What’s on Askability?

Materials in this section:

Sitemap-Poster.pdf
Askability site map for teachers

Sitemap-Easy-Read.pdf
Askability site map for children (with symbol support)

The website’s content

Askability aims to help children become familiar with browsing a website, reading information and thinking about how it affects them.

The website provides a variety of fully-symbolised material for children to read, in five main sections:

News
This section features a variety of news stories, all presented in fully symbol-supported text, which are regularly updated to ensure Askability users keep up-to-date with the latest news. There are global and national news stories, as well as local news stories for particular regions. There is also news about sport, entertainment and the weather, all written in simple language.

What’s on
The ‘What’s on’ section features various suggestions for things to do in different areas, such as sports activities, cinema listings, museums, libraries and zoos. It also features TV and radio listings.

Speak up
This section encourages children using the website to get involved – either by sharing their comments and pictures with other users, sending a question to the Askability Team, or by giving feedback on the website.

Fun
The ‘Fun’ section features reviews of books, films, DVDs, toys, games and music, and a ‘jokes and stories’ section.

Chat
This is an area where students can ‘chat’ in a safe environment. Young people registered on the site can talk with friends using guided messages and comments.

There are two site maps available to download (see above). One for adults working with children, and another with symbol support for children to use. You may find it helpful to print these out as posters, for reference when finding your way around the site.

Local and national content

Askability includes national content, and allows local content to be added (where a local authority enables this). For example, the News section features simply written, symbol-supported global and national news stories, and also local news stories by local authority area.

In the ‘What’s On’ section, children can select ‘Local’ and then choose their own area to find suggestions for things to do locally..

The ‘What’s On’ section also allows access to content for ‘Other Regions’.

Similarly in the ‘News’ section, children will have the option of choosing local news, provided their local authority has opted to include content on the site. When a local area has been set, this choice is remembered on that computer.

This local content gives children the opportunity to keep up-to-date with what’s going on in their area, with the aim of building communities and communication between users within local regions.

The next section shows how you can get the most out of reading Askability: Next

Go to Askability.org.uk