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<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial>Hi Everyone:</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial>I am a certified teahcer of blind and
visuallyimpaired and have worked in this field durtfor the past two years. A
former colleague, who i attended college, informed me that after teaching for a
certain amount of years in the field I would need to take a course in Autism to
apply for my peprofessional license which I can teach permanently. I emailed the
graduate school I attended, I receivd the link to find about approved providers
for the autism and the link for applying become a professional certified teacher
of the blind. Yet, I understand that the new yorkstate education department
issues license as a certified teacher of the blind and partially anda person
with this level of certification applies for permamemt certification.
Doeseanyone who teaches as a TVI in New York, understand the differences between
receiving a license as a certified teacher of the blind and visually impaired
and a certified teacher of the blind and partiallysighted. Both licenses are
acceptable to new york scity to teach hre and I immagine in New York State. I
would like to know why the new york state education website is so difficult to
navigate to obtain the necessary information oneneeds to meet state requirements
and due to the volume of applications being processed there is no customer
reppresentative to spealk with and waiting time is long. I am extremely
appreciative, for the person at my graduate school in New York who assited me in
finding the critical iinformation and for a sighted friend for going the site
and finding out the approved providers for taking the autism course and emailing
the information to me as well as emailing to me how to apply for a professiional
license. As to taking the autism college,I have both emailed and left a personal
messages to the approved colleges I would consider taking this course at and
have emailed an approved website that offers the autism course regarding its
compability with assistive technology using a screen reader, Jaws for Windows
and a braille display to take the course. When I was in graduate school, to
become a certified TVI in NY, courses were online but had insrtructors who were
very helpful to assist me to learn to navigate the platform that was being used
which was the blackboard system. I enjoyed this model of study, since all course
workwas presented on the computer and assigned readings were from texts
published by american foundationfor the blind who offered these texts on disk or
by going to websites and reading relevant articles. The only difficulty I had
was reading articles in PDF form and I still find it difficult to read documents
in pdf formats while on the internet.It is more ideal for me to open the
document and save the document to my desktop and use the control page down to
read each page.Anyhow, if any one canenlighten me in the differences in
certification as a teacher fo the blind and visually im[paired and certified
teacher of the blind and visually impaired in the state of new york state it
would be greatly appreciated. Would be willing to forward my query to the aernet
lest serv, since I am no longer a member of aer since I cannot affordtheir
membership fee at this time. </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial>Sincerely,</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial>Sara Rooz TVI in NYC</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial>Teacher of the blind and visually impaired in new
york</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial>Independent Related Service provider vision
educational services in new york city</FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML>