in their technological capabilities.
Prior to this I worked for the national charity Abilitynet for over 3 years which involved assessing, training and advising individuals and organisations on Disability and Electronic Assistive Technology (EAT). I carried out hundreds of assessments during this period. Assessments and interventions took place in a range of contexts and locations including hospitals, schools, learning centres and the workplace. I also contributed to project work which has included; research for the DFES (Cybrarian Project), writing web content for the BBC on Linux operating system customisations and writing a set of open source helpsheets (http://www.icthub.org.uk/Factsheets/Open_Source.html) I was a Disability Champion funded by UFI for the East of England and conducted staff training and conducted accessibility audits of buildings and equipment. I’ve also worked for 6 months with Valiant technologies on redeveloping the Roamer robot and ran the SEROTA project.
EBD related experience
Year working as an English and SEN teacher in a secondary school
This was immediately after my PGCE and was at a Farnborough secondary school
Year 4 teacher for excluded primary pupils, Christchurch school, Reading, Berkshire
Fixed-term (2-terms) project in school under ‘special measures’ and approaching closure the pupils were year 4 most of whom had been excluded and were brought back in to sort out and place in other schools. They had 53 supply teachers for the year 4s in the previous year.
Berkshire Traveller Education Service -Peripatetic Support teacher for Travellers, Romani and fairground children
Evening Youth worker
4 years as a part time youth worker in Reading working mostly with large groups of young Asians.
work in FE college with small groups and individuals who had been excluded, were doing community service or who were on 1/2 day release from prison.
Web Sites I’ve worked on or contributed content
I wrote this whilst at Abilitynet screenshots are of my PC!
