Many schools identify the difficulties encountered when attempting to make informed decisions regarding assistive technology. Teachers report that the task of considering assistive technology can be over-whelming due to their limited knowledge of the area, a lack of access to external expertise to assist in decision-making and limited access to specific training and trialling of the technology.An assistive technology-mentoring project undertaken on the North Coast of New South Wales was a response to these difficulties. This workshop will detail the project that provided professional learning into the effective utilisation of assistive technology using a mentoring model in two schools. The project aimed to: 1. Provide mentor support to enable the identification, assessment and trial of equipment for students who require assistive technology; 2. Support the use of assistive technology to facilitate access to the curriculum, minimize barriers to learning and improve outcomes for students; and 3. Develop teacher skills and resources in assistive technology, and support the sharing of their knowledge and skills with other teachers and staff. Workshop participants will be provided with project outcomes, the research under pinning the project, a background to mentoring as a model for school support, and recent examples of mentoring support provided to schools.

Greg O’Connor has been actively involved in supporting the learning of people with diverse learning needs for 29 years. During this time he has worked as a classroom teacher, school executive, district consultant and regional manager with the New South Wales Department of Education and Training. Greg’s areas of interest and expertise include supporting people with complex needs, challenging behaviours and autism, and literacy support technologies for people with learning disabilities. He is passionately committed to the use of assistive and instructional technologies to support the learning of ALL students in school and post school settings. Greg is the Education Services Manager at Spectronics.