Listen to SeroTalk Podcast 200: I’m Doing, Peace Out
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Welcome to the 200th episode of the SeroTalk podcast. Our thanks go out to Andre Louis and Patrick Purdue of PD Audio Productions for the new theme music that you will hear on the SeroTalk Podcast from this point forward. Jamie, Ricky and Joe reflect on how far the SeroTalk Podcast and SPN have come over the years. We also discuss the top news stories of the week. After the news, Lisa Salinger reviews Status Report, an iOS app that lets you read the most recent 100 status updates from your favorite social media services. Finally, Jamie Pauls, Patrick Purdue and Buddy Brannan take a look at the Bradley timepiece. Stories discussed in this episode of the podcast include:
48 billion bucks later, ATnT buys Directtv
Google takes Twitch for YouTube
Peace in our time, Apple V Google
Apple Releases OS X Mavericks 10.9.3
Seven Unsung Built-In Gems of Mac OS X
Apple’s iCloud punishes you for being a good customer
Why high bit-rate and HD audio are all about marketing, not music
iPhone Calls Sound Weird? Try Turning Off Phone Noise Cancelation in iOS
My Initial Thoughts on the RNIB Navigator App
Foursquare’s Swarm And The Rise Of The Invisible App
Pay for Google Play stuff with PayPal around the world
Psst! Wearable Devices Could Make Big Tech Leaps, Into Your Ear
The Next Big Thing You Missed: One Day, You’ll Google the Physical World With a Scanner Like This
The Trick That Makes Google’s Self-Driving Cars Work
New Urgency for Tighter Drone Rules After Near Crash
a nod to the past, Robot Guide Dogs?
Text-to-911 is here, but it isn’t everything you might think
Windows Phone 8.1 Launching June 24
Microsoft sticking to its guns so far, leaving XP unpatched and exploited
Roundabout
Got Gas? It Could Mean You’ve Got Healthy Gut Microbes
The Utopian Origins of Restroom Symbols
After 32 years, town lifts arcade game ban
A visit to Galloping Ghost, the largest video game arcade in the USA
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Thanks for all of the great content that you guys and gals provide every week. Also, can’t wait for the next EOL show!
I wanted to speak to the comments about Aids in the classrooms, or it seems the word has changed to paraprofessionals these days. Both of my girls are completely blind, as am I. For most of the time I spent in public schools, and I did attend several, we had what they called a resource room. This meant all the blind and visually impaired kids went to one school in the area, and at that time, it was rarely even in the town in which I lived. We never had a shadow with in our classes. I never saw that until I started working as the “paraprofessional” in a school district, and then had kids of my own. I fought for years to get that shadow removed from my girls’ rooms, unless it was completely necessary. I noticed that my girls, especially my oldest, were depending on these connections for everything from orientation to classroom work to even friendships. I finally won the battle by getting my kids into a district where never is a paraprofessional shadow used. The girls attend their neighborhood school, ride the regular school bus, and attend class as their peers do. They each have a teacher for the visually impaired (TVI) who comes and works with them for the hours specified by their IEP teams. They also each have a brailest who spends some of that time with them so that they get to know them and what their needs are. This way, they can taylor their brailing to their individual needs. They do some pull-out time, where braille skills and such are worked on in a room the school has set aside for them, called the “braille room.” They have also incorporated push-in time, where if one of them is lagging behind in a subject for some reason, the TVI or brailest can come in and see where the problem is, and they can hoan in on those specifics if need be. As Josh mentioned, sometimes having someone to help out with things like dictation for pop quizzes, especially in subjects such as math, is necessary. If the problem is behavioral, then it is dealt with as with any other student. Sometimes a teacher may just need a refresher on how to handle certain situations, or maybe needs a reminder that the VI team is there. While this is an ideal setup for my girls, unfortunately a lot of districts aren’t willing to put the money toward a vision program such as this, or they don’t have the money to do so. Some districts still have the magnet school where the BVI kids all attend, while others have contracted their TVI’s out to several other districts. I believe it is extremely important to continue as blind people and as organizations to work together to educate parents as to what their expectations of their districts should be. Also, any time we get a chance to mentor a young BVI person, we should take it.