Integrating Students with Visual Impairments into PE Classes [Webinar Replay]

You know when something feels so good, you want the goodness to ripple out from the moment that it was experienced, and continue to touch your day or touch other people the way that it has touched yours.

Okay, personal side note, I have recently and don't laugh at me because it's so recent. I recently started drinking coffee and bed on weekend mornings that I don't have my kids. And let me tell you, it is one of the greatest joys of my life. It just feels so luxurious, like, no matter how much money you have, no matter what you have, no matter what resources you have, that is something that is so yummy to do, and the goodness seeps out into my entire day.

And because of that, I've also been looking at other ways that goodness, ripple effects its way out from that exact moment and the people that it happens with. When we first started putting these webinars in the podcast, I honestly was a little unsure of what to think. But it turned out that this ripple effect, at this moment in time I'm currently enjoying. If the data changes, if it doesn't feel good to do it anymore, it will stop. But for right now, these limited time episodes allow you to get all of the information, the goodness without having it be in webinar form. You don't have to be sitting down and watching. You don't have to make it a big thing in your life. And yet you still get these nuggets of wisdom and inspiration. And I love that I love that for us. And I love, love, love love that for you. You can listen to this podcast while you're driving between students.

In this podcast episode:

• Introduction to the Webinar

• Three things to focus on

• Chelsea’s Introduction

• Benefits of physical activities

• Inclusion through opportunities

• Gaps in access

• Reflective questions pt.1

• Steps to create a buy-in

• Reflective questions pt.2

• Q&A with Chelsea

• A run-through of the upcoming O and M Symposium

Transcript of the Episode:

Introduction to the webinar

A few weeks ago, we got to talk with Chelsea Schumaker about why she has become such a strong advocate for her learner's physical education needs. We all know that our learners need to be included in PE. They need to have that physical action and the interaction with their peers. They need to be expected to do the same things that their peers do.

We know that physical movement increases your mental health, it decreases your cortisol level, it increases your self efficacy skills, all these good things. But what we don't know as O and M specialists is how to make that happen. And I think a lot of people signed up and showed up to this webinar thinking that we were going to tell them about a specific beef ball or strategy to teach learners like how to move. Well that's not what it was at all. And from the comments, it really seems like what people took away from it was mind blowing to them and in the best of ways.

So on this episode, we get to share how you can get buy-in from the PE teachers. And it doesn't matter what PE strategy you use. It doesn't matter what kind of ball you use. It doesn't matter if your learner’s in a wheelchair, it doesn't matter if your learner's trying to learn how to run or ice skate or anything of that nature. Because we took a step back actually, we took a broader focus. Say hey, whenever you are in this situation, here is how to look at it. Here's the new perspective for you. Not just okay, if you want to teach running, you do ABC, but who do you contact to help you along that path. We had some PE teachers in the group and their insights were absolutely phenomenal.

So without further ado, please enjoy this amazing episode with Chelsea Schumaker. It will come down next week and regular registration for the symposium. If you're not registered yet, come on, what are you doing? Why are you sitting on the sidelines of your own life friend? Regular Registration closes January 19. We do have late registration open January 20, through February 16. But if you can get in for cheaper now, like why not? You know, I'm all about that life. Alright, let’s get on to the show.

Kassy:
Welcome to integrating learners with visual impairments and physical education classes. I'm really excited that you are here. I'm Kassy Maloney, if you don't know me. But the person who's going to be taking over in a second is Chelsea Schumaker. And I'm going to share a little bit about her also in just a second.

You know, I love to start with quotes that really resonate with me in today's quote is “Alone we can do so little together, we can do so much” by your girl Helen Keller, I mean, when she says something like that, and it pertains so well to this topic, you gotta use it.

Today, we're really focusing on how we can do things together. What we're really going to be looking at is how we can become more impactful teachers, as we always, always are. But we're gonna be doing so under the lens of how can we get buy-in from the PE teacher specifically, because we're talking about the importance of physical activity.

Now, if you're here, there's a great chance that you're an orientation and mobility specialist who's been frustrated, because you've seen your students on the sidelines, and they need to be in the PE class and you want to see them happier and healthier with this wreck leisure activity. Maybe you're an O and M specialist who has team members who don't listen to you, maybe that's one of us. I know, that was definitely me for a really long time. And you want to be able to create that cohesion without creating conflict. Or maybe you are an O and M specialist who understands the importance of physical activity, but you're just having a hard time getting those ideas across to the rest of your team and you want some support and some help. Well, we have got that for you.

Three things to focus on

Today, the step that we're taking is towards creating a better Cohesive Team unit with your PE teacher. So that way you can advocate for your learner's needs, without creating conflict without big hullabaloo without a lot of stress within yourself. So you have a game plan, and you know what to do.

Since you are here live for those of you guys who are here live, I want to offer you a script to use with your team members. What I'm doing today is I'm going to be taking notes, and we sent you each individual links to the Zoom Room. And that lets us know who was here live. If you are here live, and for some reason, you don't get this script by the end of the week, please let us know. And then I'll go ahead and send it out to you. 

So what does it really truly mean to move the needle forward? In all the years that I've been doing this, we have a couple different options. We can go after all the shiny pennies and that works to an extent but what got you here will not get you there. And as you are reaching to become an even better O and M specialist which I would assume all of you guys are what I've noticed over the long time that I've been doing this and O and M and having conversations with people all over the world. And so there are really three things for you to focus on. And in today's time that we have together, I'm going to encourage you to just focus on those three things and lean into each one of them to accelerate your experience with us.

• Innovative Teaching Strategies

Let's just be honest, you need to be on the cutting edge of anything that's happening within any field that you're in. But especially in O and M, because things change so fast. We are such a new profession. And just like you wouldn't go to a doctor who was still practicing medicine from the 80s or saying like, remember when smoking was healthy, and opiates were non addicting, and I'm using air quotes, like, you don't want a doctor like that. And you don't want your students to go be taught by a teacher who is saying, you know, things that we now know, we can be doing better. And that's exactly what you're doing it like you're here for the innovative strategies. That's why we have Chelsea on board. That's why you're sitting here.

• A Supportive Community

We are in Zoom meeting for a reason. There's a chat box. Lean into your community, and you will get so much more out of it. I was talking to my eight year old the other day, and eight is such a fun age because at seven he had friends but he didn't really care about his friends. And now he make playdates with his friends, and he facetimes his friends. They're just now a really crucial aspect of his life. And it's really interesting to watch somebody on the precipice of this. And I asked him, What does community mean for you? And he said, it means happiness. And yes, it does mean happiness. But if you think about it, it's so much more than happiness.

Have you ever seen an impactful teacher who was grumpy about how lonely they felt, you know, those teachers are burnt out. And what we are doing is avoiding that we are leaning more into impact. And in order to do that we need to lean into our community. It helps really accelerate our learning process, everybody here is gonna have a different perspective. And I really encourage you today to share your perspective. You don't have to just sit on the sidelines and have things thrown at you. I want you engaged. I want you, if you have an idea, if you say oh, my student does A, B or C, write it in the chat, because we are all learning from you. And what Chelsea and I will do when it's our respective turns to talk. If we see something that pops up that needs to be shared verbally, we'll do that. And we'll say it out loud.

And just like scientifically, right, the National Alliance on Mental Health says the community brings a sense of belonging, support and purpose, which increases your mental health. So like we know how important mental health is.

• A Balanced life

And I can't give you a balanced life. That's up to you. But what I can do is give you an efficient delivery method and make it so that everything that you take with Allied Independence is easily accessible. That you can take it you know, in the car if you need to, or listening to it when you're on a walk or easily accessible however you define that so that way you don't have to spend so much more time in transit and you can spend time on the things that really matter. So lean into all of those.

Now the next thing that I want to share with you is our amazing presenter. So today our question is, how can you get buy-in from your learner's PE teacher so that your learner can increase their mobility skills. Well, Chelsea Schumaker is the queen for this. She'll go into her story a little bit later. Don't shake your head.

You know when I was talking about this today, and I won't take up too much time with it. But you know, when you like go down your life path, and it's kind of like you are crossing a river and you have different stones right and you jump from stone to stone to stone and then you look back at like, oh, all those stones actually made a line and that's really cool. That's exactly what we have here with Chelsea.

She's actively a Comms in the Dallas Fort Worth area working for an educational service center. She works with students of all ages, from early childhood intervention through high school she received her master's degree in special ed in orientation and mobility from Texas Tech University in 2020. How she came into this field in 2020 and like has overcome… Remember in 2021 I was saying oh the people who are going to school now they're going to be the best of the best. Y'all are y'all are. And she's currently working on her PhD in special education. If that's not a Texas Tech with an emphasis in orientation mobility and firmly believes that O and M is have the best job ever, we do. And she loves doing life with her husband, son and two dogs and they enjoy doing things outdoors and spending time together. So I'm gonna introduce Chelsea, hello hello and turn it over to you Chelsea. Do you have your slides?

Chelsea’s introduction

Chelsea:
I do. I do. Okay, I just wanted to make sure it was actually showing what I wanted it to do. Hi guys. I'm Chelsea Schumaker. Like Kassy said, how I got into the field is definitely an interesting way. So I'll just go ahead and dive right in.

So this is my third year working as an ons socialist, which is absolutely insane. I can't believe it's been three years at this point, honestly. Before this, I was in the corporate world. So I worked for a major car rental company here in the States. I was the branch manager for them for about five years. And then after that, I switched to sales.

So part of the reason physical activity is like, so key in my personal life and my personal journey, I actually have lost 185 pounds. This was me, before I had weight loss surgery. And I know you're probably in your head sitting here saying, like, Why does all this matter? Right?

You know, this lady who used to work in corporate, the corporate world is now had weight loss surgery. Good for her. Right. But, you know, once I had that weight loss surgery, I really started to take my life back and figure out that being in sales just wasn't for me. I mean, it was good I can, if you know me in real life, which several of you on here do, know that I can absolutely 110% Talk to a brick wall, about everything. So I was good in the corporate world, I was good in sales. However, I just wasn't feeling fulfilled.

So how all of this started it kind of like Kassy said, I had a lot of stepping stones, right. So having the weight loss surgery and starting to lose weight and totally changing my life, and putting a more of a strong emphasis on being physically active really changed my world. Whenever I was overweight, I didn't travel a lot. I just felt that it was too much. It was always too much. Right.

So after my surgery, I traveled to Fort Wayne, Indiana and was exposed to goalball. Again, if you know me in real life, and have met me and have kind of been a part of this, like, goalball is my favorite sport. I am the biggest goalball fan. I love to coach it. I love to volunteer, I love all aspects of the sport itself.

So I spent a week in Fort Wayne, Indiana, and just had the best time of my life. And when the week was over, I couldn't believe that and I just didn't want to go back to work. So I came home and I quit my job. I know that sounds crazy, but I quit my job. I applied to the program at Texas Tech University.

And then that next summer, while I was working on my coursework, I traveled to C and IB to work at their summer camp. And it was an amazing experience because coincidentally, the entire camp focused on orientation and mobility and independent living skills. So it was such a unique experience for me to get the opportunity to not only travel internationally, and experience O and M in a different country but also, it just solidified the fact that I decided to make the right move. That was one of the best weeks of my life. The kids were just absolutely incredible.

I have a student… Well, he's not my student. There was a child that I met at this camp a kid. I'm still close with his family like to this day, me and his mom connected on WhatsApp. And she sends me pictures and videos and he asks about me and now my son all the time. So I'm hoping that one day they'll be able to come to the States and visit but traveling to C and IB definitely changed my life because it is quite an incredible institution. For our Canada folks. I was at the C and IB in Toronto.

Okay, so why does it all matter? Like I said, I love goalball. So I traveled to complete my internship in January of 2020. We didn't know what was going to happen at that time. And I traveled to the foundation for blind children and worked in their adult program. And I actually coached two goalball teams in the SouthWest USABA tournament. And it was an incredible experience. I coached two teams, I've never been so tired in my life. But it was awesome. I dip my fingers and my toes into the goalball world. And I absolutely loved my time in Phoenix, it was life changing. I left my husband here. This was before our son, I left my husband here in Texas and traveled to Phoenix and just really continued to find myself within the field, grow my passions and learn more about O and M.

So again, you're probably like, Why does all this matter? It matters to me because being physically active literally changed my life. And it connected me to orientation and mobility in which in turn connected me to goalball. Well, I guess goalball and O and M kind of went together because I just love both of the two things so much and I genuinely think that we have the best job in the whole entire world. I can promise you as someone who has sat in a cubicle, this is way more fun and I I wouldn't much rather deal with all of the, you know, constant advocating the constant talking about, you know why things are important for our kids, I would 10 out of 10 much rather be doing that, instead of sitting in a cube, staring at a computer screen all day.

Benefits from physical activity

Okay, so a couple of thoughts for this webinar is that everybody benefits from physical activity, especially when it comes to our student’s accessibility. And more importantly, opportunity is key for our kids, right. More thoughts for the session is getting PE teachers and other staff bought in the buy-in is what's important for our kids, right.

It's all about the relationships that you're building whenever you're on a campus. And then I think just showing your PE teachers and other staff that are working with your students that O and M skills, they can be reinforced through physical activity and play right. Everything we do is O and M. I can relate anything that I do in my day, especially with a student back to orientation and mobility. You can always find links to connect those two back together.

So I've found a couple of statistics from the World Health Organization, about adults in general, right. And I think these are really important for us to keep in mind as we're moving forward, is that a lot of adults don't meet the recommended levels of daily physical activity. About 1 in 4 adults do not meet that goal. And then there's up to 5 million deaths a year that could be avoided if, as a global population, we were a little bit more active. And then people who are insufficiently active have a 20 to 30% increased risk of death compared to people who are sufficiently active.

Again, I think this is just something worth keeping in our mind as we are going forward talking about how to get your PE teachers bought in, because if we ourselves aren't being physically active, you know, how are we going to continue to get our PE teachers, those staff members, even APE bought into the idea that our students who are visually impaired still need to be exposed and given that same opportunity. Whether or not your student is ambulatory, and dependently, uses a device or even if they're in a wheelchair, those students should still be getting the same opportunity that their sighted peers are getting.

I believe there's only one or two more slides about statistics, but more than 80% of the world's adolescent population is insufficiently physically active. I think this is very relevant right now, especially after you know, post pandemic, a lot of our kids have switched to attending school, you know, and they have assignments on the computer tablets are everywhere, right?

Encouraging your kids to play, even our students day to day in the schools, just a simple game of rolling a ball that’s providing the more opportunity and more ability to be active than just sitting them, you know, in their chair or on a set of pads that are in the classroom. And that gives us examples, because those are my own personal examples of things that I've seen within the field of the students that I've had. And so I'm really excited to see what the rest of you also, you know, have experienced.

So a couple of key facts from WHO, right, the World Health Organization, there's significant health benefits for hearts, bodies and minds. Personally, for myself, I can speak to my own personal, you know, well-being on this whole sentiment. I feel better when I'm moving my body. I feel like my mind is clear. I do CrossFit every morning, when I'm not really tired and don't oversleep it. But I wake up at 5am to go do CrossFit and it just sets the tone for my day. Because my head is clear. I'm in a good mental space. I showed up for myself so I can continue to show up for my students day to day.

So also, you know, being physically active reduces the possibility for things that are really avoidable, you know, type two diabetes, cardiovascular disease and cancer. It also reduces symptoms of depression and anxiety. As someone who deals with anxiety, I can say that for me personally, it really does make a difference. Whenever I am more physically active with myself, you know, even if I don't make it to CrossFit and I sleep in, I always try to find time on my lunch break to go on a walk or I'll take my son on a walk whenever I get home, you know. And it just really does help again clear my mind and just it makes me feel like I hit the reset button right, on everything that I've been thinking everything that has been going on within my world. Because I know you all have this, you all have a student, that you come home and you can't stop thinking about them. Whether it be their home life situation, or there's a situation going on in the classroom, that you just can't, for some reason, get through to the teacher about why it's important for them to be involved.

So another thing is it enhances thinking, learning and judgment skills, being physically active, it ensures healthy growth and development. And then again, it just improves students’ overall well being.

Inclusion through opportunities

So I want to talk about inclusion, right? Because this is all about providing opportunity. Opportunity is so important. Modeling or adapting sports and activities so that our students who have visual impairments understand what is being asked, right. I have a student currently who, his PE teacher is phenomenal. I wish I could have one of her in all of the districts that I work in, she does her very best to include him in any running activities. You know, they do very specific warm ups, every single day. They do the same warmup during PE.

And I observed him in class one day. And then the second time I went in, I decided to push into that PE class and really work with him on the warm up stretches that they were doing. And he was like Miss Chelsea, it's time for crunches. And I was like, Oh no, I did crunches this morning, I really don't want to do those again. And so, you know, I still did them, though I did them with my kid with my student, because I felt like it was important for the PE coach and the staff that were also in the gym, that work with those students to see how to model and how to work with my student, in this case, on the activities that are being asked of him, you know. I mean, he was asked to do jumping jacks, and he was just jumping up and down and not moving his arms and legs.

And so I really worked with him. And I asked him if it was okay if I touched him. And I physically demonstrated with him what the movement looked like. And then he finally got it. It's like a light bulb went off. And he was like, Oh, this is what I'm supposed to do. And so I think that was an important moment for him to feel included. And then also, again, modeling just going… I put my arms underneath his arms, and I said, Okay, your arms right on top of mine, and then I'm going to show you. That went a long way for that PE coach.

So in the States, we have the expanded core curriculum. And so it is a set of curriculum that's developed for students who are visually impaired, because a lot of the learning that we do is visual, right, or it's also incidental learning that we learn from experiences. So our students without vision or low vision, they need to be taught certain things.

So a lot of these areas overlap. And then a lot of our PE coaches, they really aren't aware of what the expanded core curriculum is here in the States. And I think it's important that they understand the ECC, and how it can be applied to all of the areas that overlap, including orientation, mobility, social skills, self efficacy, or self determination, you know, all of these skills, they all overlap. So again, kind of like what I was talking about orientation and mobility.

These are two building blocks to establish long term independence for our students who are blind or visually impaired. I mean, the two go hand in hand. They don't just apply to the hallways, they don't just apply to the community, it also applies to the gym, that the kid is going to PE classes. So again, increasing the involvement of a child who is blind or visually impaired within physical activity just reinforces the development of those skills. It begins with so many basic skills that can build the foundation of an independent life for that student.

Gaps in Access

So we've talked about inclusion, right, we've talked about a couple of ways that you can really get into the classroom and model that with your student. Next, I want to talk about gaps in access. So Dr. Lieberman. As someone who is obsessed with the connection between physical education and activity with orientation and mobility is, I read every single book that Dr. Lieberman has put out, I tried to read all of her articles, but she is a very busy woman. So I will not necessarily read all of it. I wanted to read or I wanted to just highlight a couple of the key points, but I did include the entire quote. So I'm just going to skip ahead to the key points that she talks about within this quote from one of her books, okay. It's just… it's quite lengthy.

So there are common gaps in access that can be identified by Dr. Lieberman, right? Our students can be judged. And I know for me personally, that hits really hard for a lot of the kids that are on my current caseload, a misunderstanding of the importance of physical activity. In some of my districts, I've personally feel like I am screaming into the void about how important it is to get our students involved. Another is fear of the student. I fully understand that it's scary, right? Especially whenever our student walks into the gym, right? There's no real structure, maybe it's a free day. There's balls flying everywhere.

I have a student who has been hit in the face at least five times this year. I've had several meetings with the PE teacher. So I'm hoping that things have gotten better, I will be checking in on Friday about that. But again, my student continued to sit herself on the sidelines, because she was very afraid of participating within that PE class.

Last but not least, is lack of training. Right? I am not a teacher. I told you, I came from the corporate world to the O and M education world, which is two very different places to exist. But the one thing that I continue to see or continue to be told, well, I've never had a student with a visual impairment. So I just don't know what to do, right? Or it was just easier, she didn't want to put that toy down. So she's sitting here on the bleachers. And you know, it's a toy that the student is stemming on, or, well, she's blind, she can't run.

So those are some of the common gaps that are identified by Dr. Lieberman within that quote, and I'll make sure, Kassy, if we can give everybody a copy of the slides, I just didn't want to take up valuable time reading you the entire quote.

Reflective questions pt.1

So I have a couple of questions for all of you. And I wanted this to be more of a reflection time, right? So as an O and M specialist, how can we continue to bridge that gap? I think it's super important for us to really ponder that. I asked myself that every time I walk into a PE class, or I push in, even if it's just for an observation, what can I do today, to change the student's life right now in this moment.

So you know, the needs of children with disabilities, they're not unlike anybody else, not unlike my own child, they need opportunities to participate in active exercise. And I think the statistics that we talked about earlier from the World Health Organization, are very indicative about why our kids need the same access.

So again, another reflection question, you know, what role do O and M specialists play in creating a space and advocating for our students to have access to physical activity? You know I just want you guys to think about that, you know, as we continue to push forward through the slides. And before we get to the Q&A section. You know, just really think about what role do you play? I think it, it comes back to just bringing it down to something like that, you know, what role do I play in this moment for our students?

So what all of you are here for, creating buy-in, right. Like I said earlier, I can literally talk to a brick wall about just about anything. It is, so… it's a rare skill. And I think I learned it from just number one, I talk a lot in real life. I talk so much. That's why O and M can be so hard for me in certain lessons, because I just want to talk but I have to zip my lips and be quiet. Right? So creating buy-in for our students. This is something that I really learned whenever I was in sales. And this, there's a couple of steps and we'll go through and we'll break it down step by step, right?

Steps to create a buy in

Okay, so we talked about stakeholders in education, right? Your stakeholder people who are going to be involved in the development of your student. The stakeholders, and when I was writing these questions, I thought about them as anyone who is touching that student's life in a way while they're on that campus.

• Identify your stakeholders

So a couple of things is, number one, who are they, right? You have to identify who your stakeholder is. So as we move forward, a stakeholder is someone who is going to have an active decision making process and the abilities for their access to physical education. So it could be the teachers, it could be the parents, it could be the PE coaches. If they do partners PE we have that here in the States, I'm not sure. Our friends and other countries, I hope you guys have something similar. But partners PE here is where there is gen-ed students that come into the special ed PE time and they are an active participant and they get to experience each other, which I think is really great and magical all within itself. Because you learn best from your peers, right? So who are the stakeholders? Identify those key people who are your stakeholders.

In this one, it's really hard for someone who likes to talk a lot. This was hard for me. Whenever I was in sales, I was a business development manager for my last two years before I became an O and M specialist, right? What that meant was, I was calling people out of the blue on the phone, trying to drum up business, perfect for somebody who can talk to the wall and who's happy to sit in a cubicle all day, right. But one of the things that I had to learn how to do whenever I was trying to get customers bought back in to the company that I was working for, right, was I had to stop and understand and listen, before they could understand where I was coming from with the sales, right?

So I worked really hard. And I invested a lot of time in building relationships, building relationships with the companies in the key stakeholders, that would be the decision makers, and if they were going to choose our market research firm or not. So once I built that relationship, and I could understand why they weren't using us anymore, or why they chose to go a different way, then I could kind of spin things a little bit right? Get a little bit creative and get them to trust me. And let that sink in.

How many of your PE teachers or staff that are working with your students trust you as a person? It was really hard for me when I was creating this PowerPoint, you know, I thought about that. And there are some relationships that I myself have to work on. Because I had a student get… I've said this on the podcast, and I was with Kassy, I had a student who had an accident in PE where he was run over by others, gen-ed students. And I have not met that teacher or the PE coach yet. So I need her to trust me and understand my expertise. But I need to understand who she is, where she's coming from, you know, why she became a PE coach, all of those things are really important.

• Empathetic communication

So next is practice empathetic communication. This one is this one can be really hard for some people to build those genuine, honest, clear, supportive relationships. You know, when I was in sales, I had clients that would call me at all hours of the night and day. And if there was a reason I couldn't answer the phone, I would tell them, hey, I'm really sorry, I couldn't answer the phone. I had a family emergency happening or, you know, I couldn't do this. Because I was, you know, spending time with my husband. And you know, I think it's important for the staff that we're working with to understand that we're people to right? We have a life. And all we want is what's best for our students. And if you can be honest, clear and supportive to them. They're more likely to buy-in to you because they have to be bought into you.

And then another tip for this step is spend more time asking questions and listening, was one of the things that I learned to do really well, especially when I'm working on getting to know someone through sales. I always make this joke about when I worked at enterprise. I mean, I'm so sorry, when I worked at a major car rental company. The thing was if one of my customers came in and they just absolutely loved butterflies. I loved butterflies. I mean, I just started learning a bunch of random things that I could talk about for a really long time. And I think that you know if a customer came in and they were wearing like a specific sports team shirt, I could say oh wow, how long have you been a fan of them? Oh, you know, they did great in this game or Wow, I love your shirt. Where did you get that? Oh, I love that store, you know.

And that sounds crazy, but it gets their attention, right. And if you can be honest in what you say, Now, there are some salespeople who are not honest in what they say. I think you get more buy-in, I have always tried to be honest in the connections that I make with people. And I just want them to be genuine. And that's why this topic was so important to me, because I did learn a lot whenever I was in sales. And part of the reason I was so good at it is because I wasn't like the people who were lying and faking it, right? Honesty and being your true person get you really far, especially when it comes to relationship building.

• Think in a win-win solution

So another thing is, you have to think in a win-win solutions, right? So whenever I again, when I was in sales, and I was calling these market research firms trying to get them to trust me enough to invest their money in, in this project with me, I had to think about what's going to be in it for them, and then also what's going to be in it for us. Right? Everything the two worked together.

So this idea of synergy for both of us to have the desired outcome, I wanted the customer, right, and they wanted this market research project to go off without a hitch. So if I'm thinking in win-win solutions, and my stakeholders already are bought into me as a person, because I'm genuine, honest, I am clear in my communication with them. If we're already thinking in those ways, the win-win solutions, they're going to be there.

So, like I said earlier about how I modeled what a jumping jack would look like for my student, right? One of the things I used to always tell my employees when I worked at the rental car company, is it's always better to be proactive instead of reactive. So being proactive, you're already providing a solution before it comes up. And if you're being reactive, you don't have really a response time, right? So be proactive, set a good example, push in to your students, and to those PE classes and ask what they're doing. And if your student isn't being included, show them.

You know, my student, I think I talked about her. She was sitting on the sidelines on the bleachers. And she was just playing with this little like telephone toy. She was in pre K. And I said, well, what is she doing? And her para looked at me and said, well, she's blind, she can't run. And I looked at her, I said, Baby, do you want to go run in? You want to run with your friends and you want to run to the music? And she was like Miss Chelsea Yes! Let's run! And we ran. I was so pregnant and so sweaty, but we ran through that gym.

I was very pregnant with my son at the time. But you know what, my student wanted to participate. And so I tried to be a good asset, a good example by pushing in and doing it instead of just accepting the fact that she's going to be sitting there.

Reflective questions pt.2

So more reflection questions. And I think thinking about, you know, the steps that we talked about to get buy-in. So you have to think about it and do a little bit of self reflection. So how can you become a better listener and build better relationships? People love to talk about themselves. So how can you become a better listener, and build better relationships with the people who are working with our kids? Because at the end of the day, it's our kids who suffer when they're sat on the sidelines, right.

My next question for you is, Are your stakeholders aware of the expertise that you possess? Are they aware? Do your stakeholders know about your awesome education and your awesome certification within this very specialized field? Do they know that? And then do they know you? Right? Do your stakeholders know how you can be a genuine source of help? Right. Because if we're thinking in win-win, us providing the help the genuine source of help and resources to our staff, and if our staff is bought into us as an individual. The other win of that scenario is our student being included. So do your PE teachers know how you can be a genuine source of help.

So a couple of key takeaways before we get to the Q&A portion is a couple of things that we talked about right individuals who are blind or visually impaired where'd they deserve access to all opportunities, not only within the classroom, and within their school, but also within the community to participate in group and individual physical fitness, they all deserve equal access. And then if the philosophy of O and M is everything, and everything is O and M is true, which I believe it is

Q&A with Chelsea

Every physical activity or sport that the student participates in, will enhance their performance of fundamental O and M concepts and skills. But in order for that to happen, your staff has to be bought into you, right. And they have to be bought into the student. So that's all my slides. I can't really see the chat. I don't…. it looks like it's got quite a few things in there.

Kassy:
I can help with that. That’s what we do. Okay, you guys, go ahead and write your questions in the chat. I'm going to scroll up a little bit. I know that someone asked, How do you run with a student human guide? And I'm gonna have you answer that here. Because I think that that’s something people watching the replay will also ask you guys, as she's answering that, go ahead and write your questions for Chelsea in the chat about how we can get buy-in from our PE teachers. Go ahead.

Chelsea:
Yeah, so actually I did this with a couple of students, I run with a tether. There are actual running tethers that you can purchase. One of my students has one of them. And then another student. This sounds so silly, but you know, the resistance bands, they're like rubber, and they're, they can either go around your, your ankles or your knees. I use that with him. Because I was thinking on the fly, I walked in, and all of his friends were running, running around, and he's spinning in circles, spinning himself in circles, because he couldn't run laps with his peers. And so I asked his coach for one of those little resistance bands, and I made one work. And now every week, once a week, we run during PE class.

Kassy:
Yeah. So we're getting more into PE questions here, which is How do you teach a congenitally blind student to run? That might be hard.

Chelsea:
That's a hard one. So I definitely did. Like, I would need a lot more details, does your student currently get PT? Are they working with an OT? You know, you're really going to want to work with all of the professionals that are on that students team to make sure that you're not crossing over into an area that that you shouldn't be, you know. I firmly believe in stay in your lane and ask the other experts, right. So I would stay in my lane and I would ask your PTE professional, but the example that I did give earlier about my student who was sitting on the bleachers, and she just walked really fast. And we would, and I'm going to do air quotes, “run with her peers”. She just wanted to be included, you know. Sometimes it's not even about the physical appropriateness of the running, you know, like the proper gait and movement. It's getting them up. Yep. And for that student, that's what that's what that meant. For her. It was getting her moving to the music because the PE teacher played music over the speakers in the gym, and she loved it. She loved running to music and when the song would stop, she just stopped. It was really adorable.

Kassy:
I agree with you on that one. It's not really our place to teach them how to run exactly. That's a PT, it's their job to teach our learners how to move their gross motor skills. And that way… Girl, we don't have any questions going in. I think that these… what you shared it was like really spot on. But it comes from like a sales and then strategy, background type of place. I have the exact same experience when I started to learn how to sell this was long before Allied and it changed the game for me when I could go in to conversation, specifically not with vinegar with honey, and create a win-win situation and listen to them, and then share my ideas because as O and M specialists, when we walk into a PE class and we see them sitting on silence, we have the ideas a lot of times or the ideas are abundant. We can make them up we can be creative, and maybe if you don't have the ideas then nothing to do it. is to get with APE teacher or the PE teacher itself or the OT and say, Hey, this is what needs to happen, but I don't know how to make that happen. They can then come up with the ideas of how to make it happen.

We got a question on Instagram about what if your student doesn't want to use a beep ball? Well, there are so many other things that so many other things that you can have. But I don't have that. I don't know exactly what's in every PE teacher’s closet. So do you guys have any more questions about this for Chelsea? Because I'm going to ask you guys some questions in just a second so that I might steal your share.

Chelsea:
Please do. You're all good.

Kassy:
Alright. Leandro says when they see your confidence and knowledge they buy-in. It doesn't hurt when you are offering to provide any tools or supplies they may need. There you go Leandro. Okay, Denae is asking for tips for teaching ice skating. I think that would also specifically be the team decision. The PT would have to be involved with that. Wouldn’t you say Chelsea?

Chelsea:
I would think so. Yeah. Yeah.

Kassy:
There you go. And Julie's saying for ice skating slide mats. Chelsea and I are both in Texas. So at this time, yeah. Ice scares me.

Chelsea:
I'm like, Ah, no. I don't want to talk about last February. We were in quite the bind.

Kassy:
For a while there. Recommended mat… Okay. Chelsea. Do you have recommended materials for PE teachers? If you were in a PE teacher, this is your time to shine, go ahead and write in your recommended materials that you use all of the time, I know that there's actually some on APH Quota Funds, they have a bunch of different types of balls that they use.

Chelsea:
They also have beeping devices that you can put on the top of a basketball goal. I don't know if anybody's seen that viral video of the girl shooting the winning basket at this basketball game. But you know, you could always do that. Another thing you could always do is… I keep a Goal Ball in my car. It's a nice to jingle around with back there.

Kassy:
Right. And you can also a lot of times find things like at Walmart or just when you're shopping around and adapt them. Or I also really like it doesn't work all the time, but just putting a plastic bag or a regular ball. Yeah, very well. It makes it a little wobbly.

Chelsea:
Another thing that I… so I was working with one of my students on echolocation. And in PE all the students had dots, right. So at first I tried putting a textured, like sticker like Velcro, you know, something like that on the dot. And that wouldn't work. So the PE coach, I looked at him I said, What kind of whistles do you have? Just out of the blue. And you know, he pulls out he's got, he has all kinds. And turns out there's handheld whistles now that make quite a unique whistleblow sound. And he would stand next to her dot and she would put her cane up by the door and use her bumpers and we worked the clear direct path for her to find her dot while working on this echolocation skills from the handheld whistle. And it worked really great.

Kassy:
That is awesome. I'm gonna read some of these off that are coming through the chat and then I'm gonna move on to questions for you guys who are here. So for the ice skating, Nicholas says for ice skating, they have those skating assistance items that a lot of sighted people use they act as a bumper and a stabilizer. I need one of those.

Chelsea:
They’re on Amazon, and I've looked into them yeah, they're on Amazon. They're great.

Kassy:
APH Anna says that APH has a running kit with a tether Made to Move Barbie for demonstrating body positions. That could be a good one. I have a meditation teddy bears that works. I think a Barbie would work much better for that. Katie, I believe that your name says, she uses sound boxes. She's the APE teacher and she uses AirLite ball with bells for their volleyball unit. And she also says to hide the sound box and have them find it while riding on scooters as kids use blindfolds. And there's also a kit linked here. Diane can you do us a favor and grab that link so we can throw it on the All Access page. All right, because these are amazing. Oh Shelby asked what are some books that Dr. Lieberman has written, she would love to read some more. Thank you for rewriting that question Shelby.

Chelsea:
So, I, it's currently upstairs. And you know, before this started, I thought to myself, I should grab it. But I didn't. And I can't remember the full title. But Shelby, I'll put my contact information in the chat, and I can send you some. And Kassy, I'll make sure they get out to you as well. But I just need to go upstairs and get them.

Kassy:
You know, what we can do is we can just actually link them if you send me an email. Tomorrow, we're going to link the PowerPoint presentation for you guys. So we'll do that tomorrow when the video goes up, and everything so you guys will probably get an email tomorrow saying that the replay is up or trying to send you a least amount of emails as possible, which is why we're taking attendance now. But either way, just look tomorrow around noon, Friday. No, today's Wednesday, Thursday, around noon, Eastern Standard Time. Do the math on your own.

There was another question that was really good. Zachary asked What activities have you had the most success integrating students with visual impairments? And can you talk a little bit about the steps that you took to do it? I love that.

Chelsea:
That is such a good question. You know, I think the biggest ones have really been with the student that I shared the example of like I was I moved under him to do some of the workouts that they were working on within his class already. I think the most important part was that PE class was partners PE like I mentioned so that the partners that were in there, were able to lead the stretches.

And before I joined him, I could talk to the coach, tell her, Hey, what does he do? What are you guys doing today? What does he have planned for this? You know, another activity. This PE coach has a student teacher with her right now. And the student teacher was not aware that she had a visually impaired student in the class. So she's explaining the lesson that she has come up with, right? And I looked at the code and I said, this isn't accessible to him. So what are we going to do to make it accessible for him?

And she called over the student teacher and I said, Okay, I told her, I said, Okay, I'm going to be working with him. But I said, you really have to think about how we're going to integrate him into this. And I said, I don't want it to be me doing it with him, it needs to be a peer because he needs to participate in these activities with his friends. And what they had to do was they had a balance of balloon between their backs, and work as a team, to, you know, complete this relay race, basically. And I think it was really important for me to be able to push in and be there, and then talk to the coach, because I already have buy-in from her. She is 100% onboard with making sure that he has access and that he's included, you know, with your other teachers might be a little bit more difficult if that relationship isn't there first.

Did that answer your question? Does that make sense? Sorry, if it didn't, I hope it did.

A run-through of the upcoming O and M Symposium

Kassy:
So for those of you guys who have a second, I'd love to know your takeaways, what you are going to be doing with this information and how you're going to be making it work. And if you want to stick around, we're going to be going over the agenda for the symposium if you haven't seen it yet. And if you haven't been a part of the symposium, I highly recommend.

We have had one small change that I'll let you know about. And if you've seen the agenda already, that's exactly what we're going through. If you're curious about the symposium, if you want to know some more if you're like, What is this? I've heard so much about the symposium, we're going to be doing that in just a second.

Diane has put the All Access page link in the chat. Chelsea also put her email address in the chat. If you're watching the replay, you'll have all of it on the All Access page. Oh, I'm so glad that you guys like it. Okay, so if you're joining the symposium, let us know. Yeah, just let us know, put it in the chat for us.

And I'd love to know your biggest takeaways as well. Like, what's your next step? You watch this. You're getting some ideas about being creative in PE classes and also looking at it from a sales perspective point of view, and creating that buy-in from the teacher. What are you going to do with it now? What are your next steps? We've got so many people who are already joining us in the symposium.

We have… I can't remember the exact number last time I checked, it was a 410 people, and I'm really excited about that last year we were 500 people? Okay, so Lisa says that she's going to her ot PT and that they're headed in to it as a team. I love that. Great, Teresa, I'll see you at the symposium. So excited. Melinda says, oftentimes, I feel like I have to sell myself and my services for schools, I've never had a student with a visual impairment, I'll be doing PE, and more push-ins, push-ins are big, that's amazing. And there are a PE teacher friend in here, suggested push-ins, I think that's wonderful.

And you know, selling isn't bad. I sometimes get frustrated when I feel like I have to sell people on an idea. What really is just showing up in servitude, and seeing where they're coming from, because they have their own stresses that we don't understand about. And if we can get them to see our point, then we can really create something big together.

Deborah says she runs a sports day every year for VI blind students and friends. And she always invites PE classroom teachers to come out and see the kids in action. Definitely being more proactive. Definitely doing more push-ins. Love that great.

And so I think it's really cool that today, we could have gone a few different ways we could have gone into like use this kind of beep ball and like do this one thing. But that's not really the solution. The solution is creating a win-win team effort, because each of your students is individualized. So we could show you whatever activities we do. But if those activities don't transfer, and you still don't have the skills to talk to the teacher, then what? Then you're still in the same situation. So we really wanted to take this conversation above and beyond observe and push in when needed. Perfect.

So I've already talked about really just focusing on three areas, becoming a more impactful teacher. Innovative teaching strategies, a supportive community doing an efficient delivery method. The fact of the matter is, you no longer have to travel across the world, in order to get different perspectives from thought leaders from around the world. Maybe you have to stay up a little bit later, wake up a little bit earlier. But you can go to conferences that have people from all around the world come to you. And it's really cool, because we get to make that decision for ourselves.

Now we get to decide, do I want to Google all of this information myself? Do I want to ask all my friends or reach out to all of the presenters myself? Which you definitely could? Or is there a more concise way to do it? Is there a more efficient way to use my time, and that's exactly what we offer at the symposium. We've already seen a lot of people saying that they're coming, I'm so glad. So I'm so excited to have you guys there. It's gonna be an absolute blast.

If you're still here with us, and you're joining the symposium this year, let me know if this is your first time joining us, or we've been here before and if you've been here before, I would love to know why? Like, why did you join again?

I think it's really cool just to see from other people's perspectives as to like you've already signed up. And then you took this free webinar, like what is it about this time, because to me, it's magical. But I don't really have words beyond that. It's just something that the community really came together and put this together. You see my face, but it's not. It's not me. It's people like Chelsea and Leondra, and Dente has been here for years. And we have nine people who've been to all of the symposiums every single year since it started. Joyce is in the crowd. Jerry, like Gabby, who is actually on our internal team now. Cynthia, you guys have been with us for so many years, because there's something so special.

And I think it's really special because we have a three day live global experience. We are in one room together. You don't have to have that conversation of what did you learn about what did you learn about what did you learn about you have a shared experience? So I know like Trisha has been to the symposium before and Teresa has been to the symposium before. We can say oh, remember in 2021 when so and so presented, and I know that she was there. I know that she saw that we have that shared experience for years to come. And we can go so much deeper with the conversation.

This experience offers you the innovative O and M strategies and I'm getting to see the behind the scenes of it yes or no? The best part of my job. I'm sorry, I love you. But these weeks before the symposium I'm like, Oh, I cannot wait for you to get your hands on this information. It is so innovative and a different way of thinking about things where people are combining like Chelsea did her sales and O and M to make us better. People are combining different things that I would have never thought about. And then we have this global community.

Today, we've learned from people in New Zealand and Australia and Canada, in Texas. And those are just the ones that I'm remembering right now. And I'm on camera, and I'm not remembering a lot of things. And you can attend from anywhere. Now, I don't recommend driving between students and trying to take it but we have had that happen before.

This is something that's really easily accessible to you. You can join live, or you can watch the replays later. Let's go over what we're going to learn. And of course, as we're looking at these, we're not just looking at what are we going to be learning this year. Do I need this right now? Because if we keep doing that we keep running on that cycle, then we're always going to be stressed out about what I need to be learning right now.

It's also about what's coming down the pipe. Even if you decide not to join, these are the topics that are coming down the pipe for you. And you have the opportunity to learn about them to master them and to have them in your back pocket. Otherwise, they kind of disappear.

Hillary keys is bringing active learning and orientation and mobility together. This will be one of the first like presentations on this level with a presenter like Hillary, who is such a big proponent and active learning and she's making a brand new presentation for O and M and then also from still to space by Martina and her show V. They are in Croatia and they are talking about how they help their learners in their center in Croatia and their innovative approaches.

Then Erin Buckley's coming in to talk to us about optimal ways to help teenage students accept the Walmart cane and she's done a survey with adults so like, she was like, Oh, where did your O and M specialist mess up? Let's make sure that other O and M specialists don't keep doing that. And I want to know. I want to know. I want to know what did the adults say like when I was a teenager, my O and M specialist really needed to do this.

And then we're finishing off the first day with fight, flight, or freeze. They're identifying two men navigating the world with spatial dysfunction. If you've ever learned from Lil Deverell, she's such a gem and her brain is phenomenal to learn from and her personalities like Chelsea's like you just want to like be best friends. And then we're gonna wrap up that day with an after party, we're gonna hang out, we're gonna have fun, we're gonna just get to know each other. We have prizes, we're gonna have some games, it's gonna be so much fun.

The next day on the 26th is all Eastern Standard Time. We are going into an hour and a half long session with Dona Sauerburger. I think we could al soak Dona for two or three days, but we only have her for an hour and a half. And she's gonna be talking about helping students become more proficient cane users.

And then Frank Vanderpool is going to be talking about tips and strategies for beginning itinerant Comms. So that's going to be really good, especially if you're beginning itinerant, or if you have beginning like interns, or like, what what do I wish that I would have known and maybe you can write in the chat, things like that, using a modified cane tip as a transition tool versus an adaptive mobility device? When should you use? Which kind by Lin Gutro. And Blending heritage and orientation and mobility, Malaysian ways this one, the name is really cool. Yes. But there's another AMD that Deanna has created, and I got some pictures the other day, and my mind is just below. Do you ever have those things? We were like, Oh, I didn't. I didn't think of that. That’s genius. That's what this is.

Melody Brown is coming in with words that move me and actually that one is about, I don't fully understand it. If I'm honest with you. It's more about psychometry, which I just learned as a word about using your brain power and your IQ. And how that integrates with O and M. It's really, really, really fascinating. And I'm going to learn a lot. I'm not an expert in this whatsoever.

And then Joanne's coming in to talk about next level O and M advocacy. What does that have to do with me? How to advocate for your learners? Even better as far as them getting around and in the city as well.

And then we have professors out of Canada, talking about what apps do people with visual impairments use to get around. So this one isn't just like, Oh, we did a survey and we found this, this and this. It's like, how can we use that information now? Like what's actually happening now?

And then we're wrapping things up with individual approaches in Queensland, Australia, presented by Carrie Weaver and that is, those are our 12 presentations. They're all going to be live. You have your networking in the chat and a 24/7 portal. Regular registration is going on right now. It's been open since November, but it ends next Thursday, January 19*. So if you want to be able to get in at regular registration before the price goes up to late registration get in now, by this Thursday. It's only $267 if you’re student, it stays at the $127 price. If you're in a developing country pay as you can, $10. That's just so we have a little bit of buy-in. We really just want to make this accessible.

And then y'all, we have bonus presentations, and these are pre recorded. There'll be available in the portal as soon as we get them up. We've got Kim Owens coming in to talk about navigating blindness from isolation to inclusion. She has a son who has a visual impairment. This one is actually replacing another one. There was one about NGO organizations, unfortunately, they got long COVID and asked to not do it. So of course it was like, yes. And Kim offered literally that same day. I think this is going to be really great for us.

O and M and CVI by Valerie Crutcher and getting ready for infrastructure changes in your streets by Meg Robertson. I think I saw her in the chat. We love learning from Meg, she is absolutely phenomenal. Her ideas last year changed the game. And I think we were all, like, chomping at the bit for more.

So we're really, really excited to have her and then Bill is actually doing two presentations. So he's gonna do pre-recorded one. And that one's already recorded. And we are doing the final touches on the post editing. He's talking about determining instructional minutes. Yes, Deborah, the agenda is posted with the times of the session, it's on the website, and we can also email it out to you, that is absolutely fine. So he's going to be doing these this presentation, pre-recorded.

And then we're going to be all getting together live in February or March, we're trying to figure out a good time for you to have that so he has two. All those extra goodies. And those bonus presentations are absolutely free, we just really want to make this a good positive experience for you. And for you to have as much learning as possible without it being overwhelming that assembly time to watch is typically $197 value, you also get 20 CEUs, which is $457 value, don't go anywhere else and they pay $20 each time for an hour CEU. They’re right there, and five bonus presentations at $125 value that's almost $800 worth of just your people, right. So we're gonna take care of you. And that's why we do it.

And of course, there's a money back guarantee, because this is a live-conference. It's an event, we do ask you to refund up to a week in advance. So by next Wednesday, if you decide to join or whatever, and you get sick, then let us know by next Wednesday and we'll refund your money. It's not a problem.

You did early bird pricing. Is there any presentations that you're missing or need to pay extra for? Nope, no, no, no, no Joanne, you get it all. Everybody's gonna get all of the same things. And Deborah here last year, she wrote in to us, which I just you know, I just love our community, and said, Thank you so much for wonderful three days of learning and networking. And we just took the screenshot and made it bigger. So it's a little fuzzy on the screen. But these words really matter. And I know you see my face, but it's it really isn't me. It's everybody else in the community that makes this so worthwhile.

And Kim wrote us and said good morning to all thank you for the wonderful conference. It's really well run and really accessible, which is phenomenal. Sara said, Thank you so much for the enlightening and enjoyable O and M symposium. And Tiffany said that she really enjoyed the conference last week. Angela, one of our sweet, sweet, lovely friends, just so thank you so much for fantabulous because they're listening to tab, IOMOS in the books and just you know, we're so grateful to have everybody.

So really, if you're new to us, this is the whole package, the kitten caboodle. 12 live presentations, supportive community 24/7 online portal, extended time to watch, 20 CEUs, and five bonus presentations. That is something that is just for you, we really want to make sure that this is a positive experience for you.

And you know, to be able to have fun doing it to transform your teaching, do it with your friends. At the very end, we have a dance party, it's just a super fun way to goof off after we've been sitting down for three days, because this is really hard on our bodies. And our minds. I don't know about you guys, but I typically take a whole notebook full of notes. I watch it later. But you know, I take a full notebook full of notes, and it's just phenomenal. Joanne, thank you so much for saying that you look forward to this every year, if it really is, the light at the tunnel, and it invigorates all of us. I'm so grateful that you said that.

If you're interested in joining us, you can go to orientationandmobilitysymposium.com I'll put it in the chat. I would love Love, love, love to have you, everybody who everybody who joins is just such a integral part of our family. All right.

So I'd love to answer any questions that you have about the symposium. And we'll stay on as late as people need to stay on to answer your questions. You're welcome to DM me, hopefully that link works, because I just typed it in. I didn't get it from anywhere. If you'd like to see the back end or like see how it all kind of works, I would be happy to share that with you as well. I will be on for however long later today. I just really, really enjoy and enjoy doing this.

Before I let you guys go. Let me just remind you real quick about the symposium with the 12 live presentations, of course, this amazing community like oh my gosh, it's amazing. And thank you, Diane.

The online portal, Chelsea mentioned that the planning committee has been hard at work, everybody is doing their thing all for you. And when we get to learn from you guys, and we get to connect with you here, it really makes everything so much better. An extended watchtime the 20 CEUs and the five bonus presentations are absolutely yours for free $779 value absolutely free. And you know, I know that sometimes $267 can seem like a lot, right? Where are teachers and we're thinking about our budget, oftentimes, two things, oftentimes we do think about our budget, but remember, in the education system, the teachers are the lowest on the rung. So we actually have the tightest budget school systems often have budgets for conferences that you can tap into, because they want you to be your best self.

If you are a contract, though, and you don't get that I completely understand. Remember, if you are a contract staff, this is tax deductible. Ask your accountant, of course, I'm not your accountant. But this is a business expense. And so it is tax deductible within that, that is good. But really, when we're looking at spending money, it is a decision. And that can have different thoughts within ourselves. And that's actually a good thing. Really spending the money and making that decision. The transformation is oftentimes in the transaction, think about the things that you don't pay for, or the things that are really cheap. You don't really always take it for the goodness that it is. You guys are much better about that.

But we have about 70% of the people who signed up didn't show up today. Why would that be because it's free, because it's free. So they sign up, they collect the data, but they don't do anything with it. And that happens all of the time when you get something for free. And you just don't value it as much. But really what we're looking at is your time is so valuable as well. And if you get paid, let's say like $30 or $38 an hour, and it's $267. How many hours is that? Actually costing you versus how much money? Is it saving you? And that's a really cool way that I like to look at things. When I'm making a decision. I can't make this decision for you. I'm not telling you what to do. But I wouldn't before I spend any big chunk of money I need to see, okay, what's the return on investment? And not just right now, but in the next five years? Can I use this in the next five years?

I don't know if you remember Marcus Lemonis on the prophet who ever watched the show when he makes a business investment? He doesn't say how much money can I make back from it right away. He wants to know the longevity, how much time and money can I make from this later? And when we do this stuff like I still look at my notes and the PowerPoint presentations of press quotations from the supposing that had been so long ago, we give you a full notebook. And I like to take notes on it, or in a separate document and keep those. So that way I could say, oh, I remember that teacher did this. And this person did that. And I'm still still to this day, right before winter break. I'm teaching methods that I learned from the first symposium. That was so many years ago. But if I had more of those things, then when my students needed them, now, I wouldn't be able to teach them. Now, that makes sense.

So for those of you guys who are still here, let's stop my share. And then we can dive right into what it actually looks like if you have any questions. Luckily, this is actually really cool. When you join the symposium, you get access to the online portal. The online portal, I don't know if you know, but there's a full app for it. It's called the Kajabi app. And I think we should teach you guys how to download it. We do that for Clarity.

So what we can do is I will share my screen in just a second. And we'll look at the portal to show you what it looks like on the back end. Of course, this isn't give you an idea of you know, the experience, but it gives you a little bit of an idea of kind of, you know, what's going on behind the scenes, what does it look like, if I were to do the replay, it's like, if you can't come to one of the presentations, it's totally fine, we upload them, you have three extra weeks to watch it. Not a big deal. Let me share with you.

So this is on a desktop, but you can access it on your phone, actually, you can access it anywhere. That's one thing that I really, really love about this program and why we keep using it. I'm going to explain it to you as though you have a visual impairment just in case anybody in the room does. So at the top, we have the 2023 International O and M online symposium and like header. Here's the key off, here's the key at the very, very top with the logo. And on the right side, we have a search function, use the search function, you don't have to memorize everything, you just use the search function, it's super great. But if you want to go through the whole thing, that's totally fine.

We have two columns, the first column will have all of the information. The second column are really links outside links to different things. The second column has your CEU certificates, how you get those and your Facebook group, the way that we do CEU certificates. Not I think, trialing a new way this year. But the way that we've done them in the past is once all the CEU certificates are in, and we close, we have a closed down date. And that will be February 24, then are on the back end, what we'll do is calculate the CEUs, and we'll send you one certificate kit. It might be good if I could talk. Then on the left, we have different categories we have welcome and then this is basically how to get your CEU certificate.

If you know that might… what I explained right now might change because Diane's phenomenal at her job and finds new ways to do things that really elevate our line. And then when she does that, I have no idea. That's fine. That's, that's what we're here for. Right.

So just a little how to. How to get to know us and your CEU certificates. We also have a Facebook group as well, we want you to come join that I'd like to do is click that link. We are very active in there right now. And it'll get even more active as things progress. And then all of your presentations and documents are will be up here. So all the documents will be here. Some of them are uploaded, some of them are not uploaded right now. If you are joining symposium, I would wait until the week of to download them all because presenters are doing their final drafts right now we've given them all some tips to make them better. And then we have our bonus presentations here.

So the week before the symposium, these should all be up and ready to go and we'll get everything ready for you. Like Meg’s, I'm really really excited about this one. Meg is just so amazing to learn from. And so that's what it looks like. And then we have a Facebook group that I'm not going to go into right now just to protect everybody's privacy. It's so fun to see where everybody's from and and get to see everybody and then during the symposium we'll all be chatting in there as well. Like oh, what does your dog look like? And oh, what's your setup look like? And Oh where like, you know, some people have parties and some people it's nighttime and some people it's morning time and some people are at home by fire and some people have kids and dogs running around and some people are on the couch. And some people, you know, like me are standing up in my dining room. It really just depends. So that's really what it looks like.

I'm so glad that you guys are here with us right now, for those of you guys who are still here, Larry, you've been here for so many years. Teresa. do you guys have any questions? For us? Before we head out? I want to make sure that I answer everything for you. That's possible. Yay. I'm so glad this is your first year. So fun. So glad that you guys are here. All right, loves.

Well, then I'm gonna say if you don't have any more questions, please send us an email at theteam@alliedindependenceonline.com.

We want to make sure that we get your questions answered. There's no pressure for you to join us. This is all only a bit, it's going to make you a better teacher. And really only that's going to make you a better teacher in the next five years. If you really don't see any of this, helping you to step into the better version of yourself to help you lead a better life a more balanced, more intuitive when it comes to your teaching more competent, more refreshed, having friends that you can lean on and talk to and say like, Hey, what's up, I'm having a really hard day, you know, to be able to meet people in the chat and exchange exchange social media contacts. So you see them all the time. And you can chat with each other like, Oh, your dog did this, or oh, this happened in your life and then be able to lean on them. When you're having a hard day. That's really what this community is about. And you'd be really surprised when you do get to meet people in person. how natural it all comes to be. Oh, Faye, I'm so glad. Larry, I'm so glad that you're coming to the symposium again.

All right, guys. Well, let's call it an evening. Let me know if you have any questions. I hope to see you at the symposium. Everything is so exciting. Oh my gosh, we're on the precipice of so many amazing things and O and M I can't wait for you to, to be in on it to know all the things that I know. If you want to join the symposium, then I encourage you to do so. Everything is wrapped up right now. It's only $267 until next Thursday.

And then we are opening a late registration this year, we get a lot of people saying that they didn't register in time. So we are opening a late registration this year, but it will go up to over $300. So get in at this price right now. Because you're gonna want it and you don't want to regret it. You know what I mean? Typically, I've JOMO, the joy of missing out, but not for this. This is something that's an absolute necessity in my life, and in a lot of people's lives.

So if you are interested, I encourage you to come have fun with us with your amazing community. It's the end of the day for me, just go to orientationandmobilitysymposium.com. And you'll be able to get all of the information right there on the website, we do have an agenda for your… you know, for anybody who needs it, we do have a W9, we are very well equipped to becoming vendors for whoever needs it. We have letters for your boss, whatever you need, don't be afraid to ask we've been asked it. If you need to do a wire transfer instead of a purchase payment or anything like that, it's totally fine. When you go to the checkout page, you'll be able to see actually, I can walk you through that right now too. I'm gonna stop my share. And then we'll just go to the checkout page. And I'll show you what that looks like. You want to be able to pay with a purchase order y'all. It's so simple.

All right, well, you guys can see that I just went from the regular registration page over to the checkout page. And if you want to pay with the purchase order, feel free to go ahead and do so. And then what you'll want to do is fill out the invoice form on the confirmation page that'll come up next. Okay, I'm losing it over here. Y'all. I am fading real fast and it is getting very obvious. So we're gonna take off. And we will see y'all later thank you so much thanks Chelsea for staying so long! I appreciate it.