How this website came to be built

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Hi, my name's David Newman. I'm a speech-language pathologist and this is my website.


The website is not finished yet, but progress continues to be made. This is my story on how I came to the decision to build a website. It's a story in four parts.

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It all began two years ago when I heard a talk by Sue Reilly at a GOPIG (Geelong/Otway Pediatric Interest Group) meeting.

Where it began for me...

Sue Reilly and her business partner, Elizabeth Love, are pioneers in the speech pathology profession in Australia.


During the past twelve years they have designed and developed language and literacy resources for use in both educational and therapy settings. More information can be obtained by visiting their website www.loveandreilly.com.au, or simply follow this link. After talking to Sue I was inspired to create my own games and play tested some of them with students. The games I made initially were what I would call traditional language activities.


My first thought when I started out was, 'This will be easy. 'All I need to do is pay someone to build a website for me, create some games and sell them on the web.'


It sounded so easy...


More on this later.

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What do I do now?

Fast forward 6 months and I began to realize that the language games I had made, though fun to play, didn't really tackle head on what I saw as the most damaging consequence of school-age language disorder: the effect on literacy skills.


I wanted to find out what was best practice concerning school-age language intervention. I read many articles and searched the internet for online libraries, trying to find all I could on language disorder and the best methods of intervention.

Two important books...

My search lead me to two books: Language Disorder in School Aged Students, by Geraldine Wallach, and Intervention in Language Arts, by Kathryn DeKemel.


Before reading the two books just mentioned my enthusiasm for creating and selling games had waned. It was just too much work trying to get it up and started, and I didn't have any real blueprint to work from.


I must admit I was also a little disillusioned with the profession at the time. As many school-based speech-language pathologists will attest, it's a tough gig working in the schools. The work can be very draining, often with minimal support.


The books came along at the right time. They effectively lit a fire in me. The books explained language disorder and its consequences in plain language.


Both authors advocated text-based intervention as best practice, and as having the best outcomes for children with language impairment. This information was new to me.


Though my interest in the profession had been re-ignited, I still had no clue on how to create a web-site, nor how much it would cost to get started. I thought the only option was to hand the task to a web designer and pay the big money.


I literally had no idea.


But that was all about to change.

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Where a calculator on the ENIAC is equipped with 18 000 vacuum tubes and weighs 30 ton's, computers in the future may only have 1000 vacuum tubes and perhaps weigh 1.5 ton's. Popular Mechanics, 1949

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Ask a linguist

A good friend of mine - a linguist - had written a terrific book about reading instruction, but was having problems finding a publisher. I remember saying to her, 'Sell it as an ebook.' She replied with a puzzled look, 'What's an ebook?' I explained that an ebook was a digital book that you downloaded from the internet in adobe pdf form.


I did a quick web search and found an ebook on how to write ebooks, which I forwarded onto my friend.


The book was written by a chap named Alf Pederson, who had written a very practical ebook on how to write...well, ebooks. As an added bonus he gave away free articles about an internet company called Site Build-It, on his ebook download.


My friend, Lyn, read the Alf Pederson ebook, linked onto Site Build-It, signed up, and began to build a website. Lyn then sent the information on to me and suggested I should do the same.


I remember my initial response, 'No, not for me. Site Build-It sounds ok, but I really want a web designer to create my site.'


Later, I did a rethink. Based on her recommendation, I decided Site Build-It might be worth looking at.


I watched Ken Evoy's (The creator of Site-Build It) introductory video and instantly recognized that building a website with Site Build-It was exactly what I needed to do. It was the right thing to do at the right time in my life.

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'Computers are getting smarter all the time. Scientists tell us they soon will be able to talk to us. (By they, I mean computers. I doubt scientists will ever be able to talk to us.)' Dave Barry, American writer

If you have ideas to communicate or to sell do give Site Build-It a go. If you feel inclined, build a website. The education and speech-language pathology professions need to hear your voice. Site Build-It can help to provide you with that voice.


With computer technology being what it is, and armed with the potential of the internet, anybody with a clever idea could quite literally communicate that idea to thousands of people around the world.

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