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The program allows children to experience disability and diversity in their own school environment. We bring the program to you. Sharon has also designed and developed another new component to the program - The teacher professional development workshops sessions create real understanding and experience of disability. They challenge and explore many preconcieved ideas and attitudes we all have to difference. Have a look at the new streamed lecture series designed and facilitated by Sharon that explores experiential understanding of the key hidden disability areas such as Autism and Perceptual motor difficulties. Watch the participants reactions to the activities and the critical reflection process and consider your own reactions to the experiences. Sharon ran the lecture series at the University of Southern Queensland in Toowoomba this semester and their were many very interactive and exciting learning experiences generated from both her oncampus students as well as the online ones. These sessions have also been developed for the care and health sectors and for Teacher - Aides. Specicially designed sessions explore many issues within the support, care and disability sector and workshops are also designed for pharmacy students, rural doctors and many other areas of the health and disability sector. Sharon and Hon. Curtis Pitt - Cairns Launch
Sharon at Rangeville State School - Toowoomba Launch of her children's book.
Ibookstore - http://itunes.apple.com/us/book/discovery-at-paradise-island/id485504789?mt=11
Amazon - http://www.amazon.com/Discovery-At-Paradise-Island-ebook/dp/B006GR93SQ Barnes & Noble - http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/books/1037091799?ean=2940013452114
The island activities, a mystery code, digging for pirate treasure, clues and discovery make for a surprising holiday and Sarah discovers some things she didn’t know before she went away with Alexandria’s family.
Discovery at Paradise Island - 2nd Edition is a children's adventure storybook written for audiences aged seven to twelve years. The story gives children a chance to learn and discover about disability. This book aims to develop children’s literacy, numeracy and social intelligence, while at the same time making it exciting and fun to read. It integrates into the school SOSE syllabus and also critical literacies and numeracy with the code breaking work. It has teacher and parent directed activities included and engagement questions at the end of each chapter to encourage children to think about what they have read and apply it to their own lives. This book has also been designed to appeal to adult readers who may have problems with literacy as well as ESL or migrant learners. An audio book double CD set and DAISY format file is also now available as well. This will support literacy development for all and can really aid in classroom presentation through listening posts set up through ipods and electronic white boards. It will also help to support people with vision problems as well as dyslexia and reading perceptual issues. There are focus questions at the end of each chapter and at the end of the book there are many parent and teacher activities and extra questions that explore the book and issues of physical disability and its impact on the family. These can be used as conversation starters or to generate deeper level thinking about the story and the issues raised within it. Teachers can develop the themes from this book and explore the impact of disability awareness on their own class. The book also includes code breaking and numeracy so these can be developed further as rich tasks in the classroom or even at home. The book links into the SOSE syllabus especially the Culture and Identity strand, as well as critical literacy and numeracy. It also is a much needed resource in the area of disability awareness. The engagement questions at the end of each chapter encourage children to think about the issues they are reading about and to apply them to their own lives. At the conclusion of the book it has a section containing teacher and parent directed activities. These can be used to develop a unit of work or activities based around the book and the themes contained within it. Sharon Boyce is available to come to your school to participate in author visits and also disability awareness sessions. Sharon is a registered teacher and is trained to work across all year levels. Sharon won the Disability Action Week Award for Individuals for this book. Click here to go straight to our resource shop to order this book. Discovery at Paradise Island by Sharon Boyce - $19.95 Double CD Audio Book - $24.95 DAISY Format File - POA ebook Format - $9.99 For orders of 20 books or more (class sets), Discovery at Paradise Island is available at $14.95 per copy. Other combinations of books and cd sets POA Listen to ABC Local Radio interview at the Launch - Here is the link Then just scroll down a bit… http://www.abc.net.au/southqld/programs/southern_queensland_breakfast/
The Discovering DisAbility and Diversity program consists of child based sessions for:
and Adult Based Sessions for:
Some more exciting news...Sharon is launching her new book - Discovering Dyslexia and Reading Perceptual Issues on February 3rd, 2012 ...as well - she has produced a second edition of 'Discovery at Paradise Island' and an ebook and DAISY and mp3 version of her children's storybook 'Discovery at Paradise Island' especially designed for blind and vision impaired readers as well as students with dyslexia and reading problems. These have been launched in Disability Action Week and are nw available. More details to follow...
Our program is designed to enable all children and adults across the state, but especially in Toowoomba, Darling Downs, the Lockyer Valley and Brisbane and surrounding areas to experience disability and diversity awareness in their own school or work environment. We have been to over eight hundred schools and childcare centres and spoken to over twelve thousand students, adults and children. We have been privileged to be a part of some life changing experiences.
The program is totally mobile thanks to our generous sponsors, who supply our van and many operational costs. We bring the van and activities to you. It is designed to cover all age groups. We work across all school year levels 1-12 and with full school staff as well. The program also has specially developed early childhood programs to cater for preschools and childcare. It is based around the idea of experiential learning and storytelling. We set up lots of different experiences. You will feel what it is like to be blind, hearing impaired, have ASD, an Intellectual Impairment or a physical disability. Sharon will share her life story and then an interactive question and answer session will follow. It is all hands -on, fun and will keep all students and teachers engaged with the learning experience. The program was designed to raise awareness through discovery. It aims to break down barriers that may exist due to lack of knowledge and it promotes active exploration of attitudes and feelings about the importance of inclusion in education and all society. It encourages us all to think about disability and diversity differently. Diversity is about adding value rather than deficiency. Another important aspect of inclusion is to confront educational disadvantage and intercultural education. An inclusive society is one which accepts difference and challenges preconceived ideas.
Special School Holiday Sessions of our 'Hands On' Professional Development Sessions for Teachers - The July and September sessions were fantastic. Thanks to everyone who attended. there was some great sharing and really amazing stories of support generated. We are going to have more in other areas soon... Sessions and dates listed below - click on the session links below for workshop details and what you can expect. Also tells you how to register.
You can fulfill certain PD requirements for the Queensland College of Teachers in each workshop:
Read and respond to Sharon's Blog exploring Inclusion and Life Sharon also recently launched her new educational resource kit exploring Physical disability -'Another Day in the Life of Sharon Boyce - a person with a physical disability - Educational Resource Kit' on the 29th March. To have a look at the kit and what it is about just click here. To order the kit you can go directly to our online shop.
Michael has written a Submission to the Gonski Review - Michael Furtado: Submission to the Gonski Review on School Funding, March 30, 2011 Prefatory Note: This six-part submission focuses mainly on the situation of the Catholic systems. Implications of the opinions and judgements expressed in it for other school providers are acknowledged and, as far as I am able to ensure, addressed in the text. A bibliography citing evidence for the assertions and arguments contained in the submission is available from my PhD thesis (The University of Queensland, 2001), which is a public document and various other published documents. In all instances my comments are addressed to all members of the Review Panel. I thank them for giving of their time to such a worthy and necessary public service. My contact details are attached to this submission. Click to link to the submission details - Another article recently published in Eureka Street called,‘Abbott and the new Catholic Conservatism’.
Click on the link below to go there and contribute your opinion to the Blog: http://www.eurekastreet.com.au/article.aspx?aeid=20525
Site developed, written, produced, designed, owned and updated by Sharon Boyce with some contributions by Michael Furtado. Any enquiries please phone 0417 708 945 All material on site is Copyright © 2011 Sharon Boyce
You can also read more detail or download a version from Primedia http://primediaelaunch.com/books/Discovery+At+Paradise+Island.htm |
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The Discovering DisAbility and Diversity program is mobile inclusive education experience, developed and designed by Sharon Boyce, that promotes the active discovery of disability and diversity through various hands-on activities. It has been running for the past nine years and aims at creating real understanding of key disability areas, both the physical and the hidden areas. It links experience to real life and encourages participants, whether children or adults, to make adjustments to their lives once they have a real understanding of disability.
More Exciting News - Special launch for IDPwd -3rd Dec -The E Launch of Sharon's children's adventure storybook 'Discovery at Paradise Island' 2nd Edition - E Book Version -ISBN - 
BLURB - The fun and discovery starts as soon as Alexandria and Sarah arrive at Paradise Island. What would usually be a relaxing holiday on a tropical island turns into an exciting adventure. Sarah thinks because Alexandria’s mum is in a wheelchair their holiday will be quite boring. How wrong is she?
