Hi Ben, As I said earlier, I am glad to make space available and host more information on either site and we also have a blog we can use if people want to. One thing I have tried promoting all of my professional life is the notion that Structured Discovery is uniquely and distinctly different than COMS instruction. If you google search today the term ?Structured Discovery? the first three hits are NBPCB, NFB and PDRIB. So, I think we are positioned well so long as we always talk about Structured Discovery Cane Travel or the Structured Discovery form of O&M. Not even Donna Sauerburger Tries to pretend she knows anything much about Structured Discovery any more. Just my $.02 Edward C. Bell, Ph.D., CRC, NOMC, Director, Professional Development and Research Institute on Blindness Louisiana Tech University 600 Mayfield Ave / 210 Woodard Hall PO Box 3158 Ruston LA 71272 Office: 318.257.4554 Fax: 318.257.2259 ebell at latech.edu www.pdrib.com ************* "I am somehow less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein's brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops." -- Stephen Jay Gould From: Ben Vercellone <benv at fastmail.com> Sent: Wednesday, April 29, 2020 4:26 PM To: Edward Bell <ebell at pdrib.com>; 'Keller, Becky' ; 'NOMC Mailing list' <nomc at lists.nbpcb.org> Subject: RE: [Nomc] Cane Travel Meeting Follow-Up Hi All, When I brought up the website topic last night, my main hope was for us to have a large hub for everything NOMC, similar to how many COMS instructors and supporters view Dona Sauerburger?s website as a large hub for everything COMS. I now realize that creating a new and unified website may not be necessary. But what is necessary is for our philosophy to command more attention from COMS professionals and from search engines. Whether our web presence is based on one website or multiple, and whether or not it involves creating any additional websites, I?m pretty open-minded. Someone on yesterday?s Zoom call said he/she (I think he) has been working on a podcast or audio/video content (I can?t remember exactly). But this sounded excellent. I?ll look for the YouTube channel Dr. Bell mentioned shortly. As I said last night, an O&M specialist in Missouri thinks that Dona Sauerburger is the O&M goddess, I didn?t comment when I heard him say this. But is sure did persuade me of the need to maximize our outreach. I don?t want to reinvent wheels, but I?m hoping that we can have a much larger web presence in at least 2 ways. First, I am hoping that our website/s will somehow be glued into the consciousness of many COMS when they?re sharing O&M information. In other words, when they recommend sauerburger.org, they?ll also feel the moral obligation to share nbpcb.org, pdrib.com, ETC. Second, when one searches online for O&M advice, especially regarding recommended cane length, he/she will probably agree with me that the COMS perspective is vastly more prominent. People aren?t supposed to use Google as their doctor, but many people do this anyway. Similarly, almost everyone researching blindness for the first time will use a search engine. They should have super easy access to our empowering philosophy and teaching methodology. In my opinion, they currently don?t, unless they get ?lucky? or hear of SDCT some other way. What do you all think? I really am not nit picky about the solution. All I know is that a problem seems to exist, which I?ve fleshed out a little bit in this e-mail. And having increased audio and audio/video content may truly be a homerun, especially in people?s constantly accelerating lifestyles. The drop route videos sound awesome. Finally, I have a brief Structured Discovery story to share. Just last year, I got utterly fed up with my inability to understand diverging diamond interchanges (DDI?s). I had already received some instruction on at least 2 occasions by a COMS instructor, but I still did not get it. Well, to my delight, cooperation took place between Rehab Services for the Blind of Missouri and Oklahoma Department of Rehabilitation Services where Jane Lansaw works. Jane came and taught me to cross at the oldest DDI in the U.S. which is in Springfield, Missouri. Immediately afterword, we took the bus to a newer and much larger DDI in Springfield, and I independently crossed there. Talk about transferable skills and SDCT! It was wildly cool. I did also use tactile graphics of these DDI?s, since this learning modality helps me a lot. But the tactile graphics probably helped no more than one third in this process. The main help was the SDCT approach, delivered by Jane Lansaw. Anyway, I do have some audio and video footage, but the weather was kind of bad that day. I?ll review the files soon if I can. At the very least, I wanted to share a summary of that great success here. If an increasing number of people hear and believe stories like this one, and if they can very easily find these SDCT testimonies with their search engine of choice, imagine what will be possible. Sincerely, Ben From: Edward Bell Sent: Wednesday, April 29, 2020 11:56 AM To: 'Keller, Becky' ; 'NOMC Mailing list' Subject: Re: [Nomc] Cane Travel Meeting Follow-Up Hi Becky, This is all really good. I am willing and able to add resources to either the PDRIB or NBPCB web pages. Just let me know what and where and I can get it done. Of course, anyone subscribed to this list can also post information here to get it out more quickly. I also believe we have a YouTube channel if there is video to post. Edward C. Bell, Ph.D., CRC, NOMC, Director, Professional Development and Research Institute on Blindness Louisiana Tech University 600 Mayfield Ave / 210 Woodard Hall PO Box 3158 Ruston LA 71272 Office: 318.257.4554 Fax: 318.257.2259 ebell at latech.edu www.pdrib.com http://www.pdrib.com ************* "I am somehow less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein's brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops." -- Stephen Jay Gould From: NOMC > On Behalf Of Keller, Becky Sent: Wednesday, April 29, 2020 10:24 AM To: NOMC Mailing list > Subject: [Nomc] Cane Travel Meeting Follow-Up Good morning everyone, Thanks so much for all of your input and energy last night. We had some really good discussion, and the two hours seemed to fly right by. At one point, we had 28 folks in attendance. Pretty neat if I do say so myself. Jedi and Jane, thank you also for volunteering to give us an example of your virtual drop routes. We look forward to hearing it when you send it out to everyone. Below you will find the last remaining questions we had on our original agenda. We touched a little bit on some of them towards the end of our meeting, but I included them just in case you had additional thoughts or suggestions. Between now and Monday the 4th, please send me any further topics or questions that you wish to have posed to the group. In addition, a proposal was introduced last evening that focused towards developing a new, or expanding our current Structured-Discovery websites, to include resources, readings, O & M media, etc., sort of an information portal for instructors. I've pasted our current links below for everyone. Dr. Bell, we were hoping to get your feedback and counsel regarding this topic. Thanks again everyone for your participation and contributions. Have a wonderful week, and talk to you soon. Take care, http://www.pdrib.com/ https://nbpcb.org/index.php Questions: How could we work with folks to plan detailed hypothetical out of town trips, so they have an understanding of what goes into planning for a vacation or business trip? This way we could potentially utilize O&M as well as tech skills. How can we get folks thinking about mental mapping places they haven?t been yet? How can we help our students overcome fear, especially in uncertain times? In general, not necessarily focusing solely on cane travel... Becky Keller, NOMC, COMS Lead Orientation and Mobility Instructor Virginia Rehabilitation Center for the Blind and Vision Impaired 401 Azalea Avenue Richmond, VA 23227 (804) 371-3093 becky.keller at dbvi.virginia.gov Facebook: VDBVI Worldwide Web: Virginia Rehabilitation Center for the Blind and Vision Impaired YouTube: VRCBVI "Success is a journey, not a destination. The doing is often more important than the outcome." -Arthur Ashe **CONFIDENTIALITY NOTICE** This message (including any attachments) contains information that may be confidential. Unless you are the intended recipient (or authorized to receive for the intended recipient), you may not read, print, retain, use, copy, distribute, or disclose to anyone the message or any information contained in the message. If you have received the message in error, please advise the sender by reply e-mail, and destroy all copies of the original message (including any attachments).

Ben, Informed consent or not, VR counselors know next to nothing about cane travel. They will understand it as O&M most likely, but nothing on the internet or agency brochures will shed light on any difference between COMS and NOMC. Consumer advocacy, public education and availability in each state will be what makes the difference. On that note, we are accepting applications for Summer and Fall and yes we do have scholarships, so please help us to recruit for the next generation of NOMC Edward C. Bell, Ph.D., CRC, NOMC, Director, Professional Development and Research Institute on Blindness Louisiana Tech University 600 Mayfield Ave / 210 Woodard Hall PO Box 3158 Ruston LA 71272 Office: 318.257.4554 Fax: 318.257.2259 ebell at latech.edu www.pdrib.com ************* "I am somehow less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein's brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops." -- Stephen Jay Gould From: Ben Vercellone <benv at fastmail.com> Sent: Wednesday, April 29, 2020 4:50 PM To: Edward Bell <ebell at pdrib.com> Cc: Keller, Becky ; NOMC Mailing list <nomc at lists.nbpcb.org> Subject: Re: [Nomc] Cane Travel Meeting Follow-Up Hi Dr. Bell, Thank you. Your approach definitely sounds encouraging and Effective. Can you tell me how well informed choice is implemented nation-wide? I'm in the lower half when it comes to understanding legal things in-depth. But I am guessing that agencies for the blind are more likely to tell people about SDCT than are web searches for O&M-related terms that don't include "Structured Discovery". Is this correct? If so, then this will make it less critical for our web presence to command the same footprint as the COMS perspective in the near future. It just seems to me that SDCT too often remains one of the best-kept secrets unless someone or some legislation makes it a conversation topic. Sincerely, Ben On Apr 29, 2020, at 4:33 PM, Edward Bell > wrote: ? Hi Ben, As I said earlier, I am glad to make space available and host more information on either site and we also have a blog we can use if people want to. One thing I have tried promoting all of my professional life is the notion that Structured Discovery is uniquely and distinctly different than COMS instruction. If you google search today the term ?Structured Discovery? the first three hits are NBPCB, NFB and PDRIB. So, I think we are positioned well so long as we always talk about Structured Discovery Cane Travel or the Structured Discovery form of O&M. Not even Donna Sauerburger Tries to pretend she knows anything much about Structured Discovery any more. Just my $.02 Edward C. Bell, Ph.D., CRC, NOMC, Director, Professional Development and Research Institute on Blindness Louisiana Tech University 600 Mayfield Ave / 210 Woodard Hall PO Box 3158 Ruston LA 71272 Office: 318.257.4554 Fax: 318.257.2259 ebell at latech.edu www.pdrib.com http://www.pdrib.com ************* "I am somehow less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein's brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops." -- Stephen Jay Gould From: Ben Vercellone > Sent: Wednesday, April 29, 2020 4:26 PM To: Edward Bell >; 'Keller, Becky' >; 'NOMC Mailing list' > Subject: RE: [Nomc] Cane Travel Meeting Follow-Up Hi All, When I brought up the website topic last night, my main hope was for us to have a large hub for everything NOMC, similar to how many COMS instructors and supporters view Dona Sauerburger?s website as a large hub for everything COMS. I now realize that creating a new and unified website may not be necessary. But what is necessary is for our philosophy to command more attention from COMS professionals and from search engines. Whether our web presence is based on one website or multiple, and whether or not it involves creating any additional websites, I?m pretty open-minded. Someone on yesterday?s Zoom call said he/she (I think he) has been working on a podcast or audio/video content (I can?t remember exactly). But this sounded excellent. I?ll look for the YouTube channel Dr. Bell mentioned shortly. As I said last night, an O&M specialist in Missouri thinks that Dona Sauerburger is the O&M goddess, I didn?t comment when I heard him say this. But is sure did persuade me of the need to maximize our outreach. I don?t want to reinvent wheels, but I?m hoping that we can have a much larger web presence in at least 2 ways. First, I am hoping that our website/s will somehow be glued into the consciousness of many COMS when they?re sharing O&M information. In other words, when they recommend sauerburger.org, they?ll also feel the moral obligation to share nbpcb.org, pdrib.com, ETC. Second, when one searches online for O&M advice, especially regarding recommended cane length, he/she will probably agree with me that the COMS perspective is vastly more prominent. People aren?t supposed to use Google as their doctor, but many people do this anyway. Similarly, almost everyone researching blindness for the first time will use a search engine. They should have super easy access to our empowering philosophy and teaching methodology. In my opinion, they currently don?t, unless they get ?lucky? or hear of SDCT some other way. What do you all think? I really am not nit picky about the solution. All I know is that a problem seems to exist, which I?ve fleshed out a little bit in this e-mail. And having increased audio and audio/video content may truly be a homerun, especially in people?s constantly accelerating lifestyles. The drop route videos sound awesome. Finally, I have a brief Structured Discovery story to share. Just last year, I got utterly fed up with my inability to understand diverging diamond interchanges (DDI?s). I had already received some instruction on at least 2 occasions by a COMS instructor, but I still did not get it. Well, to my delight, cooperation took place between Rehab Services for the Blind of Missouri and Oklahoma Department of Rehabilitation Services where Jane Lansaw works. Jane came and taught me to cross at the oldest DDI in the U.S. which is in Springfield, Missouri. Immediately afterword, we took the bus to a newer and much larger DDI in Springfield, and I independently crossed there. Talk about transferable skills and SDCT! It was wildly cool. I did also use tactile graphics of these DDI?s, since this learning modality helps me a lot. But the tactile graphics probably helped no more than one third in this process. The main help was the SDCT approach, delivered by Jane Lansaw. Anyway, I do have some audio and video footage, but the weather was kind of bad that day. I?ll review the files soon if I can. At the very least, I wanted to share a summary of that great success here. If an increasing number of people hear and believe stories like this one, and if they can very easily find these SDCT testimonies with their search engine of choice, imagine what will be possible. Sincerely, Ben From: Edward Bell Sent: Wednesday, April 29, 2020 11:56 AM To: 'Keller, Becky' ; 'NOMC Mailing list' Subject: Re: [Nomc] Cane Travel Meeting Follow-Up Hi Becky, This is all really good. I am willing and able to add resources to either the PDRIB or NBPCB web pages. Just let me know what and where and I can get it done. Of course, anyone subscribed to this list can also post information here to get it out more quickly. I also believe we have a YouTube channel if there is video to post. Edward C. Bell, Ph.D., CRC, NOMC, Director, Professional Development and Research Institute on Blindness Louisiana Tech University 600 Mayfield Ave / 210 Woodard Hall PO Box 3158 Ruston LA 71272 Office: 318.257.4554 Fax: 318.257.2259 ebell at latech.edu www.pdrib.com http://www.pdrib.com ************* "I am somehow less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein's brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops." -- Stephen Jay Gould From: NOMC > On Behalf Of Keller, Becky Sent: Wednesday, April 29, 2020 10:24 AM To: NOMC Mailing list > Subject: [Nomc] Cane Travel Meeting Follow-Up Good morning everyone, Thanks so much for all of your input and energy last night. We had some really good discussion, and the two hours seemed to fly right by. At one point, we had 28 folks in attendance. Pretty neat if I do say so myself. Jedi and Jane, thank you also for volunteering to give us an example of your virtual drop routes. We look forward to hearing it when you send it out to everyone. Below you will find the last remaining questions we had on our original agenda. We touched a little bit on some of them towards the end of our meeting, but I included them just in case you had additional thoughts or suggestions. Between now and Monday the 4th, please send me any further topics or questions that you wish to have posed to the group. In addition, a proposal was introduced last evening that focused towards developing a new, or expanding our current Structured-Discovery websites, to include resources, readings, O & M media, etc., sort of an information portal for instructors. I've pasted our current links below for everyone. Dr. Bell, we were hoping to get your feedback and counsel regarding this topic. Thanks again everyone for your participation and contributions. Have a wonderful week, and talk to you soon. Take care, http://www.pdrib.com/ https://nbpcb.org/index.php Questions: How could we work with folks to plan detailed hypothetical out of town trips, so they have an understanding of what goes into planning for a vacation or business trip? This way we could potentially utilize O&M as well as tech skills. How can we get folks thinking about mental mapping places they haven?t been yet? How can we help our students overcome fear, especially in uncertain times? In general, not necessarily focusing solely on cane travel... Becky Keller, NOMC, COMS Lead Orientation and Mobility Instructor Virginia Rehabilitation Center for the Blind and Vision Impaired 401 Azalea Avenue Richmond, VA 23227 (804) 371-3093 becky.keller at dbvi.virginia.gov Facebook: VDBVI Worldwide Web: Virginia Rehabilitation Center for the Blind and Vision Impaired YouTube: VRCBVI "Success is a journey, not a destination. The doing is often more important than the outcome." -Arthur Ashe **CONFIDENTIALITY NOTICE** This message (including any attachments) contains information that may be confidential. Unless you are the intended recipient (or authorized to receive for the intended recipient), you may not read, print, retain, use, copy, distribute, or disclose to anyone the message or any information contained in the message. If you have received the message in error, please advise the sender by reply e-mail, and destroy all copies of the original message (including any attachments).

Hi guys, I finally took the time to read all of these messages. As for what Dr. Bell said about what counselors know, all I can add is ditto. I have worked in agencies where they pretended to know a great deal about structured discovery. All I could do was cringe and go home and stand under the shower for a few hours. I had an interesting experience in Oklahoma that I?m not sure I want to tell but you know me, can?t keep my mouth shut. It?s rather embarrassing because it demonstrates how little my boss is actually pay attention to my personnel file, resume, application and the University information that I submitted when I applied. as many of you know, I worked in Texas for 11 years where they pretended to understand structure discovery very well. They had a few lectures and Jeff Altman and a few other key people so they just thought they knew at all. They brought me down and said we want to hire you to do XYNZ for us so that we can be better at structure discovery. Then of course what I want her to do XY or Z, they said no, you can?t do that yet you need to wait. No, you?re moving too fast. No, you can?t turn the Queen Mary on a dime. they didn?t want to know more about structure discovery they want to look as though they knew more. So when I get to Oklahoma, spending most of my time in the field and away from office drama, I seemed to have a better deal. then one of the big bosses in Oklahoma City decided that it was important for the orientation and mobility team to understand structured discovery better. at least Texas pretended to listen to me from time to time even if they didn?t really pay attention. In Oklahoma what they did was send me off to be trained by people I once trained. they packed up all five state orientation and mobility instructors and two volunteers from the local school for the blind and shipped us off to Chris Cole. in 2019 I participated in a program that looked exactly like Texas confidence builders minus the blindfold work and the free copies of cognitive learning theory and Cain travel instruction. The funny thing was that when I was first hired in 2005 in Texas, I helped the creator actually teach Texas confidence builders. Then when that position changed hands, I volunteered with other orientation and mobility teachers to facilitate and help with the blank full training of many columns who came through the agency. I was one of 3NOMC instructors there so I certainly didn?t do it by myself but I did it. Then I had to go back and be trained by the people who came after. instead of putting a laugh out loud or a silly face on this line I think I?ll go look for an emergency that just has a deep sigh. If I sound like I?m tooting my own horn, let me put a sock in it by telling you what I told a client this morning. I was describing some of the fun I was having with some of you on Zoom regarding virtual lessons and she proceeded to tell me how cool I was. I stopped her and said if you think I?m cool, you need to keep looking. If I introduce you to the people who trained me, they will blow your mind. I have had absolutely phenomenal training through the structured discovery philosophy and the NFB centers as well as Louisiana Tech. The opportunities I?ve had to pass on when I?ve learned to my clients and two colleagues who really were interested, are my way of paying back what I owe to people like Roland, Arlene Hill, Fred Schroeder, Jim witte and even an old guy from the 40s and 50s named torger lein Whether or not I am any good has nothing to do with me because I have a phenomenal lineage. Just imagine if people think I?m good, how much better people like Jedi, Both Bens, Collin, becky, Joanne and all of the next generations are. As for the diverging diamond dinner changes all I can say about been Vercellone, is that he proves the point that structure of discovery really is intrinsic. It?s so much easier to pull information out of a student when a student has so much more to start with. As for Donna sour burger being the goddess of orientation and mobility, I think they all missed it. We all know that Arlene Hill was the goddess of orientation and mobility. So to the godfather of Cain travel in southwest Missouri, I will only add that you need to stop underestimating your own abilities but I will be asking you for a favor on the day of your daughter?s wedding. LOL. This car ride to my next destination is entirely too long and Dr. Bell is probably going to truncate this email. Sent from my iPhone

On Apr 29, 2020, at 5:02 PM, Edward Bell <ebell at pdrib.com> wrote:

? Ben,

Informed consent or not, VR counselors know next to nothing about cane travel. They will understand it as O&M most likely, but nothing on the internet or agency brochures will shed light on any difference between COMS and NOMC. Consumer advocacy, public education and availability in each state will be what makes the difference. On that note, we are accepting applications for Summer and Fall and yes we do have scholarships, so please help us to recruit for the next generation of NOMC

Edward C. Bell, Ph.D., CRC, NOMC, Director, Professional Development and Research Institute on Blindness Louisiana Tech University 600 Mayfield Ave / 210 Woodard Hall PO Box 3158 Ruston LA 71272 Office: 318.257.4554 Fax: 318.257.2259 ebell at latech.edu www.pdrib.com ************* "I am somehow less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein's brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops." -- Stephen Jay Gould

From: Ben Vercellone <benv at fastmail.com> Sent: Wednesday, April 29, 2020 4:50 PM To: Edward Bell <ebell at pdrib.com> Cc: Keller, Becky ; NOMC Mailing list <nomc at lists.nbpcb.org> Subject: Re: [Nomc] Cane Travel Meeting Follow-Up

Hi Dr. Bell,

Thank you. Your approach definitely sounds encouraging and Effective. Can you tell me how well informed choice is implemented nation-wide? I'm in the lower half when it comes to understanding legal things in-depth. But I am guessing that agencies for the blind are more likely to tell people about SDCT than are web searches for O&M-related terms that don't include "Structured Discovery". Is this correct? If so, then this will make it less critical for our web presence to command the same footprint as the COMS perspective in the near future. It just seems to me that SDCT too often remains one of the best-kept secrets unless someone or some legislation makes it a conversation topic.

Sincerely, Ben

On Apr 29, 2020, at 4:33 PM, Edward Bell <ebell at pdrib.com> wrote:

? Hi Ben,

As I said earlier, I am glad to make space available and host more information on either site and we also have a blog we can use if people want to. One thing I have tried promoting all of my professional life is the notion that Structured Discovery is uniquely and distinctly different than COMS instruction. If you google search today the term ?Structured Discovery? the first three hits are NBPCB, NFB and PDRIB. So, I think we are positioned well so long as we always talk about Structured Discovery Cane Travel or the Structured Discovery form of O&M. Not even Donna Sauerburger Tries to pretend she knows anything much about Structured Discovery any more. Just my $.02

Edward C. Bell, Ph.D., CRC, NOMC, Director, Professional Development and Research Institute on Blindness Louisiana Tech University 600 Mayfield Ave / 210 Woodard Hall PO Box 3158 Ruston LA 71272 Office: 318.257.4554 Fax: 318.257.2259 ebell at latech.edu www.pdrib.com ************* "I am somehow less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein's brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops." -- Stephen Jay Gould

From: Ben Vercellone <benv at fastmail.com> Sent: Wednesday, April 29, 2020 4:26 PM To: Edward Bell <ebell at pdrib.com>; 'Keller, Becky' ; 'NOMC Mailing list' <nomc at lists.nbpcb.org> Subject: RE: [Nomc] Cane Travel Meeting Follow-Up

Hi All,

When I brought up the website topic last night, my main hope was for us to have a large hub for everything NOMC, similar to how many COMS instructors and supporters view Dona Sauerburger?s website as a large hub for everything COMS. I now realize that creating a new and unified website may not be necessary. But what is necessary is for our philosophy to command more attention from COMS professionals and from search engines. Whether our web presence is based on one website or multiple, and whether or not it involves creating any additional websites, I?m pretty open-minded. Someone on yesterday?s Zoom call said he/she (I think he) has been working on a podcast or audio/video content (I can?t remember exactly). But this sounded excellent. I?ll look for the YouTube channel Dr. Bell mentioned shortly. As I said last night, an O&M specialist in Missouri thinks that Dona Sauerburger is the O&M goddess, I didn?t comment when I heard him say this. But is sure did persuade me of the need to maximize our outreach. I don?t want to reinvent wheels, but I?m hoping that we can have a much larger web presence in at least 2 ways. First, I am hoping that our website/s will somehow be glued into the consciousness of many COMS when they?re sharing O&M information. In other words, when they recommend sauerburger.org, they?ll also feel the moral obligation to share nbpcb.org, pdrib.com, ETC. Second, when one searches online for O&M advice, especially regarding recommended cane length, he/she will probably agree with me that the COMS perspective is vastly more prominent. People aren?t supposed to use Google as their doctor, but many people do this anyway. Similarly, almost everyone researching blindness for the first time will use a search engine. They should have super easy access to our empowering philosophy and teaching methodology. In my opinion, they currently don?t, unless they get ?lucky? or hear of SDCT some other way.

What do you all think? I really am not nit picky about the solution. All I know is that a problem seems to exist, which I?ve fleshed out a little bit in this e-mail. And having increased audio and audio/video content may truly be a homerun, especially in people?s constantly accelerating lifestyles. The drop route videos sound awesome.

Finally, I have a brief Structured Discovery story to share. Just last year, I got utterly fed up with my inability to understand diverging diamond interchanges (DDI?s). I had already received some instruction on at least 2 occasions by a COMS instructor, but I still did not get it. Well, to my delight, cooperation took place between Rehab Services for the Blind of Missouri and Oklahoma Department of Rehabilitation Services where Jane Lansaw works. Jane came and taught me to cross at the oldest DDI in the U.S. which is in Springfield, Missouri. Immediately afterword, we took the bus to a newer and much larger DDI in Springfield, and I independently crossed there. Talk about transferable skills and SDCT! It was wildly cool. I did also use tactile graphics of these DDI?s, since this learning modality helps me a lot. But the tactile graphics probably helped no more than one third in this process. The main help was the SDCT approach, delivered by Jane Lansaw. Anyway, I do have some audio and video footage, but the weather was kind of bad that day. I?ll review the files soon if I can. At the very least, I wanted to share a summary of that great success here. If an increasing number of people hear and believe stories like this one, and if they can very easily find these SDCT testimonies with their search engine of choice, imagine what will be possible.

Sincerely, Ben

From: Edward Bell Sent: Wednesday, April 29, 2020 11:56 AM To: 'Keller, Becky'; 'NOMC Mailing list' Subject: Re: [Nomc] Cane Travel Meeting Follow-Up

Hi Becky,

This is all really good.

I am willing and able to add resources to either the PDRIB or NBPCB web pages. Just let me know what and where and I can get it done. Of course, anyone subscribed to this list can also post information here to get it out more quickly. I also believe we have a YouTube channel if there is video to post.

Edward C. Bell, Ph.D., CRC, NOMC, Director, Professional Development and Research Institute on Blindness Louisiana Tech University 600 Mayfield Ave / 210 Woodard Hall PO Box 3158 Ruston LA 71272 Office: 318.257.4554 Fax: 318.257.2259 ebell at latech.edu www.pdrib.com ************* "I am somehow less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein's brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops." -- Stephen Jay Gould

From: NOMC <nomc-bounces at lists.nbpcb.org> On Behalf Of Keller, Becky Sent: Wednesday, April 29, 2020 10:24 AM To: NOMC Mailing list <nomc at lists.nbpcb.org> Subject: [Nomc] Cane Travel Meeting Follow-Up

Good morning everyone, Thanks so much for all of your input and energy last night. We had some really good discussion, and the two hours seemed to fly right by. At one point, we had 28 folks in attendance. Pretty neat if I do say so myself.

Jedi and Jane, thank you also for volunteering to give us an example of your virtual drop routes. We look forward to hearing it when you send it out to everyone.

Below you will find the last remaining questions we had on our original agenda. We touched a little bit on some of them towards the end of our meeting, but I included them just in case you had additional thoughts or suggestions. Between now and Monday the 4th, please send me any further topics or questions that you wish to have posed to the group.

In addition, a proposal was introduced last evening that focused towards developing a new, or expanding our current Structured-Discovery websites, to include resources, readings, O & M media, etc., sort of an information portal for instructors. I've pasted our current links below for everyone. Dr. Bell, we were hoping to get your feedback and counsel regarding this topic.

Thanks again everyone for your participation and contributions. Have a wonderful week, and talk to you soon. Take care,

http://www.pdrib.com/ https://nbpcb.org/index.php

Questions: How could we work with folks to plan detailed hypothetical out of town trips, so they have an understanding of what goes into planning for a vacation or business trip? This way we could potentially utilize O&M as well as tech skills.

How can we get folks thinking about mental mapping places they haven?t been yet?

How can we help our students overcome fear, especially in uncertain times? In general, not necessarily focusing solely on cane travel...

Becky Keller, NOMC, COMS Lead Orientation and Mobility Instructor Virginia Rehabilitation Center for the Blind and Vision Impaired 401 Azalea Avenue Richmond, VA 23227 (804) 371-3093 becky.keller at dbvi.virginia.gov Facebook: VDBVI Worldwide Web: Virginia Rehabilitation Center for the Blind and Vision Impaired YouTube: VRCBVI "Success is a journey, not a destination. The doing is often more important than the outcome." -Arthur Ashe

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