Hello everyone, Thank you Merry-Noel for your comments along with everyone else who has commented. For some reason, responses were going to my junk mail so I just saw these. Jeff, we have done about a week of virtual training at this point. Some of the O&Ms are still doing some one on one instruction while practicing social distancing protocol. Some of our students went back to their respective homes so that is not possible. We have been testing different apps like Moovit, Blindsquare, Transit apps, Google maps. For example, you can use Blindsquare to explore a brand new areas. My dad did that with my new condo and was able to explore everything around my house and could tell my mom about things around my house that she didn't even know was there. My mom had been here and he had not but he became more informed through Blindsquare. I really like Merry-Noel's suggestions of going through routes verbally and working on their mental maps. I have also had students look up a random store like CVS and find 3 different locations around town. They needed to find the address and plan out routes from either their home or from the center. Trying to do as much theoretical things as possible. These apps are also good for instructors to explore the neighborhoods of their students and try and create routes around their student's neighborhoods. I think this is good for students that you know well enough to know that they have the problem solving skills to navigate through things the instructor did not anticipate along the route. I wouldn't do that for students who have not learned all the foundational skills yet or for students that get easily turned around because it would be harder for the instructor to help them problem solve in unfamiliar areas for both the student and the instructor over the phone. I hope these thoughts help your creative juices flow! Joanne Gabias, M.A., NOMC, NCUEB, NCRTB Statewide Operation Manager SAAVI Services for the Blind ________________________________ From: NOMC <nomc-bounces at lists.nbpcb.org> on behalf of Merry-Noel <owinm at yahoo.com> Sent: March 19, 2020 3:30 PM To: Deb & Jeff Altman <debandjeff at allophone.com>; nomc at lists.nbpcb.org <nomc at lists.nbpcb.org> Cc: greg.dewall at nebraska.gov Subject: Re: [Nomc] Loking for good approaches for working at home Jeff, Work on mental mapping skills. Have them review routes you know they went on. Discuss possible scenarios such as, what if they heard a vehicle on their right instead of their left? Ask them to describe what encounters they have when walking to the bus stop from the apartments. What do they hear, feel? Over the phone, have them do a route in their head- for example, ? You walk out of the apartment building and turn right. You walk to the end of the block and turn right then you walk the entire block. At the corner you turn left and cross the street. Then you turn right. Which direction are you facing? What street are you facing? Which street did you just cross?? I?m sure you can come up with other scenarios. Read some articles from Kernal Books, the Braille monitor or Future Reflections and discuss them. Dr. Merry-Noel Chamberlain Sent from Yahoo Mail for iPhonehttps://overview.mail.yahoo.com/?.src=iOS On Thursday, March 19, 2020, 4:13 PM, Deb & Jeff Altman <debandjeff at allophone.com> wrote: Hello Everyone, Our agency is encouraging staff to work from home for the next couple of weeks or so, and with teaching O&M, that requires quite a bit of creativity. I have been calling students and giving them some basic assignments, and then checking back with them later to see how things have gone, but of course, this has its limits. My supervisor Greg has suggested working with them over the phone on some of the way finding apps, such as Goodle Maps and the like, which I can certainly do; although this is not where I usually focus. So, I?m wondering if any of you have some creative ideas you could share? I know that Joanne has asked this same question, and a few of you have responded, but I?m hoping there may be even more ideas being generated as we all begin shifting to this new mode of teaching. Thanks, Jeff _______________________________________________ NOMC mailing list NOMC at lists.nbpcb.org http://lists.nbpcb.org/listinfo.cgi/nomc-nbpcb.org