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My objective is to be the person my buyers can rely on in any circumstance. I wish to help other professionals achieve their goals by providing the utmost in professionalism and efficiency. In the past 15 years, I have worked as an education professional in a variety of settings, including residential treatment facilities, public and private schools and as an educational liaison for a local small business. I've worked with several educational software designers, educational program developers and community organizations which provide educational services. My area of focus has been students with pervasive disabilities, most specifically integrating individuals with special needs into the community as active and productive members. In addition to my work in education, I have a passion for technology. In my free time I manage several online communities and blogs, and am continually working to improve my skills in both web design, programming and content creation. I have experience creating hobby websites in HTML and CSS, with limited (but growing) skills in Java, PHP and MySQL. My ultimate career goal is to combine my skills in technology and education to make more technology available to more individuals - regardless of disability. I am a dedicated, thoughtful, passionate and enthusiastic worker - nothing would make me more fulfilled than helping you meet your goals as I work towards meeting mine.
As Educational Development Director for Musical DNA software, I worked with the technical team to develop educationally sound and research based methods for presenting the companies music education software. I completed software design documents, managed timelines and consulted with invested parties. In addition, I served as an educational liaison with the largest local public school district. The primary function of this relationship was to increase the company's knowledge of educational best practices, but it also allowed us to participate in a wonderful program with placed 250 computers in classrooms and an additional 300 computers were given to low-income families in the inner city. As a small company, many of us were called on to wear multiple hats - I also worked on the website design, managed the company's online community and worked with the marketing team to develop copy. Sadly, budget cuts forced Musical DNA Software to lay off over half of the staff and my entire department was eliminated in October 2009. In addition, most of the work that I did for the company is no longer a part of its online presence. Pieces of the website are still viewable at http://www.musicaldnasoftware.com
My primary responsibilities as a special education teacher were to design, implement and assess educational programming for students with profound/pervasive developmental disabilities, with a specialty in autism and autism related disorders. My students were served in both a self-contained classroom and in the general education setting. I am a champion of inclusive education and fought to ensure all of my students were given as many opportunities as possible to join their non-disabled peers throughout the school day. In addition to teaching, I served as the internal steering chair for our school improvement plan under NCLB. This involved extensive research and data analysis to pinpoint the exact areas our school needed to modify our instructional procedures, which led to overseeing the implementation. As a result of our plan, our school showed dramatic academic improvement each year from the 2002-2003 school year until my final year in 2007-2008, as indicated by standardized and normative test scores, retention rates and number and severity of discipline referrals. I also served as an active member of the PTO, chaired several committees, spearheaded a plan to increase technology proficiency in all of our students and staff and created and managed several after school programs. My proudest achievement was creating a support group for parents of students with profound disabilities which continues to meet once a month.
