The following issue of The Bulletin was prepared by Deb Lewis (Co-ordinator, Statewide Vision Resource Centre).
|
Term |
Professional
Development Event |
Date |
|
3 |
SVRC Visiting Teacher PD Day | Monday 15 September |
|
4 |
SPEVI Combined Agencies Day |
Monday 6 October |
|
4 |
O&M Workshop - Guide Dogs | Tuesday 28 August |
|
4 |
Demonstration and Hands-on Session: SmartView | Monday 17 November |
|
4 |
SVRC EXPO/Technology Seminars |
Tuesday 2 December |
Well readers… Space Campers 2003 jet off on Saturday 13th September for their sixteen day adventure in the big, wide, wonderful world!!! The group is as follows:
Lachlan – 12 years old in year 7 from Cobram (the all-time youngest
Australian Space Camper)
Nathan – 15 years old in year 9 from
Mordialloc
Ben – 15 years old in year 9 from Ballarat
Matthew – 18 years
old in year 11 from Bentleigh
Janie McLeod – Visiting Teacher, Northern Metropolitan Region and Space
Camper 2001
Faye Squires – Visiting Teacher, Goulburn North Eastern
Region
Families and chaperones agree that the fundraising has been a major event (well, there are always large hurdles to overcome when you decide to take a bunch of kids out of the country) and until almost the last minute, it looked like there would be a serious shortfall – still, everyone’s hard work has paid off. Jeni Blake and her trusty crew of sausage sizzlers have triumphed… Our supporters – old and new – have come to the party again – special thanks again to Guide Dogs Victoria and Quantum Technology and at the time of writing, we are nearly there with the funds… Feel free to donate anyway – every little helps!
Do you want to help farewell our intrepid travellers? One parent has already threatened to throw herself wailing to the floor – so it could be an interesting experience… They’ll be meeting at 7.30am at Air New Zealand desk numbers 32 and 33 in the International Departure section of Melbourne Airport. You could come along just to see if the parent was really kidding about the scene she’s planning to throw!!!
SCORE Camper 2003, Bry, wrote the following biographical note about herself for the SCORE website:
Hi, I’m 17 years old and will be the second Aussie at this year’s SCORE Camp,
also hailing from Melbourne.
I adore the theatre. One of the things I am
most proud of is being cast as a principle role in the senior school play last
year. I also enjoy working backstage in many other school productions.
These experiences are why my career aspirations centre around theatre and stage management. This may be difficult to achieve, but I believe SCORE will help me overcome hurdles associated with my visual impairment.
Despite sporting an injury to her hand which has cut her typing speed from a sizzling 90 words per minute to just 20, Bry recently sent us the following reflections on her trip to Canada this year…
The essay topic boiled down to its simplest form? “Tell us why you think you deserve to go on SCORE” in 500 words or less! This is where the challenge started. After spending a month or so pondering over how to sell myself in a concise yet appealing way and chasing up the necessary reference letters came…the interview! Despite this being one of the more fun and relaxing interviews I had participated in I was amazed when Maree Littlepage called me to inform me that I was selected as one of the two Australian participants for SCORE 2003!
After what felt like an age of excitement mingled with nerves at travelling half way around the world independently, June 30th finally came! My SCORE adventures started immediately as due to a security scare at LA the connecting flight to Toronto was missed. After being re-routed and arriving in Toronto over 24 hours after leaving home Tim and I arrived to find that our flight details had not been communicated to the SCORE staff properly and no one was there to pick us up! After a few hours and a short stay at a very nice airport hotel however we were all packed up and on our way to Lake Jo!
One of the first and most notable things about rural Canada is how annoying
the mossies are! Being foreign both Tim and I seemed to be considered a gourmet
meal! However this quickly gave way to a striking view of lush green grass and
bush land set on the shores of the hauntingly stunning Lake Jo. Staff, SCORE IIs
(previous participants who have been selected to come back as group leaders) and
SCOREs were friendly, cheerful and welcoming. Around copious amounts of water
skiing, camp fires, theatre sports, some more water sports and general teen
foolhardiness including a toga party, we plunged ourselves into the deep and
meaningful areas of personal development, advocacy and career advisement. During
this week of hard work and play the entire group began to bond very tightly!
Then came the perils of IBM.
Lake Jo was awesome but SCORE does stand for
Summer Career Opportunities for Recreation and Education! When we arrived at
Toronto we began to enter what for some of us was the new and exciting world of
html, the building blocks for websites. We were the first group of participants
to undertake the building of the revolutionized SCORE web portal. This portal
provides blind or visually impaired teens world wide with information about the
four categories of entertainment, education, employment and accessibility.
Divided up into four groups and having chosen our sections, we investigated and
assessed different websites according to how well they worked with Jaws,
ZoomText and BigShot. We then undertook the task of building the portal
containing all our chosen sites with descriptions of their content. The SCORE
IIs built the other half of the website which covers all activities undertaken
on SCORE, information about sponsors and biographies of participants and staff.
Extra activities undertaken while in Toronto included guest speakers about a range of appropriate issues such as advocacy, night time recreational activities including air hockey tournaments and TTC choice days. This was our opportunity to explore Toronto by choosing from a range of activities at different tourist locations and travelling there using public transport. Destinations included Eaton’s mall, one of the largest shopping centres in Canada and the Air Canada Centre which transforms from hockey rink to basketball court to concert hall in a matter of hours and is home to the Toronto Maple Leafs, the best ice hockey team in Canada! As a follow up on our career advisement sessions we undertook a job shadow for half a day. I was fortunate enough to shadow the stage manager for the Royal Canadian Ballet Company! We also sampled a range of different cuisine including Indian, Mexican, Japanese, Thai and various other cultural foods by eating at different restaurants. These excursions took place on nights where Project food lay dormant! Project food is an exercise designed to increase the students daily living skills by having them cook dinner for the entire camp! Meals included chicken stir fry, shake and bake chicken with pasta alfredo, chicken nuggets with smiley fries and … sweet and sour meat balls! All attempts were succulent, on time and well managed by all teams!
SCORE 2003 ended with two unforgettable events. On media day four people including myself representing the four web groups, presented our sections of the web portal to our sponsors and the Canadian media. This was followed by graduation where all participants were awarded with glass plaques as a memory of their SCORE experience. On the last day of SCORE our camp trooped off to Canada’s Wonderland an unforgettable trip if for no other reason than the purchase of my outstanding red and white jester top hat that lights up! After our last trip together as SCORE we returned to the residence to share great moments of camp, tears, laughter and one last air hockey tournament. All of these things lasted through the entire night and well into the next day until Tim and I found ourselves with some strange new vocabulary (eh?) alone, exhausted, already missing everyone and back at Toronto airport!
To see the SCORE 2003 website that the students constructed, go to: http://www.cnib.ca/e3a
When: Saturday 29th November to Sunday 7th
December
Where: Mt Hotham to Mornington – 580km in
total
Cost for students: $395 plus $45 insurance plus $65
transport to Mt Hotham plus extra night at Dinner Plain
$40
Who: Students on DE&T Visiting Teacher Service and
their families – and some robust Visiting Teachers to be the chaperones!!!
Training rides will be scheduled as needed. According to Jeni Blake, you don’t need to be particularly fit, you just need to know how to ride a bike!!!
Please contact the inimitable Jeni Blake on 0428 134660. Jeni notes that she
is not planning a 2004 Great Victorian Bike Ride and recommends that you join
this one with her!!!
Entries close: 30
October
More information: http://www.bv.com.au/
When: Friday 21st November 2003, 9.30 am to 1.00
pm
Where: RVIB Education Centre, 333 Burwood Hwy,
Burwood
Who: Prospective students wishing to attend the RVIB
Support Skills Program or Residential Training Program in 2004
Support Skills
Program: is available to students (Grade 3 - Year 10) who are blind or vision
impaired and who are integrated and attend their local schools. It focuses on
the unique curriculum needs of these students, and provides a positive learning
environment, which encourages peer networking and social development.
To register, complete the application form and return it to RVIB Education Services no later than Friday 7th November 2003.
For further information contact Garry Stinchcombe, Program Co-ordinator / Special Courses Teacher Tel: (03) 9808 6422).
Source: Minutes for ABA Victorian Subcommittee meeting, 16 June 2003
A new online directory of worldwide resources for and about people with combined vision and hearing loss, http://www.deafblindinfo.org/, is designed to close the information gap for people who are deafblind themselves and the general public.
The next ABA Meeting will be held from 5.30-7.30 pm on 15th September 2003 in the training room, Vision Australia Foundation, 454 Glenferrie Rd Kooyong. (Go through the yellow doors past main reception at the top of the roundabout. If coming from the train station, go past the cafeteria then turn left to get to main reception. The training room is the first room on the left.)
What: Up to $4,500 is awarded for the purchase of adaptive
equipment
Eligibility: students who are legally blind,
commencing or continuing first year tertiary studies and who for financial
reasons would not otherwise be able to participate in further education
Application forms are available on the RVIB website: http://www.rvib.org.au/
Interested applicants are encouraged to attend one of the following 1 hour Bursary Information Sessions at RVIB, 201 High St Prahran:
Tuesday 2 September, 4pm
Monday 22 September, 2pm
Friday 10 October,
4pm
For further information see the attached flier or contact Joanne Webber, Tertiary Education Coordinator on 9520 5555 or 1300 55 99 87 or email bursary@rvib.org.au. Applications close: Friday 31 October 2003.
Source: Circular 255/2003, 3rd September 2003
Each year approximately 160 scholarships (ranging in value from $200 to $1900 per year) are awarded to primary and secondary students. The scholarships are available for any student achieving outstanding academic results. A detailed description of the scholarships is available from the Department of Education and Training’s website at: https://www.eduweb.vic.gov.au/scholarships
The closing date for most scholarships is 31 December 2003.
Source: This one was kindly sent in by a parent!
Calc98 is a free scientific calculator application that is nicely
configurable to meet various levels of vision. My son has been using various
incarnations of this application since he first got a laptop. The keys, colours,
fonts size, overall size, number of keys are all configurable. It also works
well with ZoomText.
Go to: http://www.calculator.org/
Source: YBC ListServ
There is a new discussion list is for anyone who’s attended the RVIB Burwood Education centre any time throughout its existence. Whether you’re an ex-staff member, current, ex student or current, you are welcome to subscribe to the list. If you attended Friday Program, or Support Skills Program (as it is now known) you’d be welcome also. The main aim of this list is to share memories - good, and maybe not so good, about your time at the centre. Let's hear about your journey. Does a specific event stand out in your mind? Had a favourite teacher? Had a least favourite teacher? We’re here to discuss it all! This is your list. Let's rock it with memories!
To subscribe, send a blank email with no subject line to: RVIB-burwood-subscribe@topica.com
Source: Minutes for ABA Victorian Subcommittee meeting, 16 June 2003
This exhibition formed one of the major events for the International Day of People with a Disability on 3 December 2003. All photos in the exhibition have a description displayed alongside, including transcriptions in braille and audio. The exhibition, with its theme of ‘Achievement’, will tour metropolitan, regional and remote areas around Australia throughout 2003. For more information about the exhibition visit http://www.nican.com.au/
To find out about tour locations, phone freecall 1800 806 769, TTY 02 6285 3713.
Source: ‘Blinded by the Light’, The Age, 2nd September 2003
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/09/01/1062403448264.html
Michael May was blinded at the age of three when chemicals he was playing with exploded, destroying his left eye and burning the surface of his right eye, leaving him without sight except for the ability to sense night from day.
The Californian, who lives in Davis, went on to lead a full life, becoming an expert skier, marrying, fathering two sons and founding a successful company that makes navigation systems for the blind.
Then, on March 6, 2000, he underwent a relatively new procedure in which stem cells were transplanted onto the surface of his right eye in the hope they would replace the scar tissue that made a cornea transplant impossible. May's left eye had suffered too much damage to be repaired.
The operation fully restored May's visual capabilities, meaning he can "see". But, at least so far, his brain's ability to interpret and understand those signals remains far from normal: He can catch a ball, for example, but he can't recognise his wife's face. He can only tell a cube is a cube if it's moving. He recognises colours perfectly and can weave his way through a crowd without his seeing-eye dog or cane. But he often can't tell shadows from trees.
What now fascinates and perplexes researchers is that three years after the operation, May still sees the world largely like an abstract painting.
His experience strongly suggests that humans are born with some visual abilities, but probably not all of them, and that some visual skills come more readily than others. While the brain can be reprogrammed, that capacity may be limited. And the brain may permanently lose certain capabilities if they lie dormant long enough.
May’s unique experience is providing unprecedented insights into how vision works, the flexibility of the human brain, and how people learn to interpret the world around them.
Please contact the SVRC if you would like the whole article including diary excerpts of Michael May’s visual journey.
Source: http://rjcooper.com/
‘Biggy-Lite’, a new and trimmed down version of enlarged cursors for Mac OS X users is now available. Biggy-Light costs US$29 and is available direct from RJCooper. You can download a free trial at: http://www.rvib.org.au/
The full version, ‘Biggy’ is available for US$109 and features a large selection of cursors, some of which are animated and which work within any software – see below for some examples.
On a space-ish theme (coz our Space Campers will be on their way any day now), we have a poem written by James – a year 5 student whose Visiting Teacher is Denise Probert. He writes:
The sun is very hot,
even with its little sunspot.
Mercury
has craters big and small,
and is the closest planet to the sun of all.
It
looks like a very bright star,
but Venus is a planet by far.
The Big Bang
made their birth,
nine planets including our own Earth.
Although Mars
hasn’t got enough air,
scientists say maybe there’s plant life
there.
Jupiter is the planet king,
its Giant Red Spot is a very strange
thing.
Saturn’s rings are very nice,
but don’t stand on them, they’re as
thin as ice!
Peacock seems to be the colour of Uranus
which might make it
fairly famous.
Neptune is very nice I say,
its colour stays blue all night
and all day.
Pluto the furtherest and last planet we’ve found,
has not
enough gravity, so it doesn’t look round.
Other planets may lie beyond.
Be
ready, or you may be stunned.
The parent of a student with a vision impairment in the Bendigo area is looking to establish a social Swish competition in the area. She has the use of a Swish table but just needs some more players…
So contact Pam Hyden (mother of Sam) on 5444 4259 or email psl@impulse.net.au
Cheryle Pohlner from Comet Hill PS has successfully completed her Braille Literary Lessons. Congratulations Cheryle!!!
Space Camper 2003, Lachlan, was awarded a High Distinction in the latest Westpac Maths Competition, achieving a score in the top 2% of the state – way to go, Lachlan!!! And thanks to Faye Squires, Lachlan’s VT, for the news.
A student with retinitis pigmentosa apparently “could not see past his
shoulders when looking straight ahead”.
Hmmm. When I look straight ahead, I
can’t even SEE my shoulders…
Thanks to Lyn Robinson, Lea Nagel and Maria Elford for contributing to this edition of The Bulletin. Thanks also to proof-reader Lea Nagel.
Deb Lewis (who can be emailed at deblewis@svrc.vic.edu.au).