LDS actively searches for new products and authors to augment their product line. Here are some of our distributed authors:
Virginia Westwood
Virginia Westwood is the founder and principle of Protea Textware. Protea Textware was established in Melbourne, Australia in 1994 to create multimedia learning products for K-12 literacy and adult ESL learners. Since its founding, Protea has published 13 products for the ESL and literacy markets in the US, the UK, Australia. Protea's products are highly regarded throughout the world and are currently used in 60 countries. We are pleased to distribute two of these products in the US market: Connected Speech and Spellingfusion.
Virginia participated in our Meet the Authors online chats: we hope to have her address the role of computers in another program soon!
“Computers (probably) won't ever replace teachers, but teachers who use computers will eventually replace those who don't.” - Anonymous, TESLCA list.
“The philosophy I developed when I was teaching, about what's important in teaching practice, has not changed. What has changed is my thinking about the role that technology, and especially the computer, plays in enabling and facilitating effective language learning. When we began producing and publishing English language and literacy software, I made a conscious decision to incorporate my teaching philosophy into the products we produced. This includes respecting and building on what adults know and are interested in; providing real choices; accommodating different learning styles; viewing language and literacy learning as a means of empowerment; supporting learners to become independent; creating a safe and supportive learning environment and by extending learners as far as possible. While we work the technology to the limit, the design of the program is always driven by the pedagogy and not by the technology.”
Protea Textware continues to ‘push the envelope’,
as evidenced by their newest product, Spellingfusion, and by winning
a 2007
Toolbook Award!
Nancy Hiser, M.A.
Nancy Hiser is the principle and 1990 cofounder of American
Speechsounds.
We have distributed the interactive Personal and Professional editions of American
Speechsounds since 1995. Last year, we added her 2007 American
Speechsounds for Healthcare Professionals. Nancy founded SpeechCom,
Inc., providing accent
improvement training in southern California for more than 20 years and to thousands
of individuals from more than 45 countries! She followed her BA in English
at UC Berkeley with a Master’s in Speech Pathology from CSU Fullerton.
Her rich and varied background includes a career as an acute care speech pathologist
as well a teaching at the high school and college level. Since 2008, American
Speechsounds is now located in beautiful Portland, Oregon. We’re pleased
to be one of the first to distribute her March 2008 software program for vowels:
Is ERnie an attORney? We hope to see Nancy in a Product Rollout this latest
product in Spring 2008.
Marjorie Feinstein-Whittaker
Marjorie
Feinstein-Whittaker is the co-author of our newest LDS program – Mastering
Idiomatic American English Series, or MIAE.
She is the founder and principal of The Whittaker Group. An experienced speech-language
pathologist, she brings over twenty years of expertise to her individualized,
flexible and comprehensive
programs. She is known for her ability to bring out the best in her clients
through her enthusiasm, creativity and personal attention. In addition to her
private work with clients, she is a trainer with Global Immersions,
an Intercultural Services Company. In this capacity, she provides one-to-one
customized business
English language and cultural training for international business executives.
Marjorie is also a faculty member of WJM Associates, Inc., an executive development
consulting company. Marjorie received her Master's Degree from Boston University.
She is certified by the American Speech-Language Hearing Association, is licensed
by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and is a current officer of of CORSPAN, the Corporate Speech
Pathology Network.
This is not Marjorie’s first publication, but it is her first collaboration
with Lorna Sikorski - and her first work published by LDS & Associates!
From the caliber of this new book series, we hope to see much more of her work
in the future.
Lynda Katz Wilner
Lynda
Katz Wilner, M.S., CCC- SP is the founder of Successfully Speaking,
a corporate training program based in the Baltimore/Washington area. After
years of working with medical residents and physicians, Lynda saw the need
for a training program that would meet the unique needs of the medical
community. In response, she developed a training manual and program entitled Medically
Speaking: Accent Modification for the Medical Profession. “Interestingly,
this CD program also turned out to be a great marketing tool: medical professionals
gravitate right to it when I show it in my sales appointments.”
More recently, Lynda published the MSI - Medically Speaking Inventory - an electronic accent screening instrument tailored to the healthcare community. Lynda continues her interest in product development and we look forward to adding new things from this author in the future!