Monday, July 25, 2011

1 Year Anniversary

Wow! It amazes me that a year has elapsed since I began this blog. I never dreamed it would be so well received, and that so many of you would enjoy reading it and encourage us to share more with you. Thank you dear readers! Our hope (and goal) always has been and always will be to make your work life just a little bit easier by sharing a tip, a trick, or a new idea to an old problem.

I veered off my yearly outline a time or two so that means there are a few more blogs to come before I embark on developing a new outline for this year. For now, I want to spend a couple of weeks with a review of the various series from last year that will help you get this year off on the right foot. I'm going to talk about each series as a whole, that way if there is a topic you are interested in you'll have it all in one cohesive place.

Our first series was Back to School Screenings and Evaluations In this series we discussed:
1. The oral mechanism and why to take the time to do a thorough exam the first time around http://2galsspeechproducts.blogspot.com/2010/08/back-to-school-screenings-and.html
2. Tips for checking for nasality http://2galsspeechproducts.blogspot.com/2010/08/back-to-school-screenings-and_15.html
3. 3 clinical signs of a submucous clefts http://2galsspeechproducts.blogspot.com/2010/08/back-to-school-screenings-and_22.html
4. A refresher on S/Z ratios http://2galsspeechproducts.blogspot.com/2010/08/back-to-school-screenings-and_30.html
5. General guidelines for sound mastery http://2galsspeechproducts.blogspot.com/2010/09/back-to-school-mastery-guidelines-part.html
6. Scheduling software by Caselite http://2galsspeechproducts.blogspot.com/2010/09/back-to-school-part-6-scheduling.html

Our second series was Organization It was a six part series focusing on how to organize yourself and your therapy room. This was basically for that first year therapist who is overwhelmed with all that is ahead of him/her.
1. Using milk crates for storage http://2galsspeechproducts.blogspot.com/2010/09/organization-part-1-milk-crates.html
2. How we organize and use "working folders" http://2galsspeechproducts.blogspot.com/2010/09/organization-part-2-working.html
3. Homework slips http://2galsspeechproducts.blogspot.com/2010/10/organization-part-3-homework-slips.html
4. Using craft baskets in your therapy room http://2galsspeechproducts.blogspot.com/2010/10/organization-part-4-craft-baskets.html
5. Using a clip board http://2galsspeechproducts.blogspot.com/2010/10/organization-part-5-clipboards.html
6. Utility Bins http://2galsspeechproducts.blogspot.com/2010/10/organization-part-6-utility-bins.html

I feel this succinctly summarizes those first two series and will help you organize your therapy space and refresh your memory before you begin your school year this year.

As always we hope you have fun with your kids and enjoy your days with them.

(And yes, we hope you'll visit our website http://www.2galsspeechproducts.com/v2/ to look at the products we have developed that will make your therapy day easier and more fun for your kids)

Leah and Dean

Monday, July 11, 2011

Guest Blog- 6 Using Social Networks to Increase Professional Learning Opportunities

Today marks the final entry from our lexical linguist, Tanya Coyle. We sincerely appreciate her generosity in allowing us to repost all her blog entries regarding social media. Leah and i hope you will continue to read Tanya's blog at http://lexicallinguist.wordpress.com/

This blog post is meant to list the resources we are citing at our CASLPA2011 presentation in order for people to reflect on them later (and ask questions in the comments). It is also so that people who couldd not be inn Montreal today, can participate – of sorts- and in some ways ‘watch’ the presentation live or after the fact.

Here is the prezi we are using during the presentation – it outlines the majority of the information and contains video clips. We STRONGLY SUGGEST you view it in full screen for the best effect – especially during video clips embedded in the presentation.

Here is the handout for our presentation with links to various sites we discussed during the presentation. I am unsure how long they will remain on the CASLPA website so here is the list of resources and links we provided in the handout.