Educational Technology Summit 2011

I presented this blog at Southern Oregon's first Educational Technology Summit last week. One of my colleagues, Zinn, also presented her blogs and a Top Ten Reasons to Write a Teaching and Learning Blog. Our audience consisted of teachers, specialists, and university instructors who were interested in blogging as a teaching and learning tool. I started the presentation by following this outline and wanted to share it with my blog audience, so here it it!

The Write Stuff: Classroom Uses of Teaching and Learning Blogs

In this session, interactive discussions will be utilized to examine the various benefits of educational blogging to enhance teaching and learning experiences. The session will also provide an opportunity to examine the challenges of maintaining professionalism while sharing practices in the public sphere of social networking. Participants will learn how to set up a blog and will depart with numerous creative ideas for incorporating blogs into their teaching practice.  

Why Blog?

-To document my teaching story

-To collaborate and share with other teachers

-To share effective teaching strategies

-To share my developing teaching philosophy

-To see if a blog is a useful teaching & learning tool

How to Get Started

-Determine your purpose for blogging. This purpose may morph and change as you write.

-Choose a free blogging platform like www.blogspot.com, wordpress.org, www.tumblr.com,

posterous.com

-Consider setting a goal for how often you’ll post

-Start blogging! I suggest introducing yourself and your reason for blogging

Benefits

-Having a place to unload my ideas, feelings and thoughts about my work

-Allows me to process my experiences

-Encourages me to document my courses through video, photographs, etc.

-Having an interactive place where my students can gain a deeper insight into their teacher

-I may use this blog to assist with future academic endeavors

Challenges

-Maintaining professionalism while being authentic

-Fear of peer criticism

-Recruiting followers

-No comments or interaction at this point

-Time/blogging weekly

Ideas for the Future

-Incorporate the blog into my courses

-Redefine my purpose- Professional journal of events, happenings, thoughts and ideas?

-Alumni connection through blogging

Next Blogs: Educational Apps, Ed. Tech. Summit, The Classroom as a Gathering of Spirit Part II, more on New Literacies/Media Literacy

The Power of Parents

This weekend I attended the All Born (In) Cross-Disability Inclusion Conference in Portland. I teach general education teacher about inclusion and inclusion strategies, so I was excited to attend my first official inclusion conference. Many different professionals organized the conference, but parents of children or adult with disabilities played a huge role in putting it all together.

When I walked into the main room after signing in, my hope that this conference would be a bit out of the ordinary was confirmed. First of all, kids were everywhere. There were bands of little guys with Downs Syndrome, family members taking turns holding babies, and teenagers and young adults selling their artwork. I knew we were off to a great start!

Our morning keynote speaker was Kathie Snow. I use her Person First Language materials in my inclusion and exceptional child courses, so I was excited to meet her in person. She gave a dynamic speech about disability being natural and addressed how unnatural and harmful exclusion and segregation is for people with disabilities. Read more at www.disabilityisnatural.com I had a student last term who was originally resistant to person first language and asked, “Who is this Kathie Snow person anyhow? What makes her so credible?” I explained that Kathie is a parent of adult children with disabilities who became a disability advocate and educator (plus so much more!). Needless to say my student quickly accepted Kathie Snow as a credible source.

All three keynote speakers were parents of a child with a disability.

My first session called “Inclusion: Is there an app for that?” was co-lead by two professionals, two parents and a 6-year-old girl with Downs Syndrome. I watched transfixed as the little blonde haired girl demonstrated a variety of educational applications on her iPad. I was equally intrigued watching the mom work with and speak to the little girl as I was viewing the different apps! It seemed like most of the large audience was comprised of supportive parents. Communication and visual schedule tools were also modeled. I’ll be writing a separate blog on these apps.

The session before lunch was perhaps the most inspiring. The session was lead by young adult with disabilities. All of them were selling their artwork during the conference, and this was their time to explain their work and voice their opinions. They were proud of their accomplishments and had plenty to say about inclusion! One young man, Dylan Kuehl presented a motivational speech that brought me to tears. He also shared information about his business, DK Arts, Visual and Performing Arts Co. He’s a dancer, painter, practices Kung Fu, writes poetry, etc. He’s a handsome young fellow who travels the world and raises hope for people with disabilities.

Later in the afternoon I was sitting at a table with a group of teens (maybe young adults?) while Dylan was on stage performing. A young gal told me that she thought Dylan was cute and wanted him for a boyfriend. I agreed that he’d be quite a catch! Dylan’s mother was beautifully supportive of him and his work throughout the day, and it was a joy to see their close relationship. Please support Dylan by visiting his website http://www.oly-wa.us/dkarts/index.php

In an afternoon session about co-teaching models I had the honor of meeting a parent who wants her child’s school to have a more inclusive model of education for students with exceptionalities. I told her about my success story with implementing various inclusive co-teaching models at the elementary level and we exchanged information so that I can consult with the school if they need a hand.

We discuss the importance of parental involvement in the schools and the connection between the school, family and community. But how many teachers have the opportunity to see what these parents are really made of? This weekend, strong parents who know their children inside and out and will go to extreme measures to help their child succeed surrounded me. They’re active. They’re engaged. They want to collaborate with professionals. They have a voice that needs to be heard more than once a year at the annual IEP meeting. Their skills and passions can be utilized for more than PTA bake sales.

I encourage my student teacher to get parents involved in the classroom. Letters are sent home to communicate about the curriculum. Parents may be invited to see their child present their final performance task. But I think teachers need additional ideas for getting parents involved. Sometimes the teacher must win the trust of parents before they’ll collaborate. Some effective strategies that I’ve used are home visits and calls home to tell mom and dad that their child had a great day or made progress towards a goal. For a writing project, I had students bring family photographs to school, scanned them into the computer, and the students create movies about their lives. When the parents came to view this work, I provided food and time to mingle with each other hoping that they would eventually create a support network. I interviewed parents about their family for a graduate school project. I offered to provide childcare on the weekends and evenings to parents who were desperate for respite care. I started every single IEP meeting by sharing student success stories. These are a few examples, and I know there are zillions of additional ideas that teachers successfully use.

Once again, is there anyone out there who will share a story or strategy for meaningful parental involvement? By sharing your idea, you could help shape future educators!!!

Technology: Where is it leading us?

I have an interesting relationship with technology. I don't like to pay a lot of money for it or be too dependent on it. I worry that the kid love affair with technology is keeping our youth from experiencing some of life’s simplest pleasures: discovering a wild patch of blackberries, walking down the railroad tracks, swimming in the hot sun all day and then having the best sleep of your life. You know, the good stuff.

But technology is fun. And it’s exciting. It’s making my life more connected to the people I love and care about. And I'm managing my life more easily.

You can play cool games, including ones that make you play with language and solve puzzles. I like Words With Friends, Wordoid and Crossword. I play scrabble with my former Penn State women’s studies advisor/teacher/friend. What a fun way to reconnect with the people who mean so much to us!

You can discover new music with SoundHound when you’re out dancing or watching a movie, and then instantly stream it in Rhapsody. You can save songs and entire albums to a playlist that you’ll later listen to in your car or while grading papers at a coffee shop.

Information is more accessible than ever and I’m an info-junkie. I love learning. I’m having so much fun using new apps and assessing their professional and personal benefits. These are a few that I’m trying out:

Google Sky to study the constellations

Mint to manage finances

Dictionary

Flixster for local show times, movie trailers, reviews

MagLite Led Torch for when you need a flashlight

Appolicious to find new cool apps 

NPR to keep up on the news

Skyfire as my browser

AllRecipes for meal ideas

Blogger to keep up to date with this endeavor!

EverNote for reminders and lists, two things I can’t live without

Gmail & YouTube

Netflix Queue to add films when people make suggestions

I’m sure that our brains are changing due to the way we are constantly receiving information in fast, small, often disconnected bytes. I want to know more about how the brain is changing or could change if we don’t temper this “shallow” information bombardment with something else. Like reading novels, taking long quiet walks in the woods, camping for a weekend with nothing more technologically complex than a campfire. 

What do you think?  How do you balance your life? Are there forms of technology that you're avoiding? What are you loving?