Still Waiting

Jobs post publicly on Monday at the school and the job didn't post today. Now I have to wait another week to see if it posts. It is so hard to make any plans when everything is on hold. It is a 12 month position so I don't know when the start date would be. I asked someone today how much notice I would have to give at my current job if the school year started before I was able to interview and change jobs.

Since I could very well still be here this year, on Wednesday I take the Educational Interpreter Performance Assessment test. Pennsylvania has established minimum standards for their interpreters and while my job is not interpreter I sub for them sometimes so I need to meet the standards. When I took the test before I scored a little below the minimum so hopefully I will have improved enough that I meet the standards.

I got an inkling today of what I will be doing this year if I stay where I am. Some subbing and some technolgy things. In the past we have been supporting the sound fields in the schools and the teacher primarily responsible for them has retired so I will possibly be doing that some too. I may also be involved in working with our C-Print captionists (like closed captioning TV but on a laptop for a hearing impaired student to supplement what they are able to get from the teacher so they don't miss anything.)

The Stakes Have Been Raised

I got an email today telling me that there is a new job opening in Educational Technology at a school for the Deaf. This specific job is the job I have dreamed of getting but didn't ever expect there to be a job opening for it. I have no idea how soon this will post publicly or how in the world I would up and move/sell the house/make arrangements for my son but I can't not apply for this one. I can't wait to hear more information about this.

The Lost Jewels sample and a question for input

I decided on a name for the game with the prince and princess-The Lost Jewels. I have also decided it will be a color game. It has three components:
1. a video telling the color of a jewel in sign language, fingerspelling and print.
2. a video asking the child to find the right color jewel from three choices.
3. a video asking the child to find the right color word from three choices.

4. I just thought of another way to do this and that is to match the color word to the right color jewel.

I roughed out #1-3 today and made a video of myself doing the signing (not a very good one either and I forgot how to add the replay button) because I wanted to see how it worked out. I still need a Deaf person to sign it in ASL. It would be really cool is they would dress up as a princess but I don't expect that will happen. I'll be thankful if I can get someone to sign for me.

There are 8 color words and 6 missing jewels. For each right answer the child gets a small jewel and when they collect a certain number (undecided right now how many) they get the big jewel and it goes into the crown until all the jewels have been found.

It's been two years since I made the ABC game and I am having to remember how to do some of the things. Hopefully it will all come back pretty easy.

Here is a link to check out how #1-3 above work.

Now the question:
I'm wondering if I should go through each color completely parts 1-4 or if I should first teach all of the colors, then do all of the color jewels, then find all of the color words, and then match all of the colors with the printed word.

The advantage of grouping all of one color together would be that it would be easier for a teacher to use it to teach the color/sign/written word.

So what do you think? any other input will also be accepted.

More Game Ideas

I still don't know if I can use the graphics I asked the artist about-I had told her there was no hurry because I had to study for a test. Haven't been studying much though now that I feel like making a new game.

I found another set of graphics at Delightful Doodles and have obtained permission to use them to make a game. I'm not sure about what this game will be about since I don't know if I can use the other graphics to make a counting game or not. I have been thinking about how the game will work and have started putting together some ideas for different parts.

Here's a screenshot of one of the frames.



I made the room and the pedestal. The prince, princess, crown and window frame are from Delightful Doodles. The scenery outside the window is by Gina Jane Johnson, CEO and Founder of The D.A.I.S.I.E. Company.

My last problem for either game is that I do not have a Deaf person to sign for me in the videos-which is the way it should be done. It's their language not mine. I also am thinking of offering these up for sale for a minimal price since they do need high-speed internet to be able to view the videos.

Next summer is the final International Symposium on Instructional Technology and Education for the Deaf at National Technical Institute for the Deaf in Rochester, New York. If I can get a couple more games created I would like to present them in a poster session. That would be the ideal way to get the word out that there are these games available for the kids.

A New Game???

I had an absolutely awesome idea for a new game after seeing graphics by one artist. I emailed her and she is thinking over whether or not I could use them for the game. In the meantime, I can't make my brain stop thinking and planning the game. I sure hope she agrees to my use of the graphics. They would make such an awesome math counting game.

This is Getting Ridiculous

Rosemary (my supervisor during my instructional technology internship) told me today that there is a job opening at MSSD (Model Secondary School for the Deaf.) They need a combination Computer Applications teacher and Yearbook person. Not quite what I would like but definitely where I would like.

It's the same problem as Virginia School for the Deaf and Blind. It's not in Pennsylvania so Jonathan would have to go on a waiting list for services. Why are there no jobs here in Pennsylvania?

Maybe I'm supposed to just go on faith that all will work out. Wish I knew what was happening with the Mentoring grant-I would feel better not looking at the job. Of course if I just look around the house and think one month to find a place to live and move......

I really want to make changes in my job and shift more into the technology end of things. It would be so much simpler if it could happen in Pennsylvania.

Pennsylvania-possible interpreting mentorship grant and other things

I was at the interpreting summer institute Monday and Tuesday at the Nittany Lion Inn. While there we were told that Pennsylvania had applied to get a grant for a mentorship for interpreters to help them improve their skills and pass the Educational Interpeting Performance Assessment (EIPA) which the state has now set a minimum skill level of 3.5 out of 5. One thing that was also mentioned was that they plan to produce materials for practice (videos) During one of the breaks I asked if they would be hiring someone to make the materials. I was told that they did not know if they had to use people already working for PaTTAN however it would be great if they could hire me for it because I already know the field and the kinds of materials needed. They will keep me in mind when the time comes. I assume that this would be part time work but I will have to wait to find out after they get the grant. (I did make myself very useful with technology problems while I was there so I will definitely stay in their mind-besides I actually know two of the people involved so I know my name will come up if they begin discussing hiring someone.) Keeping my fingers crossed that maybe this is where I am supposed to be heading.

I finished my degree two years ago and it wasn't until last year that I submitted the paperwork for the certification. I still don't have it. Yesterday I came across the Praxis test results letter and found out that the university never received a copy of the test results. Now I know why I never received the certification.

Looking to next summer-Next year is the last International Symposium on Instructional Technology for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing at the National Technical Institute for the Deaf in Rochester, NY. I have gone to the last two and loved it. It is really great to see the things that can be used with the kids. I think that unless Rosemary (my internship supervisor) is going to show my ABC games during a presentation that I will write an abstract to submit to show them during a poster session. Even if she is going to show them I think I will try to do a poster session. It would be great if I could get more games done by next year. I'll have to start thinking about a new game. There had been a request for numbers. Colors would be another good idea.

More info about jobs

Well, I seem to have adjusted fine to not applying for the job in Virginia.

On the plus side of all this, I had a friend (the one who dragged me into PESDHH last year) offer to write me a reference. That would have been the third one I needed. Oh well. Maybe another job will appear. In the meantime, here I sit in my nice comfortable life and I don't have to get up the bravery to leave my comfort zone. I really was going to go through the process before I found out about the time frame for services. I filled out half of the application even before I found out what I needed to know.

More about jobs

I heard from Virginia School for the Deaf and Blind. The job sounds just like what I want. I have gone round and round in my mind about moving. I want the job but how in the world can I get the house ready to sell. I don't want to leave my friends. I really want a job like that.

Well I had no students today so I took time to call down to Virginia and talk to someone about services for my son. There is a good chance it will be 2-3 years before anything would happen. Not a possibility since I need him doing something during the day while I work.

Despite all my thinking, wanting and not wanting to relocate after talking to them I am feeling depressed. I thought maybe this was my chance to do what I want to do for a job. I keep thinking maybe I should continue the application maybe a miracle will happen. I don't know what to do.

A Long Post about Job Prospects

This morning I found out about an instructional technology resource teacher job at a school for the deaf and blind. My ideal setting, well the deaf part anyway. This is the first job of this nature that I have seen posted in the almost two years since I graduated. The only problem is that it is in Virginia. I tried calling them for more information but the school is closed this week. I'm not sure if this is a classroom position or if it is a more traditional instructional technology position. There is definitely staff training involved but then it talks about how the applicant should have knowledge about behavior modification techniques. It does not list experience as being required. I don't know how much computer troubleshooting/maintenance is involved or how much knowledge of networking is needed. It also says for next school year so I'm wondering if it is for only one year or if it would be ongoing.

I am weak in the computer maintenance and networking departments. My training was all in the instructional field and after just a couple years there is a lot more software out there that I would need to get to know, but I can deal with that.

Interestingly enough, since January I have been working with a deaf-blind boy and have gotten to see the effect of blindness. I can sit here rationalizing that this was God preparing me and maybe He is. But the fear of change is great and the thought of getting the house ready to sell is daunting. At least I got the new roof on, but the whole house needs to be painted and tons of stuff needs to be donated to the Salvation Army or sold at a yard sale. Then a lot still needs to be packed up and stored before I could even put it up for sale. It's enough to make me stop right now even thinking about moving.

And that is the least of my problems. There's my mother. She has beginning Alzheimer's and during this past year I have seen lots of deterioration. She lives with me. There is the distinct possibility that I will eventually have to sell anyway so that she can go into assisted living. We bought the house together. As a result of that, I have been looking at the house thinking about what I need to do to get ready to sell.

My daughter is another problem although she is thinking about moving in with one of her friends when her friend graduates from nursing school. She is only 21 and has not finished college. If she moves out I don't know that she will ever finish.

My last and biggest concern would be my son. He's 23 and has Angelman Syndrome. At this time he is still living at home. He has 15 hours a week of support staff who take him out into the community and I have two days of after school respite for about 4 hours each. I can survive without those services if need be, but he is also in a sheltered workshop/daycare setting all day. I need that or I can't work.

If I relocate I have no idea how much time would be involved in getting some kind of a day placement and setting up transportation and before and after workshop care for him if my hours are longer than his. I put out feelers to the Angelman Syndrome mail list asking for information from parents in Virginia and after I talk to the school I will contact the local Mental Retardation office for information if it looks like this is a possibility.

In the meantime, insecurity is taking hold. I don't know that I can do all of the work. Would I have to write grants? make technology plans? buy equipment? I have never done those kind of things. I really have little faith in myself sometimes and a great fear of stepping out of my nice secure world.

There is also a job at the National Technical Institute for the Deaf-an ideal place for this job-but they want three years experience and more software knowledge than I have. I would love to work there or at Gallaudet's Clerc Center.

PowerPoint Presentation Problems

They're fixed but it has been an interesting day.

• The hearing aid powerpoint in the web page did not have pictures. I had to resave it and now it has them. I don't know why it didn't work the first time.
• It turns out that people without the new beta version of powerpoint can't view the powerpoint shows, so I had to resave the ones in the download file in to the older version.
• After I did that I put the new zip file online but for some reason it would not replace the old one so everyone was still getting the old version when they downloaded it. I finally removed it completely from the old file and changed the name. Now they can get the usable version.

I'm not sure why any of these things happened but I am hoping that everything works right now. I do hate posting new stuff online becasue so much can go wrong and you don't know it until someone on another computer finds it and lets you know about it.

I also changed the color for unvisited links on the page with the downloads. I took the code from the graphics file and it turned out that all links were set for the same color as the font. Now they are a purplish/blue and are more noticeable.

PESDHH PowerPoint Presentation Posted

I got everything posted from my presentation. Hopefully it's not too cutesy-I don't have graphic arts experience so I borrowed from someone else. Thanks Grace.

Here's the link.
http://www.presentations.koolkidssign.com

Kool Kids Sign is really spreading out. Someday I will have to get back to the main site and link all the subdomains into it.

New Blog Look

I got tired of my background-it was too pink/purple so I went searching to see if I could find something I like better. I saw several things I liked but this one from Point of Focus was the only one that was clear on what to keep and what to throw away. And I love butterflies.

I'm not sure about the colors of the fonts as far as visibility goes, but I wasn't in the mood to fool around with it any more. I need to finish getting the PowerPoints posted from my PESDHH presentation.

Just pulled the blog up in Firefox and the right side bar shows up way down the side instead of where you can see it easily. I will have to play around with that later.

Next Year's PESDHH

My mind is working overtime thinking about next year. I think digital video is the way to go. The topic came up this year in one of the workshops so I think this will be where to go. I will need more time though. Last night's meeting talked about having something in the morning for the people that are here for Low Incidence workshops which have nothing on Wednesday. The 9-12 slot would be good-still not as much time as I would like but it would be a start. Of course that would mean we would not have a drop in tech lab with software reviews. Or at least not run by me.

I also need to check on computers to see how much memory they have and if they can do firewire.

Also need someone to help me who can do this stuff...

I still think Pattan itself should offer this-it could be a whole day training.

PowerPoint Games Training/PESDHH

I finished my first training. Only 6 or 7 people came-there wasn't really a description of the different workshops for the day so no one really knew what to expect. That was enough people for just me to manage.

What went wrong? What didn't go wrong!

First my computer wouldn't work with the LCD projector so I turned my screen and showed the sample games that way since it was such a small group.

Tech was able to get a different computer working with the projector by the time I was finished with the demo part so I switched to that one to teach making a PowerPoint game.

I was using a different version of PowerPoint on the new computer so things were different than I was used to but they were similar enough that I was able to work with them.

I had put two graphics on all the machines I thought, but I was wrong so I had to quickly put them on two different computers for the people using them.

When we went to insert clip art the computers we had borrowed did not have any clip art on them and the internet connections was not working so we couldn't get them from microsoft-I explained how to do that normally and I showed them how to add sound although mine did not work right.

What else went wrong? NOT ENOUGH TIME which I knew probably would happen but the directions were very exact so they should be able to follow them on their own.

All things considered it wasn't bad. The people were very interested and asked questions especially as we ran out of time so I gave quick examples of the unfinished steps.

Amazingly enough I was not at all nervous unlike last year when I did the Quizdom training for Rosemary, Julie and Bill during my internship. I thought I would feel nervous but I didn't. I was more nervous facilitating for the next session than doing mine.

One woman said she wished I could come do a training where she is (on the other side of the state from me) because even though there are people who could do it they are (not my words) mostly men and they don't break it down enough for someone who is not real skilled at a computer. I take that as a compliment that my directions and handouts were that helpful. :)

I think next year I will do something again but this time I will ask for a double session for whatever I decide to do. I'm thinking maybe something with video (I might be able to get cameras from the same place as I got the computers-got a whole year to plan but this time I will have to write a call for papers since I won't be on the planning committee for it.

Our drop in tech lab was also helpful. I had different software installed on the computers and people were able to play with them to see what they were like. They liked many of the different ones that I had.

PowerPoint Games Presentation and One Note 2007 Beta

Well, I'm going to do it. I am scheduled to do a 90 minute training/presentation at the Pennsylvania Educators of Students who are Deaf and Hard of Hearing Convocation at State College, PA on August 2.

I am going to show different games that have been made and then show them how to make a game.

I downloaded Microsoft Office 2007 beta and One Note 2007 beta to see what they are like. They do not save files in the traditional format anymore and the beta will become unusable in February when the final version releases so everything will have to be specially saved to use with old versions or buy the new version.

Anyway the point of that was that One Note 2007 beta has made making handouts real easy. Instead of having to do a Print Screen and then put it into a graphics program and then crop the picture to the part of the screen I want, you can start One Note and then click the Windows key and the S key and then just highlight the part of the screen that you want to copy and paste it into the program you want to use it in.

ABC Game Auditory Finished

Long time no post.

I finally had time to work on the auditory version of the ABC game. I only have one version so far using a female voice. I had trouble remembering what I was doing with flash it had been so long. I had to search through the old games to figure out how to unload a movie.

I want to put the ABC song in the preloader but so far I haven't found a royalty free version. I'm not even sure that the song would be available royalty free. From what wikipedia says I think it may be copyright free-it was copyrighted in the late 1800s which seems to put it in public domain.

Anyway here is my latest game.

If you find anything wrong drop me a note here. I'm going to try it out a few times from different locations before I list in on the website.

ABC Game

The capital letter version of the game is finished!

I recorded a male voice for the auditory version yesterday which I will edit and put into the game today. I have made arrangements to record a child's voice and hopefully for the preloader with the ABCs I will be able to add the ABC song which the child will also record. I looked online for a free sound file of it but much to my amazement there is porn attached to that search topic.:(

Brown Bear, Brown Bear

I saw something today that reminded me of the book Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What do You See? It's very popular in kindergarten and 1st grades. They usually read the book and then make a class book following the same format.

I thought of a two ways to do that using sign language, both using technology.

Idea 1-Using a digital camera photograph each child full body. Remove the background from around the child on the computer and make a picture with two children. Photograph the first child signing "I see (child's name) following me" and put that on the bottom of the page. On the next page add a third child to the line of children and have the second child sign the sentence.





Idea 2-Using a digital camera photograph each child full body. Remove the background from around the child on the computer and make a picture with two children on a powerpoint slide. Videotape the first child signing "I see (child's name) following me" and put that on the bottom of the page. On the next page add a third child to the line of children and have the second child sign the sentence. Here's a rough idea of what I mean. I just did it real fast in flash to get the idea since Powerpoint doesn't post video online.

Kool Kids Sign and ABC Game

Bad news. I finished reading the grant information and Kool Kids Sign does not qualify for a grant. Maybe some day I will find a grant.

I worked on the ABC game again today. I made a capital letter version and a matching capital and lowercase version. I ran into a problem with some of the capital letters being too big. I need to go back through and adjust the background to accomodate that. I tried just changing the size of the font but it doesn't look right. Maybe by tomorrow night I will be done and can post it to the Kool Kids Sign website. Then I will burn a cd for Ruth who took time to let me videotape her for the game. I will also send Rosemary the final version too. And finally one of the preschool teachers asked for a capital letter version so I need to make her one too.

Oh I forgot. I wanted to make an aural version for the hard of hearing and cochlear implant kids. I still need to do that too. I guess I will hold off on the cd's for now. I had talked to our Auditory Verbal teacher about that version. I think I want to make a female, male and child version of the words and letters. I need to make a list of what I want to record and then find people to do them. Maybe I will use my daughter for the female version.

BTW Saturday I take the Praxis reading, writing and math test to prove to the state that I can do those things so I can get my certification for instructional technology. I'll know there if I pass the reading and math but I will have to wait for the writing score. I'm a little worried about the writing part. I am not a strong writer and looking at many of the sample questions I would not know what to write.