Week 5 Blog Prompt

Week 5 Blog Prompt: From a previous chat –

markel says, "Post a map?"
Rich [to RichardB]: great idea! So, map out the logical sequence of one of your RFPs?
Monica says, "Maybe we could blog about our plans, some major steps and/or expected issues that will need to be resolved"
You say, "that works too, and perhaps a timeline for the project"
You say, "any or all of those, depending on where you're at"

My plans involve: 

>> Creating a schedule or map of how the workshop will be conducted, catering to specific audiences. Detail the five W’s and how parts of the workshop and tie it to the grant proposal or RFP.  

>> Recruit Subject Matter Experts to present or advise to workshop content. 

>> Work with organization leadership to determine the scope of the grant, scope of the outreach within Texas, and to create a timeline for prepping, executing. 

>> Work with organization treasure to evaluate the budget plan, determine whether organization can match any funds or cover certain aspects of the overall grant application. 

The biggest issue right now is pining down the leadership to discuss this further. I am having to resort to some email discussions. In some ways, it’s not a bad thing, everything is documented, but at the same time, it’s hard to convey emotions related to the subject matter via text. 

I will hopefully begin to start on the memo this week and give my plans some more thought. 

Week 4 Blog Prompt

Week 4 Blog Prompt: Last week we talked about how a mission statement, in a way, is a thesis statement. A thesis is an opinion presented as a statement that needs evidence to support it. For your blog post, relate a single statement that serves to "manage change" as your primary thesis in your mission statement. What problems might a reader have with it? How will you mitigate those problems?

The organization for which I am writing is the Texas Chapter of the Alexander Graham Bell Association for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing (Texas AG Bell). As an organization, the mission is “Advocating Independence through Listening and Talking!” More specifically, the national office of the Alexander Graham Bell Association for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing says they help families, health care providers and education professionals understand childhood hearing loss and the importance of early diagnosis and intervention. Through advocacy, education, research and financial aid, AG Bell helps to ensure that every child and adult with hearing loss has the opportunity to listen, talk and thrive in mainstream society. The Texas Chapter strives to follow this mission in its actions throughout the state.

Through advocacy, education…these two terms are important in seeking out grants because the particular workshop I’m seeking to fund is to provide education to educators of students with hearing loss. In a way this education is also an act of advocacy. 

For Texas, the mission statement is simply “Advocating Independence thorough Listening and Talking.” How can they advocate? Advocating does not have to be legalistic, but rather done through actions, words. To advocate, the Chapter can begin by providing workshops that are geared toward educating educators about hearing loss, how to work with students with hearing loss, what their legal responsibilities are as educators, and provide resources of information about hearing loss, services throughout the region/state. The purpose of these workshops is to effect positive change among educators who are not knowledgeable about hearing loss, especially in students who do not use sign language as a mode of communication. Workshops can be developed for all levels of audiences (new teachers, experienced teachers, education professionals, etc).

The Chapter is small so likely the grand fund manager would be me, as past President. I would imagine there would be a team to provide oversight that may consist of the Treasurer who is well versed on financial documentation, the new President to provide ongoing support and assist with recruiting of volunteers to help organize local workshop logistics, and the Secretary who may provide assistance in ensuring records are appropriate and complete for the grant. The biggest obstacle will be the fact the organization focuses on spoken language but I think that the best workaround is to ensure the biggest chunk of information is an overview of hearing loss, how to adapt, legal responsibilities which are topics that are not typically readily available in teacher trainings.

Week 3 Blog Prompt

Week 3 Blog Prompt: For your blog, choose one of these to pontificate about: 1. funding our own education, 2. presentation methods, 3. finding your organization to represent.

For this blog, I will talk about how I found my organization to present and the challenges I had. First off, I initially was going to represent an organization that I am in the process of starting up…AccessTexas. The purpose of this organization is to provide information to educators, professionals, parents, and individuals with hearing loss about a variety of topics from legal to independent living. Since this organization is not fully organized, I chose to represent the Texas Chapter of the Alexander Graham Bell Association for the Deaf (Texas AGBell), a 501(c)(3) organization. There was no question I wanted to represent this organization for two reasons: their mission is my mission and they have a need for people to work for them, representing them in various ways. Over the years, the involvement of people in leadership roles has dwindled to a handful for a variety of reasons, one of which is simply lack of individuals who can effectively seek out, and win grants to fund activities that would help spread the word, educate others. And with the few, it’s hard to reach out statewide, but doesn’t have to be if activities were planned carefully and based on region.

My association with this organization began with the receipt of a financial scholarship from the parent organization based in Washington, DC, in high school and then a college scholarship. I became involved as a board member, rising up to president the last five years, and through my involvement I was a lipreading instructor as part of a grant awarded to a deaf service agency in San Antonio. This was my first experience in a grant-funded activity. Not only did I conduct several six-week courses, I traveled to low income communities to give one day workshops about deafness, oral interpreting, lipreading/communication with oral deaf individuals. Wonderful experience! Fast forward 12 years later, Texas AGBell needs to reach out to the communities and provide support by the way of workshops for professionals, parents, and individuals with hearing loss. As I step off the board as president, I want to remain involved in some way so the new leadership has asked me to help them find grants for various activities that will help them reach out statewide. I think doing activities such as a professional development workshop for educators is a good start because that’s where children can receive the most impact in addition to the home.

Week 2 Blog Prompt

Week 2 Blog Prompt: In your blog, review the needs statement on p. 37 (Example 2.1) as well as the better draft on p. 68 in Grant Seeking. Compose a draft of one of your proposal's needs statement.

This is a very rough draft. After much thought, I think my focus will be on professional development for educators. For now, I’m thinking either overall disabilities awareness and/or narrow the focus to hearing loss. Here are some “ramblings” for my needs statement. I have provided workshops in the past and have had a plan for some time to set up a professional organization called AccessTexas, an organization geared toward public awareness of disabilities. Although, I may be doing my proposals on behalf a nonprofit organization of which I am President as the contact for the proposals. 

It is not the norm for educator training at the undergraduate level to include disability awareness and as more new teachers are hired and more students with disabilities enter the classroom, educators lose sight of what their responsibilities may be in relation to providing accommodations to students with disabilities. Most of the time, it is a result of a lack of knowledge of the specificities of disabilities, what makes each disability unique, what types of accommodations are best for a specific disability, and how an educator can best serve the students and the school. In addition, many districts are constrained in terms of funding to provide more professional training or enrichment in  areas other than general education. 

AccessTexas recognizes that there is a need for professional development in the area of disability awareness, especially for new educators. Through the development of a disability awareness workshop that spans two days, the purpose of the workshop is to provide professional development in the following ways: provide information about various disabilities, share and expand on the legal responsibilities of educators, encourage role playing and team building activities that enrich knowledge and understanding. 

We are seeking funding to develop and implement a disability awareness workshop for educators; therefore, we are requesting $xx,xxx from your organization to develop this workshop.

Week 1 Blog Prompt

Week 1 Blog Prompt: What problems do you want to work to solve? Be as descriptive and complete as possible, and perhaps relay the mission statements of the organizations you are thinking about writing on behalf of here.

As mentioned in my bio on www.richrice.com/5383, my professional interests lie in the areas of technical/professional communication, accessible rhetoric, disability studies, and document design. I think that for many of the ideas I’m thinking, I am likely thinking a bit too broadly for this course; however, to narrow this down, I may be wise to focus on something beneficial to the hearing loss community. I am the outgoing president of a statewide organization that promotes spoken language and listening for deaf/hard-of-hearing children and adults whose motto has been to advocate independence through listening and talking. So, it makes sense to find a new way for me to serve the organization actively without being a fixture on the board. Some ideas that I’m bouncing through include finding funding to help further support and expand the current leadership camps/retreats/workshops for deaf and hard of hearing high school students – provide opportunities and resources for attaining independence after high school. 

At present, only two retreats a year are provided (one for 9^th-10^th graders; second for 11^th-12^th graders – inclusive of all communication methods) and given the current economic situation, it has become more and more difficult to find corporate and individual funding. The reason the school tends to lean toward those two types of sources is that in most cases, they do not require extensive processes of application and can be quicker to attain. High school deaf and hard of hearing students tend to be of vulnerable ages – at ages where they are more aware of their limitations, aware they will be going off to college and/or simply moving out of the security and comfort of family homes into the real world. Most I’ve encountered had never heard of alert systems that help one live independently, never knew there were options in terms of classroom accessibility, and it becomes quiet scary for these students. Retreats, camps, and workshops that serve this population with great mentor speakers, role-playing scenarios, leadership and team building activities have proven to be quite beneficial for these students in preparing for life after high school.