Reported by Glen Ashlock, SIG-11 Vice-Chair
The meeting opened with introductions. Members were encouraged to fill out a SIG-11 Membership Resource Form (distributed by Dave Jaffe). Information from these forms will be available on the SIG-11 home page. If you are a SIG-11 member and would like to fill out a Form or update your information, please contact Dave at 650/892-4464.
SIG-11 Website - Dave also briefly discussed the RESNA SIG-11 web site which is at http://www.resna.org/sigs/sig11/index.htm for updates. Please contact him directly if you would like information from your Membership Resource Form to be included on the web page. This will assist members in contacting one another and finding resources for information and expertise.
SIG-11 events held at the conference were reviewed:
This year 9 concurrent sessions, 5 instructional courses, and 17 papers were submitted and reviewed by 6 SIG-11 members.
Opportunities to get involved with the SIG and RESNA were discussed. These include (but are not limited to: Reviewing papers and course proposals, presenting papers, proposing courses or concurrent sessions, submitting articles for the newsletter, making suggestions for all of the above, and generally helping to share info and make the SIG more useful to everyone.
Thanks were extended to those who helped last year. This list includes Janet Huff, Jennifer Angelo, Nina Casper, Roman Erenshteyn, Jim Francis-Bohr, Ray Grott, Mary Bettlach, Eddy Ehrlich, Ruth Mendelson, Michael Fiore, Paul Schwartz, Fraser Shein, Rich Simpson, Corinne Holtz, John Goldwaithe, Karen Milchus, Ben Manley, Howard Kramer, Peter Korn, Brent Koeppel, Rena Lewis, Jim Lynds, Bill Rolison, Jim Lenker, Donn Hilker, Mark Novak, Dave Jaffe, David Wysocki, Denis Anson, Patty Benzing, Glen Ashlock, and probably others we will remember later.
Additional thanks to Jim Lenker who is our representative to the Education committee.
Approximately 33 members participated in the Professional Development Program survey with the following results:
Specific topics for further continuing education?
Computer and ECU labs need to have more hands-on time scheduled. RESNA staff should be used to help make these better.
Marketing ,legal, political, technical support for small and private AT businesses.
Better connections with other groups such as AOTA, UCP - how can we help them with their AT needs?
Ideas to increase vendor participation at future conferences.
A discussion of future papers and workshops, etc. - primarily what topics would be of interest to the group and to others in RESNA. The following suggestions for courses were offered:
Computer Access Assessment Working Group is making progress. There will be a session on this later in the week. A list-serve for interested people will start soon.
An overview of the proposal to change the SIG structure was presented. There was an even split as to whether this was needed. There is a consensus that costs need to be minimized and that maybe some SIGs could be combined.
No strong opposition was expressed but there was also minimal support for including environmental control with SIG 11. Discussion was ended due to lack of time. (Note: Later at their meeting, the Universal Access SIG-19 expressed interest in including ECS and home modifications with their group. This will be included in their newsletter info.)
Patty Benzing, SIG-11 Chair
University Hospital School
100 Hawkins Dr., Room #333
Iowa City, IA 52242-1011
319/356-4657
319/356-8284 fax
patty-benzing@uiowa.edu
Glen Ashlock - SIG-11 Vice Chair
Rehab Engineering Program
1C335 University of Michigan Hospital
Ann Arbor, MI 48109-0032
313/936-7170
gha@umich.edu