the three R's: relaxing, reflecting and reinventing.....

As summer time draws to a close, not literally but figuratively, it is time to get ready for the new school year. I was fortunate this summer to have a chance to relax before I get on the road again at the end of August. My dearest and oldest friend of 30 years came to visit. We met in the 7th grade when I first moved to the greater Cincinnati area. I had a chance to show off where I live and  an excuse to relax; spending time catching up with my friend and going to the beach.

This next school year is going to be busy for our project. We are going to collaborate with the Florida Department of Education(FLDOE), Resource, Materials and Technology Center (RMTC) and The Florida Outreach Project for the Deaf blind(FOP) to provide Usher's Screening Training across the state. There are going to be five trainings provided to district staff. OSBD is also going to be conducting Focus Groups for the Exceptional Student Education(ESE) Directors throughout the state, I believe there are going to be four of these scheduled. Both the Usher's Training and Focus Groups have to be completed before the end of December. This is in addition to providing technical assistance and assessments to our districts. Needless to say, my co-worker and I are booked until the end of January.

Reflecting: Also this summer- my mother was diagnosed with lung cancer. She has caught it in the early stages and goes in for surgery next Monday August 1st. Once you get the news, it feels like someone has punched you in the stomach, the past couple of weeks have been full of ups and downs but the one thing that is constant is that my mom has maintained a positive attitude. I guess we won't know what to expect until after her surgery....

Reinventing: As with every summer, I try to reinvent myself and make improvements to how I will deliver our services to the districts or develop new trainings. This year, I feel more confident than ever, this is going to be a fantastic school year!

vacation fog....

For the last two weeks I was on a mental vacation . Believe me it was needed. Today, I went back to work to meet with the LATS (Local Assistive Technology Specialist) from the Florida School for the Deaf and Blind, Paula Brannon. We wanted to perfect our knowledge on the Braille Sense. This is a note taking device that uses either a braille key board or a qwerty key board.  Paula has the braille key board and I have the qwerty keyboard. For those who don't know Paula has a visual impairment and she was teaching me to use a peice of equipment that is designed for non-visual learners...as you can guess, I am a visual learner... anyway, Paula did a fantastic job in guiding me through this non-visual maze. I still have a long way to go but it is a start. She even gave me home work...come on Paula, this is suppose to be summer!

Before going on my mental vacation, I had to opportunity to attend another exciting I pad training in a near by school district- Bradford County. All participants were given an I  pad 2's, cases, keynote, numbers, Imovie,pages and garage band. In this training we learned how to make a power point using keynote, a flyer using pages and of course an i movie..don't fret, I plan on sharing the i move in the near future. It is a follow up to one of my post: "Eye heart the I pad".  My husband also enjoyed using garage band and spent an hour composing a strange soundtrack....I will just call that "Pat-Stock: the summer of 2011".

Besides learning how to use these various applications, this was a great opportunity to collaborate with other professionals  from different fields in education from all over the State of Florida.

Well, it back to my vacation until next Monday....enjoy the rest of your summer!!