ARIN Board Program - Baby Think It Over
The Baby Think It Over infant simulator was born in 1993, the brainchild of Richard Jurmain, an aerospace engineer in southern California. The infant simulator is a lifelike, life-size (20 1/2 inches) vinyl baby weighing 6.5 pounds. It is anatomically correct and available in both sexes and five different ethnicities. An internal computer simulates an infant crying at realistic, random intervals 24 hours a day. Intervals can be adjusted from 15 minutes to 6 hours for a normal, cranky, or particularly easy to care for baby.
ARIN Center for Education Open House
ARIN Intermediate Unit 28’s Center for Education is celebrated thirty years of providing continuous quality Adult Education services to Armstrong and Indiana Counties. To celebrate this milestone ARIN’s Center for Education, located at 155 Clymer Avenue in Indiana, PA, threw an Open House-Steeler style on Saturday November 1, 2008.
Overview of ARIN’s Orientation and Mobility Program
Orientation and Mobility is formal instruction providing systematic techniques by which blind and visually impaired persons orient themselves to their environments and move about independently. Orientation is the knowledge of one's distance and direction relative to things observed or remembered in their surroundings and keeping track of the spatial relationships as they change during movement through the environment. Mobility is the movement through the environment safely and independently.
ARIN Curriculum Department-Keeping Up with Increasing Demands
ARIN's Curriculum Department continues to support the needs of its districts and to adjust to the increasing responsibilities placed on intermediate units by the Pennsylvania Department of Education. As this department transitions from the leadership of Patty Garner, who is retiring August 29, to the leadership of a new Supervisor of Curriculum and Instruction, certain services and programs will need to continue while some will require review by the new department leader.
21st Century After-School Programs
Mr. Jody Rainey and Ms. Kathy Monko met with the the ARIN
Board of Directors to provide an update on the 21st Century Community
Learning Centers grant which began during the 2006-2007 academic year
at both Homer-Center and Purchase Line School Districts. The
focus of this grant is to provide activities to support students in
academics and skill building through the provision of after-school and
summer enrichment programs.
Unified Communications at ARIN IU28
ARIN Coordinator of Technology/Media Services, Derrick Mergen, presented an overview of
Unified Communications to the ARIN Board of Directors. Mr. Mergen described how the
Intermediate Unit's recent implementation of a high-speed Wide Area Network (WAN), coupled
with the need to replace the Intermediate Unit's 18-year-old telephone system, has been
incorporated into an overall communications strategy that assures future interoperability between
telephones, computers, cell phones, and other digital devices.
38th Annual ARIN Convention of School Directors
Approximately 100 area school board members, district and technical center administrators, ARIN Intermediate Unit staff, and guests attended ARIN’s Annual Convention. The Convention included a short business meeting, entertainment, keynote speakers, and dinner. This year, the Convention was hosted by the Apollo-Ridge School District. Guests enjoyed musical selections by high school students, and the guest speakers were Kevin Dellicker and Christine Smith from Dellicker Strategies.