You Too can be an Author: A New Way of Making a Difference

Abstract

If you are a professional in rehabilitation or education, you are also an inventor, an artist, an entertainer, an engineer, and an actor. You have tried new ways to make learning meaningful, although you probably take your own skills for granted as you go about your daily routine. Your personal creations might include a game to teach compass directions, a new strategy for improving reading speed, or an approach to involving the families of your students and clients in the learning process. Perhaps you sometimes wonder if anyone else could use your idea, but by the time you stop for groceries on the way home, sort through the day's mail, and help your children with homework, the desire to pass along your ideas has descended to the bottom of your list of daily goals. Many professionals are too modest to acknowledge the value of their own ideas and too busy to find time to write them down. As editor of our practitioners' column, Practice Perspectives, I urge you to make this the year that you become an author. This feature invites brief articles by professionals who work daily with people who are visually impaired, with the belief that teachers, orientation and mobility specialists, and rehabilitation professionals are the true experts in what they do. In the three years since Practice Perspectives has been part of JVIB, we have included a wide variety of worthwhile ideas by professionals in practice. Articles have addressed ways of teaching reading to children or adults who are having difficulties, materials for teaching basic technology concepts, introducing school-aged students to theatrical performance, using tactile maps in bus travel, preparing adults for careers in sound engineering, introducing travel with dogs to young children, and adapting classroom materials for a student teacher who is visually impaired. In this issue, you will find another compelling example of a successful educational program. Authored by Diane Raab, a teacher at the Arizona Schools for the Deaf and the Blind, the following Practice Perspectives article describes the development and implementation of a radio broadcasting program that has prepared young people with an understanding of how broadcasting works and has given them the technological tools for later involvement in broadcast careers. Ms. Raab describes her work in the context of how other schools have developed similar programs, and she provides experiences from participating students that support the program outcomes. This longitudinal look at a successful program could only have been written by a practicing professional with a strong commitment to providing opportunities for her students. Like Ms. Raab, you are also an expert, and now it is time for you to become an author as well. WHAT WILL YOUR ARTICLE BE ABOUT? The greatest challenge of writing a Practice Perspectives article is recognizing how your work can be important to others. Have you presented at your state Association for Education and Rehabilitation of the Blind and Visually Impaired (AER) conference and received positive feedback from colleagues? …