Daniel Wilson:

Congratulations to Dan Wilson, one of just five MCPS
E-TIPS Leaders for 2009, who completed the required
75 hours by attending voluntary after-school training,
completing assignments, uploading material to the UDL
Share Space and co-teaching a Kurzweil workshop.
Dan accomplished this in just two years.

Dan Wilson made a major career move when he became
a SPED Para-Educator at Francis Scott Key in the fall of
2007. He enjoys helping middle school students utilize today's technology and as a Montgomery County native he brings

to Francis Scott Key MS his own student experiences attending MCPS and private schools. Dan’s greatest moments in the classroom are observing a student’s pride as they are intellectually able to make the connection between classroom academic content and situations and events in their life. One special education student was able to completely transform his routine academic work habits in class with the repeated use of Kurzweil that has enabled him to more evenly pace himself during reading.

Dan was prepared to help students with technology thanks to his previous career as a District Court Commissioner presiding over standardization of arraignments and bail setting procedures where he was a major contributor in implementing the transition from paper and pencil to a modern computerized record system in the County Criminal Justice system. This was the start of his interest in technology which he now combines with his interest in directly serving students.

Dan finds Kurzweil to be his favorite software because of its maximum flexibility. He uses it to incorporate audio and visual skills into reading for content retention in all subject areas. It also provides many additional educational tools to enhance learning for students. Kurzweil can be used for math too and Dan strongly believes in reading as one of the basic foundation blocks of math that is sometimes forgotten.

Dan says, “Today, our world is in the middle of an epic revolution, the transition away from paper, pencil and notebook at the secretarial desk to the electronic notebook computerized information system at the computer station desk. I am a member of both generations of information technology. I always seek to reinforce in class the basic skills of reading for content, which is still the same whether in a book, computer or IPad. As a SPED Para-Educator at Francis Scott Key Middle School, I enjoy going to work every day to serve our students integrating the use of assistive technology into daily education so that each student is prepared with the fundamental reading skills needed for success in our information technology world.”

Dan served as District Court Commissioner in Montgomery County for 5½ years and received a Master of Science in Accounting from American University in 1990.

To view a list of E-TIPS classes currently being offered, go to the PDO and search for “TIPS.”

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