Welcome to CTAD website!

We have recently finished working on the Portland Project – an ESF EQUAL project aimed at those adults with learning disabilities and/or physical disabilities who find many of the current online learning environments and materials inaccessible. Working in a partnership, led by Portland College, our role was to develop a set of innovative online learning materials and resources. We focused particularly on creating activities for learners at Pre-entry level (including those at the earliest milestones) as a resource to be ‘dipped into’.

The activities use multimedia to provide learners with an opportunity to practise and demonstrate a variety of skills, including communication, numeracy and IT. We envisage the resources being used in different ways: independently, if appropriate, or collaboratively (with peers, a tutor or a support assistant); and they may be used at different stages in a session, for example as a stimulus or follow-up activity. The following resources have been developed:

• A set of activities focusing on matching, sorting, sequencing and cause and effect.
• An online multiplayer game (based on the traditional game of Snap), allowing learners to experience online gaming with others in different locations.
• An online slideshow authoring tool enabling learners to make simple online multimedia presentations about themselves, their lives, interests, plans and progress, using photos, audio, video, and simple text or symbols-supported text. Slideshows can be played on line or downloaded. A separate tutor version has also been developed, enabling tutors to create online ready-made presentations (e.g. to demonstrate a process) or templates for learners. An online ‘starter-pack’ of photos, video clips audio files is also available, but tutors and learners can upload their own resources at any time.

You can click here to see the demo.