This issue was edited by Marion Blazé, Education Officer, Statewide Vision Resource Centre. Deb is apparently getting more movement and strength every day and should be back on deck by August 25.
All activities offered by the SVRC are open to class and subject teachers,
integration teachers and aides, careers teachers, therapists, parents VTs, students
etc. Please register:
tel (03) 9841 0242, fax (03) 9841 0878 or email svrc@svrc.vic.edu.au
For the complete list of activities for 2006 and downloadable programs for all of the listed activities for the rest of the year, go to: http://www.visiontech.svrc.vic.edu.au/pd2006.htm
What a fascinating day we had! Kerry Fitzmaurice and Lee Clarke teamed up to present a case study of some work they have done with two boys with RP. Through assessment and training in eccentric viewing techniques, the boys reduced the size of print they needed AND increased their reading speeds. Both boys reported several other practical benefits to this training, too. What a success story!
Then Tricia d’Apice, now with Vision Australia, showed us her ‘I do like it’ braille reading program, we had a travel story from Meredith Walsh, some handy PowerPoint tips from Julie Edward, a guided tour of the Blueprint website with Anne Spence, a report on studies undertaken by Jeni Blake and were inspired and entertained by Jo Parry (AP at Ringwood Heights PS) at the end of the day. We even managed to fit in some much-needed discussion time.
Some of us chatted to Jo Parry after she spoke at the end of the PD day and she told us about an aunt of hers who went blind earlier in her life. Apparently she was a notorious cook who made a couple of accidental creations. She once toasted a wettex and on another occasion, stuffed a chicken with black jelly beans! OOPS!
The Program for this day (first day back, Term IV) is appended. We haven’t named the topics for Deborah Chen in the morning because we need to discuss these further. She has done so much in the field that would interest us, we didn’t want to restrict her at this stage to one or two topics. For example, she has worked on tactile strategies and communication with multiply impaired VI kids, promoting learning through interaction, early communication in VI kids, career education for adolescents and lots of other terrific stuff. This is not a day to be missed!!
We had our first (of many) workshop on altering our Braille Correspondence
Course to match the new UEB (Unified English Braille) code. Since we are in
this process, we thought we’d update the lessons to include some often-asked-about
items like:
How to braille: email addresses (with the @ symbol), web addresses (www.etc),
dates, times, words with capital letters in the middle (like ‘eText’)
and
the ‘forward slash’ (and/or).
If all you clever people out there can think of any other inclusions which would
be handy (without frightening off our clientele!), please let us know. You can
email them to marionblaze@svrc.vic.edu.au.
The Children’s Book Council of Australia annually nominates ‘Books of the Year’ in the categories of older readers, younger readers, early childhood and picture books. The short-listed books are on the web now and are a great way to choose quality and inspirational reading to share with your students. Have a look at: www.cbc.org.au/short06.htm
It’s from August 28 to September 3, 2006. Have a look at the website
which has links to some great literacy and numeracy sites and activities. Choose
some special activities to involve your students in or look at the regional
activities to be part of something bigger. ‘Mathsisfun’ has great
maths games, puzzles, teacher ideas, quizzes and jokes. ‘Gameskidsplay’
gives rules for playground games, rhymes for skipping games, sensing games,
new games and old favorites. ‘DaisyMaths’ is a site designed to
help young Australians enjoy learning maths. It has graded activities and games
for 3 to 12 year olds, and schools can download activities, free. Take a look
and have some fun:
www.sofweb.vic.edu.au/litnumweek/index.htm
www.mathsisfun.com
www.gameskidsplay.net
After hearing of the great success of Kerry Fitzmaurice and Lee Clarke’s work with two boys on eccentric viewing techniques, we have scheduled another assessment day. Students can come to the Resource Centre for sessions from 10am onwards to be assessed by Kerry to find their optimum retinal viewing position. If you have a student with a central vision loss, please discuss their needs with Annette Godfrey-Magee or Marion Blazé, and we’ll look at fitting them into an appointment. The assessment will hopefully tell students if practicing a different viewing position will be of benefit. Appointments will be essential to be part of this day, so please contact us about prospective students.
You may recall the highly successful ‘Skill Power’ program we ran in November last Year. It happened the week before the Expo and involved some students who had suffered recent and dramatic loss of vision and urgently needed some skills such as braille, use of Jaws and touch typing. We have had several requests to run such a course again, but wondered if it might be more valuable to run it for Visiting Teachers. Especially now that the braille code has changed (with the New Unified English Braille code), we all need an update. So, we are thinking about running a two or three day intensive course for VTs during which we can ‘skill you up’ in using talking computer technology, teaching braille and braille maths and whatever else you might need. Right now we would like to gauge your interest in such a course so please call or email to let us know.
Blind Citizens Australia are holding their Victorian/Tasmanian convention on the weekend of October 21 & 22, 2006. Information is appended to the print edition of The Bulletin and we ask you to share this with students and parents. For further information please contact BCA on 9372 6400 or 1800 033 660.
David Hornsby and Debbie Sukarna conduct some fabulous workshops on weekends for teachers. Their next is on September 2 and is on assessment of spelling. The flier and form are attached to this bulletin.
Alana (one of Meredith’s students) recently did a work experience
stint at SVRC Here is her report on the time she spent with us.
Written - Monday, 24 July 2006
My name is Alana and I have been doing work experience at the State Wide Vision
Resource Centre. I am totally blind and I use a Braillenote for my school work.
I was working from the 17th to the 28th of July.
It has been a good experience. I just did what I was asked to do.
On Wednesday, I did some proofreading (braille) and read a few books so I could
decide which book I wanted to record.
On Thursday, I did some more proofreading and I also labelled some cards with
times-tables. I did the labels on a Perkins brailler and stuck the labels on
the cards.
I made an audio recording the book titled ‘Three Little Pigs’.
On Friday, I proofread some books and wrote names on the braille labels.
On Monday I finished the box of books that I had to proofread. I also read another
book that I might record.
I was able to learn about work.
I also helped Cassy. She is new to using a Braillenote so I helped her with
commands.
We have just received the July 2006 issue of Journal of Visual Impairment & Blindness (Vol 100, No. 7). Articles include:
For further details please go to http://www.afb.org/epublications
We also have Future Reflections – the National Federation of the Blind magazine for parents and teachers of blind children (US). Article in this journal include:
Did you know that Kay McQualter and Nola Christopher, both now retired VTs, have been working at SVRC? They are both doing ‘CRT’ days to ‘replace’ our Deb (not that she could ever be replaced!!). If you’re in, come and say ‘hello’.
Thanks to Jo Parry, Alana Jovanovski, and the BCA for contributing to this
edition of The Bulletin. Thanks also to our fabulous proof-readers, technology
trouble-shooters, stuffers and mailers. And to Lyn Robinson and Lea Nagel for
getting the electronic versions out there.
Deb Lewis (who can be emailed
at deblewis@svrc.vic.edu.au).