It is Thursday. In our group discussion we are getting ready for tomorrow's presentations, which I am sure will be very exciting.
It has been a great week so far, and despite of being tired trying to absorve all the information the presenters have prepared for us, I wish I could stay just another week.
I also wish we had all the materials in different formats. It would have been great to have all presentations and articles also on a digital format, so we could make our notes , add or comments and save them in our laptop. Some of us hate handwriting. In my case, I feel that I miss parts of the presentation while trying to keep up with my notes.

Good Day friends:
Here is a picture from our afternoon meeting/drawing before going to celebrate 4th of July




Some pictures about last night's fireworks. We came back walking from Boston all the way to Harvard Square around midnight and I must confess, I am not 25 anymore! Today, I did not want to get up from bed!

Boats started arriving around 5:PM. My colleague and I tried to find where we could rent one but were not able to find one available!

Here is a great tool to help provide students with multiple means of expression, to provide students with alternatives for demonstrating what they have learned:

http://www.education.smarttech.com/ste/en-US/Ed+Resource/

It is quite easy to write a grant to get Smartboards to your school. To learn more about it, please visit:
http://www.smarterkids.org/

Here is a great resource for non expensive programs presented on a suite which contains the following:

Scan & Read Pro©, Text-to-Audio©, Talking Word Processor©, Text Cloner Pro©, Talking Calculator©, Scan and View©, Complete Reading System©, Universal Reader©, Universal Reader PLUS©, Universal Reader IGT©, OFF Limits© The Talking Web Browser, PDF Magic Pro©, The Ultimate Talking Dictionary©, Predictor Pro© Word Prediction, The Talking Checkbook©, E-Library©, E-Text Reader©, E-Text Reader IGT©, Premier CD/DVD Creator© and Key to Access
This company's mission is to enrich and improve the lives of millions of people worldwide by making information truly accessible through the use of affordable technology. Contact them and request a grant for a year for all of their ptograms. You will have enough time to evaluate them and decide if they are good for your population. After a year, you only pay a small fee for updates. Enjoy!

http://www.premier-programming.com/

More pictures from last night's rehersal...

The Boston Pops Director announcing AeroSmith coming.

I tried to upload a short video clip I took but the Blogger does not allow videos. If anyone has an answer to this question, I would appreciate some feedback. This could be a great feature in school if our suudents would like to share some videos about their academic and /or social activities.
I got a little frustrated with he videos issue, so what I did was to freeze some shots from the original video and here they are.

Boston Pops Director and the Boston Pops

The Rockapela Group:

and finally Aerosmith!!!

I am delighted to be part of the Universal Design for Learning Summer Institute, 2006. I am sure it will be a great learning experience for all of us.
Here are some pictures from our yesterday's reception. we had a good time. Thanks Kate and all!
I am also posting some pictures from the 4th of July concert's rehersal, for those of you who will miss it tonight! I had a great seat last night and enjoyed every minute of it. I am ready for the fireworks!
July 3rd. Geting ready on our first day








Our reception dinner.








Are you ready for the fireworks? here is a taste of the rehersal concert:

Hello visitors and future friends, my name is Estella Landeros-Dugourd. I am the Assistive Technology Coordinator, Virginia Department of Education, Training and Technical Assistance Center (T/TAC), Region 4, Helen Kellar Institute for Human disAbilities, GMU (http://kihd.gmu.edu)
I am in charge of providing training and technical assistance that focus on using assistive technology (AT) for academic and job inclusion. I have received a B.A. in Education K-12 from Direction of Professional Development, and a B.A. in Special Education with emphasis in Severely and Multiply Handicapped at the School for Special Studies in Mexico City. I received my M.A. from the Ohio State University with an emphasis in Severely and Multiply Handicapped and Assistive Technology. Prior to joining T/TAC, I was the Senior Manager of Programs for People with Disabilities at the Trust for the Americas/OAS. I was responsible for developing ICT projects and Job Inclusion for people with disabilities in Latin American countries.

I am married, have two children and a grandson. Since my children, husband and grandson were born in different countries, we usually speak 3 or 4 languages at home, English, Spanish, French and Dutch!
On my free time, I serve as an honorary consultant for the Association of Special Artists in Lima, Peru. This organization promotes awareness on disability issues through the arts, particularly theater, in Peru.
I have also serve as vice president of the recently formed U.S. Chapter of the Association for the Children of Mozambique (http://www.asemworld.org), whose aim is to help Mozambican children who are victims of landmines. I am also a member of the organization Help Handicapped International (http://www.hhiindia.org), a group aimed at providing prosthetics, education, rehabilitation, and job training to landmine victims in India.

Affiliations Program
• Rotary International
• Council for Exceptional Children (CEC),
• Council for Learning Disabilities

Research Interests
• Universal Design for Learning
• Assistive Technology, teacher training in Latin American countries

Contact Information
Ms. Estella Landeros
Graduate School of Education George Mason
University4400 University Drive, MSN-1F2Fairfax, Virginia 22030
• phone. 703.993.4496 Ext.4-0308 • fax. 703.993.4497
• email. elandero@gmu.edu