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This issue was edited by Marion Blazé, Education Officer, Statewide Vision Resource Centre.
To see the annual program and to download programs for professional development activities, go to: http://www.visiontech.svrc.vic.edu.au/pd2007.htm
When: Monday, October 8 (first day Term IV) 8.45 to 4.00
Where: Vision Australia Burwood, 333 Burwood Hwy, Burwood
RSVP: please, please, please remember to register BEFORE the
end of Term III. You can email registrations to marion.blaze@svrc.vic.edu.au
Speakers and topics will include:
Remember PhD student, Gillian Cochrane? She was conducting research into a
“Vision-Related Quality of Life Questionnaire for Children – the
IVI_C” at the Centre for Eye Research Australia, The University of Melbourne.
She writes:
At the Centre for Eye Research we have developed the Impact of Vision Impairment
for Children (IVI_C), a quality of life questionnaire to assist in determining
individual support needs of vision impaired children. It does not require highly
trained personnel to undertake them or interpret the results.
The IVI_C was developed from 15 focus groups (n=102 participants). The 4 focus groups included children with low vision aged 11-18 years: and one in-depth interview with a university student. The other focus groups were for parents of children with vision impairment (4 groups), class teachers who had worked with a student with vision impairment in their classrooms but had no formal training to assist students with vision impairment (3 groups), and specialist instructors including visiting teachers for the vision impaired, orientation and mobility instructors and occupational therapists (4 groups plus 3 in-depth individual interviews with specialist educators for children with vision impairment).
The overall theme for the discussions was, "What has been the greatest impact of low vision on every day life in the home, in school, within the community and socially". Questions were asked within the topic areas that were brought up for discussion in each of the focus groups: these being "home", "travel & transport", "sports and work", "social", and "emotional".
Sixteen themes emerged, which were Teacher knowledge, Access (teacher-facilitated), Specialist support, Orientation & Mobility, Fitting-in, Social skills, Peer acceptance, Self-confidence, Personality, Communication skills, Community understanding, Family wellbeing, Parental input, Mainstream/Special, Varied experiences, VI peer support/integration, and VI role model.
The themes reflected five domains: School/Specialist Instruction, Social Interaction, Community, Family, and Vision impairment peer interaction. Interestingly, the focus of concern for each focus group type differed: the students' perspective concentrated more toward social/communication and orientation & mobility skills, the parents' concentrated instead on the importance of family and support for the family, the class teachers' were equally concerned with the students' academic and social development whereas the experts targeted academic skills and specialist input. However, for each focus group it was the development of good social skills that were considered absolutely crucial for the children's future success in life. Having information from more than one perspective provided a broad range of issues from which content could be derived. The relevance of each perspective was considered to be equally important when items were being identified as content for the questionnaire.
From the information gathered, 30 questions (items) were initially tested for wording and layout. To validate the 28 item questionnaire, it was administered to students aged 8 to 18 years and following further analyses, the number of questions was reduced to 25. The average time to administer the IVI_C, whether via telephone or in a face-to-face interview, was 7 minutes. The IVI_C has proven to be reliable between interviewers as well as between mode of administering the questionnaire (telephone and face-to-face).
Further analysis revealed three domains (themes): school and social inclusion,
mobility and independence and lastly, community acceptance. The substructure
represented by the domains presents the possibility for assessment of participation
in particular areas of everyday life.
In real terms, these results translate to very practical uses. Mean scores for
each domain can give an indication of individual support needs and highlight
areas of concern. The IVI_C can be used to evaluate the outcomes of interventions.
Although the tool kit and questionnaire have been developed in a resource rich country, certain aspects will be universal although other aspects will be socially and cultural specific. To address these issues, further research is being done to assess how applicable the IVI_C will be for use in under-resourced countries.
Come and hear more about Gillian’s research on SPEVI day, October 8th.
Gillian can be contacted via email: g.cochrane@pgrad.unimelb.edu.au
The next gathering of the Round Table on Information Access for People with Print Disabilities will meet in Melbourne from 11th to 14th April 2008. The theme is: the Power of Cross Sector Collaboration: Investigating working relationships across the private, public, government and not-for-profit sectors.
Closing date for submission of Abstracts is Friday 5th October 2007
Late Abstracts will only be considered if there are insufficient suitable abstracts
received by due date.
The Call for Papers will shortly be on Round Table's website, where you can also find out more about the organisation. Visit: www.e-bility.com.au/roundtable/
National Disability Services and Families Australia announces Australia’s inaugural Children’s Conference entitled “Every Child Matters”.
When: 14th to 15th May 2008
Where: Melbourne
More detail is in the conference flyer at: http://www.nds.org.au/conferences/cyf2008/flyer.pdf.
For further information: Margaret Verick, phone (02) 6283 3214, margaret.verick@nds.org.au
Parents of primary and secondary students in government schools, in all locations,
are warmly invited to take part in the first online conference to be held by
Parents Victoria. The conference will be held non-stop on the internet from
9am Monday 10 September to midnight Sunday 16 September. There is no cost for
participating in the conference and no special software is needed, other than
an internet-connected computer and a browser. The online discussions will be
very easy to join in, and guidelines about how to participate will be provided.
You don’t need to be a member of Parents Victoria to take part. Join in
day or night, for all days or just some, depending on your lifestyle and other
commitments.
Visit the conference website and register online at: http://www.cybertext.net.au/pv/
Visiting (Itinerant in NSW) Teacher, Kym Gribble has returned from an exchange in Canada all full of ideas and enthusiasm – and has gone back into production of his newsletter “It’s Vision Time”. It is full of news, questions and (even) answers, ideas, links and opportunities to network.
If you’d like to receive each edition of It’s Vision Time, send Kym an email: Kym.Gribble@education.nsw.gov.au
You’d have thought us an unusual bunch on Friday. All were dressed up for ‘Dictionary Detective Day’. We had Marion Blazé wearing braille, Annette the Amazing Angel, Deb in a Dress (!), Lyn the Lyrebird, Leeanne the Lab Tech, Lea the Ladybird, Dripping Di the Diver, Jackie in her JimJams, Sophie the Sensational Sensei, Toni the Terrible Tiger, Marvellous Maria the Mexican, Helen the unhealthy Horse, Phill the Paperman and Suntanned Sue in her Summer clothes!!!
Our visiting students got into the act, too. Michael was a Monster, Monique a Maid, Abbey an Artist, Alex the AFL coach, Jaryd the Juggler, Misjah the Mother (complete with real baby!), Nicole who dressed nicely, George sporting hair Gel and Lily the Lily. All children quickly hopped into looking up as many interesting words on as many alternative format dictionaries as they could, playing word games and generally having an alphabetical ball! We had prizes for the best costume, the longest and shortest word, the best helper and teacher, and the word which was voted by everyone as the most interesting on the day was ‘cattawampus’ – so look that up in your Funk & Wagnel!
If you’d like ideas for activities for developing dictionary skills in interesting and fun ways, contact Marion – we’ve generated a few and they proved very popular.
Thank you to Eastern Metropolitan Region for granting us funding which provided some Large Print and CD ROM Dictionaries (these will now live at SVRC and can now be trialled by students). Also thankyou to Franklins International and their agent, Vision Australia for providing us with three Franklin Language Master Talking Dictionaries for use on this day. One Franklin Language Master Talking Dictionary is now to be housed at SVRC for students and teachers to try out – thanks Franklins!
Also, a special thank you to all our production staff who made word cards in several formats, passports and certificates, all at very short notice and with lots of other stuff going on, and even found time to dress up and help on the day – Thank you!!
For pictures, go to: http://www.visiontech.svrc.vic.edu.au/dictionaryday2007.htm
The Victorian Blind Cricket Association will begin running a Junior Competition over the summer months for younger players. The season starts on 6 October and involves coaching clinics and matches each Saturday morning. As players get older and improve, they are moved up to the senior clinic and perhaps on to national and international competition!!! (What FUN!!!)
If you’d like more information, please contact national player and former VT student, Lindsay on 0400 101074 or 9857 0152 or visit http://www.vbca.org.au
Vision Australia is conducting a Support Skills Program / Residentail Traning Program Try Day for prospective students wishing to attend these programs in 2008.
Date: Friday 23rd November 2007
Time: 9am to 1pm
Venue: Vision Australia Education Centre, 333 Burwood Hwy,
Burwood 3125
On the Try Day, prospective students can experience the Program first hand while their families and any interested support staff can meet the Support Skills team, visit the various teaching areas and generally get a feel for the program. If you feel this program might be suitable for your child or student, please contact the Vision Australia School on 9808 6422 for an application form. If you have any queries please ring and speak to Garry Stinchcombe, the co-ordinator of the Program, on 9808 6422. Completed applications are due in no later than Friday 2nd November 2007
Please note: attendance at Try Day does not guarantee a student a place in the Program for 2008.
Source: RT Newsletter, September 2007
‘Hear a Book’ announces staged integration into the Australia wide
Vision Australia network and has been a prominent analogue audio book producer
since 1972. ‘Hear a Book’ was the first service to introduce audio
books for the Blind and Print Disabled into the public library systems around
Australia.
The organization has over the past 35 years narrated some 12 thousand audio
book titles.
‘Hear a Book’ through careful analysis of the sector recognized that the march of digital technology and the significant changes in the sector have clearly demonstrated the need to review the way in which the organization produces and distributes audio books. With this in mind the ‘Hear a Book’ Board welcomes the opportunity to work closely with Vision Australia, Australia’s largest alternate format producer, to ensure that the vast resource of titles the organization has produced will be available to the disabled members of our community well into the future. The new partnership will see a large section of the existing catalogue converted to the digital format to further enhance the ease of distribution and grant greater access to a larger number of clients over the long term. The new digital collection will be titled ‘The Hear a Book Collection’.
The current catalogue of titles will also continue to be available through the public library systems around Australia and libraries will continue to have access to the existing ‘Hear a Book’ catalogue. More new titles will be added to the catalogue over the next few months.
This Australian Aid Resource and Training Guide (AARTG) is a window into which the aid practitioner can plug into the humanitarian/development world. It consists of four sections:
The AARTG is produced by TorqAid, an Australian overseas aid consultancy specialising in Disaster Management, Training and Project Management. For more information contact TorqAid’s Director/CEO, Mr Chris Piper, on chris@torqaid.com
The information in the AARTG is designed for a number of people:
You can download the Guide from:
The University has a combined ‘special entry and access scholarship scheme’ called ‘Access Melbourne’. It was developed to increase the number of students from educationally, financially or socially disadvantaged backgrounds, enrolling in undergraduate programs. Last year the University made more than 1000 offers to students applying through Access Melbourne. Access Melbourne provides students with the opportunity to explain the ongoing circumstances that have affected their chance of gaining a place at the university. Successful applicants are considered for a $4,000 annual contribution towards HECS fees and a $2,000 allowance for up to four years. Applications are made through the VTAC Special Entry Access Scheme (SEAS) – Access and Equity by October 12, 2007. For information go to www.access.unimelb.edu.au.
We are kicking off this year’s “Braille in the Community” competition with a couple of entries (see below). We are looking to build up our collection of terrific examples of braille and tactile labelling, information or whatever… Enter by bringing in your example into the Resource Centre or photographing it and sending it to deblewis@svrc.vic.edu.au - entries close 16th November 2007.
Entry 1:
Toni’s example is a street sign from Castlereagh Street in Sydney - it
incudes large yellow print on a black background and braille on the light pole
near the pedestrian crossing button. Rather nice!
Entry 2: Lillian’s entry is a large print and braille menu from The Cheesecake Factory with this accompanying note: “We were at a family reunion in Hawaii and found this menu which is in braille and large print. The nine page menu translated into 89 pages of braille!”
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Visiting Teachers and SVRC staff are invited to the book launch of “Look Out, Marcus!” on Tuesday 16 October from 3.30-5pm at Guide Dogs Victoria, Chandler Highway, Kew (Melway Ref: 45 B1).
Guide Dogs Victoria will be launching their new publication - Look Out, Marcus! – a FREE activity book for children aged 8-14 on the topic of low vision. Copies of the book will be available for visiting teachers to distribute.
This is an opportunity to see the campus at Guide Dogs Victoria, go puppy-spotting, meet Trevi the Wonderdog and catch up with colleagues.
Please let Lil know by Wednesday 10 October if you plan to attend, so they
can polish up the wine glasses!
Phone: 9854 4542
Mobile: 0418 370 312
Email: lil.d@guidedogsvictoria.com.au
One of our VTs is wondering if anyone knows of a Mimio which is not being used and which a school might be able to borrow or purchase second hand. Please contact Marion (9841 0242) at the SVRC if you know of such a beast!
Sorry to say that we’re thinking of Christmas already!!! If you have people you’d like to thank, add them to our invites list.
When: 11am, Wednesday 5 December 2007
Where: SVRC 370 Springvale Rd Donvale
RSVP: marion.blaze@svrc.vic.edu.au
Thanks to Deb Lewis, Toni Chilton, Lillian Adler, Gillian Cochrane, Mike Steer and Lil Deverell, for contributing to this edition of The Bulletin. Thanks also to our fabulous proof-readers, stuffers and mailers.
Marion Blazé (who can be emailed at marionblaze@svrc.vic.edu.au).