New REAP Job Openings

Dear Reap Applicant,

   We are pleased to announce that there are new job openings in one or more of the categories in which you have expressed an interest.

   Each job description has a link identified by the words, "Click Here to View Details," to allow you see the actual job listing in REAP. The job details will be displayed in your web browser, and you can respond to the job from there.

   Tip: After reading the details of the first job, minimize (don't close) your browser when you are ready to return to this message. Then click on the next job in this message. This will allow you to use your browser's "Back" button to retrieve your last job.

   But act fast, these jobs tend to fill quickly!

Note:  If you are no longer interested in receiving these notifications, please update your REAP Application: If you are no longer seeking employment, place your REAP Application on "Hold." Otherwise, update the "Job Preferences" section of your REAP Application to indicate whether you wish to receive email notifications. Help is available at the REAP Help Desk: (800) 288-8115.

The following jobs have been posted since our last message:

District Name: Carlsbad Municipal Schools
Position Type: Instructional Support Positions
Position Name: All Other Positions
Preferred Category: Special Education
Description (partial): Sign Language Interpreter. Must have or be eligible for New Mexico licensure. Salary based on education, training
Click Here to View Details

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New REAP Job Openings

Dear Reap Applicant,

   We are pleased to announce that there are new job openings in one or more of the categories in which you have expressed an interest.

   Each job description has a link identified by the words, "Click Here to View Details," to allow you see the actual job listing in REAP. The job details will be displayed in your web browser, and you can respond to the job from there.

   Tip: After reading the details of the first job, minimize (don't close) your browser when you are ready to return to this message. Then click on the next job in this message. This will allow you to use your browser's "Back" button to retrieve your last job.

   But act fast, these jobs tend to fill quickly!

Note:  If you are no longer interested in receiving these notifications, please update your REAP Application: If you are no longer seeking employment, place your REAP Application on "Hold." Otherwise, update the "Job Preferences" section of your REAP Application to indicate whether you wish to receive email notifications. Help is available at the REAP Help Desk: (800) 288-8115.

The following jobs have been posted since our last message:

District Name: Gallup McKinley County Schools
Position Type: Teaching Positions
Position Name: Classroom Teacher
Subject Name: Special Education
Preferred Category: Special Education
Description (partial): To provide educational services and carry out programs to average and gifted students, students with physical and
Click Here to View Details

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District Name: Gallup McKinley County Schools
Position Type: Instructional Support Positions
Position Name: Speech-Language Therapist / Pathologist
Preferred Category: Special Education
Description (partial): To facilitate reduction or elimination of speech, language and aural impairments that interfere with the individual
Click Here to View Details

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District Name: Gallup McKinley County Schools
Position Type: Instructional Support Positions
Position Name: Psychologist
Preferred Category: Special Education
Description (partial): To provide psychological services by evaluating the needs of children within the Gallup-McKinley County School
Click Here to View Details

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District Name: Gallup McKinley County Schools
Position Type: Instructional Support Positions
Position Name: Hearing Therapist
Preferred Category: Special Education
Description (partial): Teacher of the Deaf/Hard of Hearing Instructs students and teachers in various forms of communication
Click Here to View Details

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District Name: Gallup McKinley County Schools
Position Type: Instructional Support Positions
Position Name: Vision Therapist
Preferred Category: Special Education
Description (partial): Teacher of the Visually Impaired, Provide direct and indirect services to students who are
Click Here to View Details

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New Mexico Reap Hiring As of March 01, 2011

Source: NMReap

Challenge Day

Challenge Day is a 501 c(3)non-profit organization that helps people learn to connect through powerful, life-changing programs in their schools and communities. The day-long, interactive Challenge Day program provides teens and adults with tools to tear down the walls of separation, and inspires participants to live, study, and work in an encouraging environment of acceptance, love, and respect.

Using highly interactive and energetic activities, Challenge Day Leaders guide participants through a carefully designed exploration of the ways people separate from each other, and model tools for creating connection and building community.

Challenge Day programs increase self-esteem, help shift dangerous peer pressure to positive peer support, and reduce the acceptability of teasing, oppression, and all forms of violence. Our programs inspire youth and communities to Be the Change they wish to see in the world, and challenge others to do the same.

Source: Challenge Day

Challenge Day Org

New REAP Job Openings

Dear Reap Applicant,

   We are pleased to announce that there are new job openings in one or more of the categories in which you have expressed an interest.

   Each job description has a link identified by the words, "Click Here to View Details," to allow you see the actual job listing in REAP. The job details will be displayed in your web browser, and you can respond to the job from there.

   Tip: After reading the details of the first job, minimize (don't close) your browser when you are ready to return to this message. Then click on the next job in this message. This will allow you to use your browser's "Back" button to retrieve your last job.

   But act fast, these jobs tend to fill quickly!

Note:  If you are no longer interested in receiving these notifications, please update your REAP Application: If you are no longer seeking employment, place your REAP Application on "Hold." Otherwise, update the "Job Preferences" section of your REAP Application to indicate whether you wish to receive email notifications. Help is available at the REAP Help Desk: (800) 288-8115.

The following jobs have been posted since our last message:

District Name: Espanola Public School District #55
Position Type: Teaching Positions
Position Name: Classroom Teacher
Subject Name: Special Education
Preferred Category: Special Education
Description (partial): This position is teaching behavior and Emotional Disorrder students K-6 and 7-8. Must possess a NMPED Special
Click Here to View Details

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District Name: Taos Municipal Schools
Position Type: Teaching Positions
Position Name: Classroom Teacher
Subject Name: Special Education
Preferred Category: Special Education
Description (partial): Certified Special Education Teacher licensed by the NMPED to provide special education services in a secondary
Click Here to View Details

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District Name: Taos Municipal Schools
Position Type: Instructional Support Positions
Position Name: Speech-Language Therapist / Pathologist
Preferred Category: Special Education
Description (partial): Minimum of MA Degree from accredited college/university with current New Mexico Public Education Department
Click Here to View Details

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Spelling City

Spellingcity.com is a free spelling website that makes teaching spelling exciting. SpellingCity provides students a simple online way to take a practice spelling test. But that is only the beginning.

With SpellingCity's online spelling games, simplicity of creating and saving lists, activities that teach word meaning and writing skills, and ease and fun of use, your students will learn their weekly spelling words with unprecedented enthusiasm. Want to see how it works?

IPad Opens World to a Disabled Boy

FIRST TIME Owen Cain in August with his new iPad. His mother, Ellen Goldstein, and brother, Nathaniel, helped.

OWEN CAIN depends on a respirator and struggles to make even the slightest movements — he has had a debilitating motor-neuron disease since infancy.

Owen, 7, does not have the strength to maneuver a computer mouse, but when a nurse propped her boyfriend’siPad within reach in June, he did something his mother had never seen before.

He aimed his left pointer finger at an icon on the screen, touched it — just barely — and opened the application Gravitarium, which plays music as users create landscapes of stars on the screen. Over the years, Owen’s parents had tried several computerized communications contraptions to give him an escape from his disability, but the iPad was the first that worked on the first try.

“We have spent all this time keeping him alive, and now we owe him more than that,” said his mother, Ellen Goldstein, a vice president at the Times Square Alliance business association. “I see his ability to communicate and to learn as a big part of that challenge — not all of it, but a big part of it. And so, that’s my responsibility.”

Since its debut in April, the iPad has become a popular therapeutic tool for people with disabilities of all kinds, though no one keeps track of how many are used this way, and studies are just getting under way to test its effectiveness, which varies widely depending on diagnosis.

A speech pathologist at Walter Reed Army Medical Center uses text-to-speech applications to give patients a voice. Christopher Bulger, a 16-year-old in Chicago who injured his spine in a car accident, used an iPad to surf the Internet during the early stages of his rehabilitation, when his hands were clenched into fists. “It was nice because you progressed from the knuckle to the finger to using more than one knuckle on the screen,” he said.

Parents of autistic children are using applications to teach them basic skills, like brushing teeth and communicating better.

For a mainstream technological device like the iPad to have been instantly embraced by the disabled is unusual. It is far more common for items designed for disabled people to be adapted for general use, like closed-captioning on televisions in gyms or GPS devices in cars that announce directions. Also, most mainstream devices do not come with built-ins like the iPad’s closed-captioning, magnification and audible readout functions — which were intended to keep it simple for all users, but also help disabled people.

“Making things less complicated can actually make a lot of money,” said Gregg C. Vanderheiden, an engineering professor at the University of Wisconsin at Madison who has worked on accessibility issues for decades.

Representative Edward J. Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat, who wrote recently enacted legislation that will require mobile devices to be more accessible to users with disabilities, said approximately three-fourths of communications and video devices need to be adapted for blind and deaf people. “Apple,” he said in a statement, “is an outlier when it comes to devices that are accessible out of the box.”

The iPad is also, generally speaking, less expensive than computers and other gadgets specifically designed to help disabled people speak, read or write. While insurers usually do not cover the cost of mobile devices like the iPad because they are not medical equipment, in some cases they will pay for the applications that run on them.

In Owen’s case, his grandmother bought him a $600 iPad in August, and his parents have invested about $200 more in software. One day this summer, his finger dangled over the title page of “Alice in Wonderland” on his iPad while his mother hovered over his shoulder in their Brooklyn home. Then, with the tiniest of movements, and thanks to the sensitivity of the iPad’s touch screen, Owen began to turn the pages of the book. “You are reading a book on your own, Owen!” Ms. Goldstein, 44, exclaimed. “That is completely wonderful.”

But while the sensitivity of the iPad’s touch screen makes it promising for Owen, it can be problematic for others, like Glenda Watson Hyatt, a blogger in Surrey, British Columbia, who has cerebral palsy. “When ‘flipping’ screens, sometimes I flip more than one screen,” Ms. Hyatt wrote in an interview conducted by e-mail. “Or I touch what I didn’t intend to.”

Still, Ms. Hyatt said that when she was having trouble chatting with friends at a bar recently, she pulled out her iPad to help communicate and felt normal. “People were drawn to it because it was a ‘recognized’ or ‘known’ piece of technology,” she wrote in a blog post reviewing the device.

At the Shepherd Center, a spinal cord rehabilitation clinic in Atlanta, some teenage quadriplegics have received iPads as gifts, but they do not work well for those who rely on a mouse stick — basically a long pen controlled by mouth.

“It wants to see a finger,” said John Anschutz, the manager of the assistive technology program at Shepherd. “It really requires the quality of skin and body mass to operate.”

For Owen Cain, whose disease is physical, not mental, the iPad has limitations, too. Moving his finger all the way across the keypad remains a challenge, and makes writing difficult. Ms. Goldstein said its versatility and affordability, though, were a boon. He has been experimenting with a variety of applications — Proloquo2Go, which allows him to touch an icon that prompts the device to speak things like, “I need to go to the bathroom”; Math Magic, which helps him practice arithmetic; and Animal Match, a memory game.

“If all you’re worrying about is ‘I can try this program, or I can try that program, I can buy that app or I can buy this app,’ and the investment is so much lower,” his mother said, “then our ability to explore or experiment with different things is so much bigger.”

When Owen was about 8 weeks old, his mother noticed his right arm drooping. It led to a crushing diagnosis: the motor-neuron disease known as spinal muscular atrophy Type 1. A 2003 New York Times article about spinal muscular atrophy said his parents had been told Owen would be “paralyzed for his life, which doctors predicted would last no more than about two years.”

Owen will turn 8 on Nov. 11. While his condition is not expected to worsen, he is extremely sensitive to infection and once nearly died of pneumonia; three specialized therapists and a nurse help keep him alive.

Though he cannot speak, his parents have taught him to read, write and do math. He has an impish sense of humor and a love of “Star Wars.” “He’s a normal child trapped in a not normal body,” said his father, Hamilton Cain, 45, a book editor.

Since he received the iPad, Owen has been trying to read books, and playing around with apps like Air Guitar. And, one day, he typed out on the keypad, “I want to be Han Solo for Halloween.”

Source: NY Times IPad Opens World to a Disabled Boy

Discovery: Puzzlemaker!

Puzzlemaker!Puzzlemaker is a puzzle generation tool for teachers, students and parents. Create and print customized word search, criss-cross, math puzzles, and more—using your own word lists

Source: Discovery PuzzleMaker

Khan Academy

The Khan Academy is all about using video to explain the world, so what better way to explain the Khan Academy than through videos. If you watch four or five of the videos below, you should have a pretty good idea of how we got started and how we hope to empower everyone, everywhere with a free, world-class education. If you don't have a broadband connection or aren't someplace nice to watch a video, try out theFrequently Asked Questions tab to better understand our motivations.

Source: Khan Academy

Shortage of special-education teachers felt in New Mexico

Parents urged to demand special education services

By Christine Rogel crogel@lcsun-news.com

Posted: 09/20/2010 12:04:53 AM MDT

LAS CRUCES - Christina Parra's 2-year-old son was diagnosed with autism in Albuquerque earlier this year. When she returned to Las Cruces, there were few resources to turn to for help, she said.

"We really felt like there was no where for us to go," Parra said.

"If parents have a gut feeling that something is going on with their child, be persistent, and don't let professionals brush them off and say they will grow out of it. I hear that a lot," Parra said. "If parents and grandparents are concerned, find someone who will listen."

By federal law, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act of 2004 requires that special education services are provided at no cost to families. Approximately 10 percent of students in the U.S. are identified as having a disability and a majority of these 6.5 million students receive instruction in general education classroom settings with the assistance of specially trained teachers, said Anne Gallegos, department head of New Mexico State University's Special Education and Communication Disorders program.

Where are the teachers?

Despite the critical needs of students receiving special education services, there is a dramatic shortage of qualified teachers in the field and nationwide; 98 percent of U.S. schools report shortages of special education teachers, with the greatest demand being in low-income and rural regions, Gallegos said.

The U.S. Department of Education lists special education and bilingual

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education as the two most significant areas of teacher shortages nationwide for the 2010-2011 school year, a problem that has persisted in New Mexico for the past 10 years.

In New Mexico, there are nearly 200 vacancies for personnel positions, which includes speech language pathologists, physical therapists, occupational therapists, counselors and school psychologists, according to Gallegos' research.

In Las Cruces, classes are under way, yet the district is in need of 16 special education teachers, including 11 who are speech and language pathologists, Jim Nesbitt, LCPS human resources director, said.

While the district scouts for these teachers, students receive compensatory services, where they take summer classes to make up for services they missed during the school year, Nesbitt said.

"They get the services they need, just not during the regular school time," he said.

Nesbitt said the district has broadened its recruitment methods and four recent hires for speech pathologists were from Spain and the Philippines. Additionally, LCPS contracts with 14 private practice speech pathologists. Though it's more costly, the district has few other options, Nesbitt said.

"We can't compete with the salaries that the private industry pays - hospitals, rehab centers - we can't touch them. They almost double our pay," Nesbitt said. "So that's a big stumbling block, too, we just can't pay them enough."

Shortages are caused by high turnover rates, heavy workload, significant paperwork demands, and the wide variety of job roles given to teachers and therapists, Gallegos said.

High turnover, high cost

The annual attrition rate for special educators is nearly twice that of other educators. In a three-year period, more than 20 percent of special education teachers will likely leave their jobs, according to an April report of the Council for Exceptional Children, an international organization working to improve education for individuals with disabilities or gifted students.

Additionally, Gallegos said the issue is compounded by the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), the law that governs elementary and secondary education in the U.S., which requires that all teachers are "highly qualified" in the content areas they teach. For individuals preparing to become special education teachers, the law requires that they pass certification exams in both special education and elementary or secondary education content and methodologies, she said.

For most teacher candidates in special education, this means earning a double major, which is both more timely and more expensive, Gallegos said. And around 45,000 special educators nationwide are not recognized as highly qualified teachers as mandated by NCLB, the Council for Exceptional Children said.

School districts can hire individuals wanting to become special education teachers and who have a bachelor's degree outside of education on the condition that they complete an alternative licensure program in special education within three years, she said. And while the alternative program quickly places more teachers in classrooms, the turnover rate in classes for students with multiple or severe disabilities is high.

Austin Milbourn, a senior at Mayfield High School with autism, has taken compensatory summer classes æsince middle school, his father, Gary Milbourn, said. In addition, Austin takes speech therapy classes at Mayfield and at the Edgar R. Garrett Speech and Hearing Center at New Mexico State University.

In high school, Austin takes both special education classes and standard high school classes. A full-time aide goes to class with him to review discussions as understanding conversational language presents a challenge for his son, Gary Milbourn said.

The school district provides the service as part of his Individualized Educational Program (IEP), which details special education services a student receives under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.

Milbourn said these services are absolutely critical to his son's education.

"With budgeting issues it's something you frankly have to make sure is in place, if you just left it up to the system there's a good chance he wouldn't get an aid and he'd be relegated to special ed only type of curriculum," Milbourn said. "It's incumbent upon parents to make sure the services and assistance's are in place for their kids. There are a lot of parents who don't know what their rights are for this kids."

Christine Rogel can be reached at (575) 541-5424.

By the numbers

LCPS special education students:

•Gifted: 1,791 students

•Speech language: 1,555 students

•Specific learning disability: 1,237 students

•Other health impaired (Example, ADD or ADHA): 321 students

•Emotionally disturbed: 219 students

•Autistic: 109 students

•Mentally retarded: 103 students

•Hearing impaired: 53 students

•Multiple disabled: 49 students

•Developmentally delayed: 45 students

•Other impairments with medical diagnosis: 28 students

•Traumatic brain injury: 17 students

•Visually impaired: 12 students

•Total students, including gifted: 5,539

•Male students: 3,355 students

•Female: 2,184 students

•Total special education teachers: 273

•Total LCPS enrollment: 24,926

Source: Las Cruces Public Schools

Resources for parents and educators

•Asperger's Lunch Brunch Support Group: noon to 1 p.m. every Monday through Nov. 8. Focuses on issues from handwriting to aggression. Discussions are guided by the book "Parenting a Child with Aspergers" by Brenda Boyd. To register, call Lori Comallie-Caplan (575) 527-5918.

•The Edgar R. Garrett Speech and Hearing Center, on NMSU's campus: charges minimal fees for therapy and provides year-round services in English and Spanish. For appointments call: (575) 646-3906

•The Early Childhood Developmentally Delayed Program: a family oriented program offering social services, family counseling and parental involvement for families of 3 and 4 year-old children with developmental delays. LCPS Special Education Department: (575) 527-5901

•Aprendamos, an early intervention service that identifies children with disabilities ages birth to 3, and assists families. Call for information: (575) 526-6682

•Sensory Kids of New Mexico: provides resources and support for families with autism, sensory processing and other developmental challenges. Call Christina Parra: (575) 635-9481

•The Family Infant Toddler Program of the Department of Health: an early intervention program for children from birth to three years old. At no cost to the families, the FIT program provides therapies, service coordination, and special instruction through three providers in Dona Ana County. For more information visit: www.trescoinc.org and/or www.fitprogram.org For more information and additional resources visit: http://www.lcps.k12.nm.us/departments/SPED/index.shtml

Source

My Online Education Plan

This is a Literacy website with a 5 day lesson plan , and 2 weeks activity plan. I made this website for the students to use if they want to check-out the lesson online.

This type of activity is very interesting for the students, they can go online and do the online activities and it will expose them to the use of the Internet.

I based this from the book we are using in the classroom Glencoe's Social Studies- Economics "Principles and Practices"

Webspiration

Introducing Webspiration®, the online visual thinking, learning and collaboration tool for students, teachers, and thinkers everywhere. Brainstorm ideas, visualize concepts, organize information and collaborate with others anytime, anywhere. With Webspiration, assignments and work are always available, automatically saved, and stored online. Collaboration and peer review are easy. Everyone you invite creates, edits and comments on the same document. Whether working individually or with a group, Webspiration is the perfect tool for visual thinking, writing, studying and learning.


Source: http://mywebspiration.com/

Picturetrail

Another website that you can use in your classroom. Picturetrail is best use to create wonderful slideshow presentations and picture examples that you can show in your class.

It is not only easy to use but there are a lot of templates that you can choose from while making your slideshow presentation.

Here below is a sample slideshow on how you can use Picturetrail.

That Quiz

This is probably one of the best teaching tool website that I have found here. http://www.thatquiz.org/ is truly a website that you can use in your classes to teach children different subject areas such as Math, English, Geography and Vocabulary.

You can also personalized your own exams by signing up with your own account and create quiz for the whole class. Try it now and you can enjoy the benefits of this wonderful website.

Source: Thatquiz.org

HOW DO I APPLY FOR MY SPECIAL EDUCATION CREDENTIAL?

You may apply directly to the Commission for your initial credential by submitting an application packet consisting of all of the following:
A completed application [PDF]

Completed Livescan receipt [PDF], if not previously submitted to the Commission. Out-of-state residents (with out-of-state addresses) have the option of submitting two fingerprint cards (FD-258), in lieu of a LiveScan receipt. If submitting fingerprint cards, current fingerprint processing fees must accompany the application packet. Fingerprint cards may be ordered by sending an e-mail to the Commission at credentials@ctc.ca.gov.

Application processing fee [PDF]

Official transcripts, letters of experience, photocopies of out-of-state credentials, verification of completion of the basic skills requirement, and performance evaluations as required by the option you apply under. California has three options for qualifying out-of-state prepared teachers. Review each option to determine which is best for you.

Source: CTC