June 21st, 2010
Today was all about Disability Services. An overview:
Our mission...
The Office of Disability Services (ODS) works in partnership with the greater College community to facilitate equal access for students with disabilities to the educational programs, services and activities of Parkland College in accordance with federal law.
Our goals...
- to help students determine, access, and use academic accommodations;
- to equip students having disabilities with the technical resources that help them reach their educational goals;
- to foster an environment that encourages personal and academic growth and facilitates independence;
- to help students understand their abilities and needs, as well as the resources available to them;
- and to be an educational resource on disabilities concerns for our students, faculty, staff, and community.
Coordinator Becky Osborne and Associate Coordinator Nancy Rowley met me first thing in the morning. Since Secretary Kris Murray was out of the office today, I served as her temporary replacement and I might add that I performed my duties without messing up her desk.
The first order of business was familiarization with processes of how to answer the phone, schedule appointments for testing and assessment of services, send notices to faculty about tests that were completed, etc.
Most of the morning was spent on student appointments, some drop-in traffic, and a visit by Troy Burns to review the facilities. I was scheduled to help a student transcribe a test in a Spanish 100 since I have a little bit of background in that subject, but our student had to drop the course. Lo Siento.
I met Ian Thurow, an EIU student that volunteers 5 hours per day, Monday through Thursday in the office. Ian has an interest in working in the Student Services field and has decided that offering his services in the office will give him some exposure and assistance in making his career choice. Congratulations and thanks, Ian.
Left to right: Ian Thurow (EIU Psychology Student), Nancy Rowley (Associate Coordinator), Becky Osborne (Coordinator).
Nancy Rowley demoed some of the assistive technology that the office and students use in cases of low vision in particular. Read/Write Gold in particular is such a useful piece of software that has application for many kinds of learners. The software has come a long way, useful for students with physical impairments as well as for student that have different learning styles (auditory v. visual). It will read webpages, PDF and Word docs, look up definitions, offer predictive vocabulary suggestions on the fly as well. Very nice.
Thanks to Becky and Nancy for hosting me.
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