Work-Nerding (aka Things that are exciting me that are work related)

Fun and progressive things in the world of Speech Pathology:

• The Speech Pathology Australia National Conference in May. They’ve even put the Conference Dinner on the last night to keep us there til the end!
• The LINCS speech pathology project – looking at best service delivery models for High Schoolers with language impairment. Hoping to see her present at the conference.
• AAC in general.
• Makaton signing. I need to brush up!
• Uni! Get to do a mini research project this year… topics swirling around, but it might be to do with Adolescent language or perhaps the special school population. We’ll see!

Me 5 years ago at the first national conference I went to. It was here in Canberra, I was a student volunteer, which means I helped out but got free registration. We made tiaras for the dinner. It helped get me this job!

Term Time!

Today’s officially the first day of semester for the University of Canberra… probably the earliest starting uni in Australia, they’ve commenced having a half-length winter semester mid year. If I ever decide to head back and do a teaching qualification it will really come in handy, but for now it just means getting my brain into gear by Sunday, as I have my first face to face workshop day on Valentine’s day. Aww.

I’ve ordered my textbooks, have my unit outline for one subject – There’s close to fortnightly assessed items! This is for the first section of my mini research project… there’s a lit review due week 3! And I don’t even know my topic! *pressure*

I have my study leave mostly sorted, it looks like I’ll take fortnightly Friday mornings on study leave and a couple of hours to cover the rest of the day on flex – which I’m already starting to build!

Lots of new things this term – I’ve been allocated 7 classes at the special primary school, which will be fun and challenging – One thing I’ll have to get my head back into is mealtime management/swallowing assessments. I know it, I just haven’t done it for awhile now.

Another good thing will be getting to trial communication devices, like the DynaVox V, which is so cool for a little nerdling like me ;) I would totally get it in Pink if I ever needed one!

Actually, and I think I’ve posted about it before, one of the coolest AAC devices out there is the Proloquo2Go, a must see for you iphone nerds out there. It’s basically and iphone/itouch with voice output software built in. Perfect size!

Naked Day (well, css naked day)

(Thanks to Nathaneal B for head heads up – I have vague memories at missing this last year!)

So, Why is my site ugly and Naked today? Why have a css naked day?

The idea of the day is to promote web standards, to remember that not everyone can access the internet just by looking at the pretty pictures on the page and rely on being able to use special browsers or simply being able to enlarge the text, to be able to read your oh so wonderful content.

Yes, there’s even “stuff about the internet” that could be related to the disability discrimination act. There’s also a review going on at the moment (yes, the department of broadband has other things going on than the NBN) into the supply of mobile and other equipment to those with a disability (link) and not just those with a hearing impairment, which often seems to be the focus of “other” ways of accessing telephones. Think speech impairments, or cognitive impairments.

Oh and a cool new AAC “toy” that was doing the rounds yesterday:

The Proloquo2go. It uses a real iphone, but is also a voice output device. Completely suitable for teens and other young people who need an alternate means of communication. So cool and relatively cheap!