Hi. I am Jerry Hillyer. I serve the blind and visually impaired students in Ashtabula County, Ohio as TVI/COMS. I am passionate about advocacy for my students and I work very hard to make certain teachers and administrators understand this. I encourage my students to develop and assert their independent voice. Being relatively new to the TVI/COMS field (6 years), I am exciting to be on the cutting edge of assistive technology. I think the Monarch is an amazing creation and I am thrilled to be a part of the training and field testing teams!
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Greetings, everyone! My name is Rosa Tu and I am a Teacher of the Visually Impaired in the West San Gabriel Valley SELPA in the state of California. I have the privilege of serving students at an elementary and middle school within my district. The majority of the students on my caseload are learning braille. I have always dreamed of using a multi-line refreshable braille display with my students to teach concepts such as spatial arrangements and tactile graphics, and now it is a reality! When I first learned about the Monarch I was intrigued and knew that I wanted to part of this innovative technology. I look forward to learning alongside all of you! 
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Amy LoSchiavo
TVI
Chester County Pennsylvania
I have several blind high school students who I am excited to use the monarch with!
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Hi my name is Denise Bremer. Iām a TVI in Fairfax county, VA. Most of my time is spent with 2 highly academic high school students. I am already here after Day 1 of training and am very excited about the math capabilities.
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Julia Stich
Teacher of the Visually Impaired
Bucks County, PA
I work with school aged students Kindergarten-22 years old.
I am most excited to learn how to quickly produce tactile graphics for my students and to see all the possibilities of the Monarch!
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Maci Filopanti
Teacher of the Visually Impaired
Chester County, PA
I work with a variety of students as an itinerant TVI. My students include those who are learning braille, learning AT devices (Focus 40, Braille Sense 6, trialed several refreshable braille display devices), and learning screen readers. My students are aged 3-22 currently.
I am looking forward to how the Monarch can increase student to student interactions as well as providing ways to independently access textbooks and tactile graphics.
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Hi, my name is Meghan Hoffmeister, I am a TVI at Chester County IU outside of Philadelphia, PA. I work with a range of students, but am most excited to share the Monarch with my high school braille users. I have two college-bound powerhouse academic students who are very excited to help revolutionize the way we interact with tactile graphics! I just attended training in Baltimore, we learned so much about what the Monarch is already capable of and are so excited to see its features continue to develop!
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Howdy and Happy Friday!
Iām Gina Fugate. I serve as a Computer Science & Technology Teacher at The Maryland School for the Blind (MSB) in Baltimore, MD. I have RP and use tech on a daily basis. I am a lifetime learner and have enjoyed many opportunities that knocked. I am a CATIS via ACVREP as well as a TVI with experience as an itinerant teacher (TN, KY) as well being campus based at MSB.
I am excited to have the opportunity to work with the Monarch and contribute to improving and celebrating this amazing device. I am equally excited about collaborating with others who want to work together to do āshare and careā help the Monarch reach new heights.
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My name is Kristina Vannoy.
am Lead Teacher of the Visually Impaired for Kanawha County Schools in the state of West Virginia. I have been teaching for the past 16 years.
I have low vision and blind students on my case load. I also teach multiple impaired learners.
I am most excited about learning how the monarch will display higher math expressions and tactile displays. I have a student in particular who is in higher math courses who needs the tactile images for the more complex problems. I feel this product is going to be a game changer but only for our students but for the TVIās, Braille Specalists and AIās alike.
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Hi Gina! It was a pleasure to meet you at the conference! I am very interested to hear your prospective on the Monarch and its accessibility features.
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I am also excited about the tactile graphics! I also have a student who is in higher math and canāt wait for him to experience the graphics in seconds! 
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Krissy,
It was a pleasure to meet you as well. Iām eager to address a11y (accessibility) so we can support all educators and parents in this journey, including those with eye conditions resulting in ālow vision.ā Thank you for being a kind and collaborative partner.
Gina
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Hello all,
It has been a pleasure meeting all of you. I am Conchita Hernandez, located in Maryland. I support students through the Maryland School for the Blind as well as statewide. I am most excited about getting the Monarch into the hands of students and teachers to find out what new ways people think of using it!
It was good to meet you, Conchita. I am looking forward to exploring this powerful new device and repeating the mantra, I am smarter than the Monarch! We left you in the train station. We arrived back in Vermont only a half hour later than expected!
Virginia
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So glad you got home safely and not too late!
Hey Krissy,
It was great to meet you! I hope your experiments with the Monarch go well!
Virginia
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Hi everyone!
My name is Jonathan Hooper. I am a TVI serving students in NYC Public Schools. I mostly work with Braille users, typically with students who are beginning their Braille journey and/or learning to read. I am excited to see how a multi-line Braille display affects literacy acquisition for beginning Braille readers.
What a time saver it will be for you! I bet it will improve comprehension, as your students will be able to check the lines and/or screens, above if they forget what something is referring to in the text. I love the idea of early reading books being made accessible with graphics, as was suggested at the Baltimore training. Reading graphics isnāt easy, and having access to them as sighted children do, can only deepen our students learning.
I am so glad to hear you made it home safe!
Yes, I have had to say the mantra several times with my district to get the Monarch set up with Wifi but we finally got it set up! I am currently getting my student oriented with the new device. Plus simple commands. Thank God for our manuals
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Hi,
I am Roxanne Ayres.
I am a TSVI in Conroe, Tx.
I am currently working with two students who read braille and the rest of my caseload is student with varying degrees of low vision or have multiple impairments in addition to their vision impairment.
I look forward to learning more about the Monarch and using it to help improve my studentās access to tactile graphics and math.
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