Hello
Everyone and Welcome to my BLOG!!
I am so happy
that you took the time to stop by. The initial purpose of this blog is for a
class project, but I know this will be a great tool to use for sharing
information, ideas, support and encouragement for other parents with special
needs children. Once the requirements are of this class are reached I hope to
continue using this blog as a resource and share with others my journey as a
parent and educator of special needs children. With that being said, let me
tell you a little about myself, why I’m taking this class and what I expect to
get out of it.
My name is
Sanovia Reynolds-Parks and I’m married with two beautiful boys. At the age of
2, I noticed my oldest son played differently and he saw the world differently.
By age 3 he was diagnosed with having developmental delays. What those delays
were and how it would affect him long term is an ongoing process. 7 years later
we welcomed Prince Devlan and by 15 months I noticed he wasn’t hitting some of
his developmental milestones and he suffered with serious respiratory problems.
What is a mother to do? Will I have two special needs babies? My retail work
life was a 45-50 hours a week and it didn't allow me the flexibility I needed
to care for my kids. In March of 2013 I had to make a choice either work in
retail for the financial gains it provided or change career paths that would
allow me more time with my children. I’m sure you can guess I choose my
children. ;)
Up until a
few months ago my entire work experience has been retail, I’ve been an
Operations Manager for over 12 years, now what? With the world becoming more
and more tech savvy, will I be able to compete with other professionals. Loaded
with passion and bachelors degree, I decided to become a substitute teacher to
see if education is something I wanted to transition to. Also it allowed me to
be at home more and still provide for my family. My first assignment was being an
aide of a special needs, little girl name Cassidy. She was so smart and sweet;
to look at her you would ever know she had a learning disability. By the end of
the day, my heart was full of joy and I knew I wanted to something in the field
of special education. Now loaded with all this passion and drive, but my degree
is in management and I’m currently working on a masters, who has time to add
going back to school of a teaching degree. Not me… Here I am today, four
classes away from earning my masters in Instructional Design and Training.
I decided to
take this class and become a certified online teacher because it will allow me
the best of both worlds. I want to take the passion I have for educating
parents on the meaning of learning disabilities, to be an advocate for special
needs children, to create useful instruction after assessing a situation and
come up with a solution, that is what God is leading me to do.
The skills I
hope to gain in the class would be:
1.
After
the instruction has been created, how to make it an online learning experience.
2. Learn the different techniques and
methods to create successful online teaching experiences.
3. To help build confidence in my written
skills.
For my first
blog entry I hope I didn’t talk too much, but how are you to fully understand
or relate to what I have to say unless you know my background story.
Thanks for
reading and God Bless
Sanovia xoxo
