Action Research #2

What a process! I've learned a lot about myself and the jargon of the special education field and how to define that for other people. I can't say I truly understand this "full IRB" thing yet. My students (for this study) are really not that disabled. I don't get it! But, I've learned not to fight the system and just roll with it instead. The process of constantly making revisions has also opened me up to criticism a lot more. My defenses are down, and I'm learning to roll with the punches as they come.

I'm looking forward to the next semester and the opportunity to put these ideas into practice and make some much needed changes to my schedule to allow this research to occur. I'm just crossing my fingers that this all works out!

Action Research #1

The process of preparing my proposal for approval has been demanding yet very reflective for me. Given that my caseload at school is so large and so diverse, finding a topic that is meaningful for a variety of my students and meaningful for me has been a bit challenging. I think I've finally got something that will work! One of the challenges that I've become more aware of (as a teacher) is that I really don't know where my students will be at academically in 3 months. Most teachers know what part of the curriculum they'll be at (roughly) at a given time. In special ed, you have to roll with your students' progress and constantly adapt so that you're teaching to mastery - following a traditional curriculum is not what I do. Therefore, I feel like I'm taking a huge leap of faith when I outline my lessons for 3 months down the road.

On a different note, I'm learning quite a bit from the research articles I'm reading. While not all are exact fits to my teaching situations, I try to take at least one or two points from each article and make connections to my own teaching. Through this process of reading and reflection, I'm beginning to deeply analyze my own teaching. I've also been having conversations about these issues with teachers and administrators at school. Although time consuming, it's been a valuable experience thus far.

CED 534, Week Five

Video e-mails and VOIP calls could be incorporated at the early elementary level. Video e-mailing would be a way for me to send "be good" messages to my students when I'm out of the classroom unexpectedly. That should make them shape up! VOIP would also be a way for our PLC teams to collaborate outside of our meetings. Additionally, VOIP could be used as a way to include parents in meetings about their students without the need for them to leave work. I think it would be more effective than conference calling because we would be able to see the non-verbal communication and better understand their opinions.

Screencast

Here's the link to a screencast I created for our Tosa Special Ed wiki.

I found the process of creating the screencast to be quite easy; however, I had difficulty with the format that Jing creates (.swf). I tried to upload to Google Video unsuccessfully. I also tried to convert the video using ZamZar and didn't have any luck. I ended up creating a screencast account, but the free account is only good for 60 days. I also had difficulty embedding it into my blog in a screen small enough to fit in the blog window. The process of creating the screencast was easy, but the sharing feature would need to be cleaned up for me to use this process on a regular basis. Did anyone find a way to convert the file to store to Google or another free site?

That's one big cherry!

That's one big cherry!
Originally uploaded by kmschaus

Here's a perspective picture that I took of my sister in the Twin Cities last fall. I like the composition of the photo - the colors, shadows, and perspective of the cherry sitting in her mouth.

CED 534, Week 2

My newly created teaching challenges by a group of fairly low functioning students has caused me to reanalyze many of my practices and is challenging me to find new ways to instruct. One way that I would like to eventually incorporate blogs is by using one as an organizational portal for myself. I often come across resources that I would like to make accessible to parents. A blog would be one feasible way to do so. (Here's the start of my classroom blog). Videos of class activities may be fun but I would have to make sure that I wasn't breaking any confidentiality laws by posting them on a blog. I know that they are permissible on our district website, but I don't know about privately hosted sites.
For our wiki assignment, I'm going to create a wiki for district special education teachers to share ideas and resources. Whether or not this idea will take off, I am unsure. We recently were granted district early release one day each week to discuss student learning and be provided with professional development. As a part of this, the district elementary resource teachers would like to be able to collaborate. A wiki would provide us with the opportunity to communicate on a more regular basis.

CED 534, Week 1

Using blogs, wikis, and podcasts in the special ed K,1,2 setting may prove to be a bit of a challenge this year! Facing a major shift in the population that I serve, I have a feeling that doing these types of activities will be extremely challenging, if not impossible for my students. It's that I'm being pessimistic; I'm looking at my current reality and the very basic skill set that I am targeting this year. If I can find a way to incorporate these tools, I would love to do it!
Some of the Web 2.0 tools that we investigated in class, such as www.lookybook.com, may be useful for my students. I've found that the visual stimulation provided by using a projector increases their engagement in tasks. While my students may not actively be engaging in contributing to Web 2.0 activities, I utilize them on a regular basis and am always looking for new tricks! Embedding videos into blogs would be a potential way for me to organize activities and allow for parents to access the videos at home for reinforcement as well.
As I get a better handle on the needs of my students, I'm sure I'll have additional ideas as to how these tools can be included. Only time will tell!

CED 527, Week 6

Tonight's class was a reiteration of what I am currently doing with my own school. While the process we went through in class was fairly extensive, it is minimal compared to the number of ways we analyzed data at school today. The process of analyzing data and implementing change based on that data is one that is central to my role as a special education teacher. Taking the additional analysis skills that we learned and knowledge of implementing change, I'm going to try to make some fundamental changes to my process for collecting IEP data this year. I need to be more systematic and find better common assessments to compare students to other students. I'm hoping that our district-wide PLC time will allow me to better collaborate with other resource teachers in the district to better collect and assess data. At the conclusion of today's data retreat, my principal commented that I did well at really disaggregating the data - I must have picked up some cues from this class! Thanks Kris!

CED 527, Week Four

The Systems Thinking, Systems Changing game provided me with some valuable insight about implementing change in any system. While the changes that I implement are not at the district level, I am a part of a number of district changes currently in play. When personally implementing change in my classroom or in my department, I was reminded of the importance of keeping the man in charge in the know. I feel as though I do a decent job of this and sometimes feel like my communication with him is a bit overboard. As Kris reminded us, it's better to share too much than too little! Also, the importance of team work and skills building became very apparent to our team. As I will be informally in charge of bringing a new special education teacher and speech pathologist up to speed on our school's way of doing things this year, I need to be cognizant of the importance of making sure that they understand all of the "Tosa terms" and have support available when they need additional assistance. The simulation was an enjoyable way to reinforce these concepts of change.

CED 527, Week 3

Last week's class put my feelings over past changes I've been involved in into a more concrete and research-based train of thought. The implementation dip shown at the beginning of class reminded me of our recent CMS implementation at school. Many of my co-workers are still at the resistance stage. A few of us are beginning to explore. I'm hoping that as time passes, we slide into the commitment stage quickly. I also particularly likes the chart that demonstrated what happens when we lack vision, skills, incentives, resources, or action plans. This would be a good chart to hang in a classroom or administrator's office. Not that it would necessarily force the leader to resolve the issues, but it makes a pretty good stab at what the causation of the problem may be. What we learned in class last week provided some valuable background for how to better handle my educational assistants next year. We'll definitely be in a transition year with a new special ed teacher, speech pathologist, and 2 aides. With all of this change, I'll need to be proactive and reflective as to why breakdowns in our team occur.

CED 527, Week 2

Last night's class reaffirmed a lot of strategies and topics that our building already practices. I feel blessed to be in a place that is so student-centered and data driven. At points, I take this for granted. As a young teacher, I have learned to argue for points by saying this is what I want, and here's the data to support why. When strategies are supported in this way, the "age discrimination" comments tend to be minimal or non-existent. The information last night that was new to me was in regards to technology plans. While we have a great technology initiative in our building, "a SMARTBoard in every classroom by 2009-2010, our training or plan beyond that isn't apparent to the staff. As a member of the technology committee (which seldom meets), I haven't seen this plan. It will definitely be something that I look for this fall.

CED 527, Week 1

Wednesday night's class helped me to see teacher leadership through a new eye. I have attended many workshops on leaderships skills; however, I've never truly considered what sets a teacher leader apart from other leaders. As we discussed the materials, I thought about the skills that I already possess as well as those which I need to continue to develop. Throughout this process, I was thinking about the two main leaders in our school - our principal and our reading specialist. Additionally, I was considering our cohesive staff and how many of us share a common drive and willingness to problem solve and share resources and how this has worked to help us increase our test scores (9 pts last year!!!). As we go throughout this course, I'm hoping to gain greater knowledge about how to be a more effective teacher leader as my responsibilities will again be increasing this year.

CED 533, Week 5

I found it interesting that the majority of us chose the same CMS system. It's always interesting to hear different people's take on the same system. Even though we all teach in a geographically small area, our experiences with the same technology tools is often vastly different based on the support we receive from our district. I can't wait until Tosa upgrades their bandwidth. Some of the work that Toni showed was truly impressive. If only we could get greater bandwidth in our school! I'm a little limited right now in terms of what I can do since our district blocked so much after the system crashed a few months ago.
Learning a little about Java was interesting. I've always wondered how date stamps work. Now I know!
I just finished my final project and am happy to have that behind me! After Mr. Sklar helped me through some CSS challenges last week, it was smooth sailing. I should have called or e-mailed instead of getting so frustrated last week!

CED 533 Class 4

I've officially found my learning disability. Part of my challenge is that I don't see the relevance of this material to teaching K-2 students with disabilities. While it's nice to have the background, I don't know if 3 credits worth is truly worth it. (Please don't take it personally Mr. Sklar). I would like more guidance on the artistic aspects to webpage design than the actual code. We've definitely found ways to beat the system - Dreamweaver, NVU, Front Page, etc. I just don't understand why one would write code rather than type it into a wordprocessing style document? Then again, people don't understand why I write my own curriculum when you can buy stuff. I guess it's a matter of opinion.
My other frustration is the number of group presentations that repeat the same thing over and over. I understand that presenting information is a part of the program; however, maybe we'd more interested in others' presentations if each group was assigned one presentation throughout the course (doubling up would be ok). It gets to a point where its extremely redundant. Again, not the fault of the instructor, but rather the design of the program.
To be fair to this negative rant, I have to apologize for my current frustration. The demands at the end of the school year are intense. To be handling the rigors of this program does not make it any easier. I'm sorry that my frustrations with "school" and "life" are an underlying tone to this blog, but sometimes, you just need to get it off your chest.

CED 533 Class 3

I felt a greater level of comfort tonight with html . . . through the magic use of NVU! In my past life as a full time student, I worked extensively with Dreamweaver at UW Madison as an e-portfolio consultant. I was amazed at how similar these two applications were. Such, Dreamweaver has a few more features - but not $400 worth. Additionally, I was amazed as to how fast it all came back.
I'm looking forward to extending my scope a little more next week. I'm ready for a new challenge!

CED 533 Class 2

It's all starting to come back to me! The html code writing that I did in high school programming class is beginning to become clear again. I have to say that I really enjoy Dreamweaver much more than actually writing the code however. Why go through the frustration of trying to write the code if Dreamweaver will do it without a lot of the frustration?
During last week's lecture, I developed a better appreciation for the true power that today's computers hold. I remember the Apple IIe's in my second grade classroom with the huge floppy disks and the "smooth" animations on the orange or green and black screens. I thought we had it made! It's amazing how far we have come in about 15 years. I wish that our students today could truly understand the impact of how far we have come. My students get frustrated when a website takes longer than 15 seconds to load or when a screen reader pronounces a word with a weird articulation. We really have come a long way!
Speaking of my students, I felt like I had a little bit of insight into their learning challenges this week. My attention was a little limited last week during class. About 30 minutes into the lecture, when CSS and other coding was being discussed, I had this "I have no idea what we're talking about" moment. For a few minutes, I sat there thinking that this is way above my head and I'll never be able to wrap my mind around it. Having a little better problem solving skills than the majority of my students, I was able to refocus and develop a little bit of an understanding of what we were learning about. Later in the lab, I felt much more confident with what was discussed. Just goes to show what a hands-on learner I am! In retrospect, it helped me to greater understand a challenging situation for my students the next day. As we were in the middle of a lesson on graphing, I caught that deer in the headlights look (which I had the night before) from several of my students. While I often get this look, I had a greater understanding for how they felt! Funny how a lesson which was totally unrelated to anything I would ever teach to first and second graders with learning disabilities would help me to understand them just a little better!

CED 533 Class 1

I can't say that writing html code is my favorite thing nor anything that I would want to pursue a career in. However, I am doing my best to keep an open mind and give it a good try. I'm sure I'll find something relevant to my teaching situation. As we worked at the computers, I was amazed at how quickly my html training came back.
As we went through the history and evolution of the web this week, I was truly amazed at how quickly we have progressed as a technological society. I remember the Apple IIe's in my second grade classroom and thinking that they were the coolest things ever. I also remember the Macs with mice and colored (oooh!) screens in my fourth grade classroom and thinking this was it. What more could we ever need! My, times have changed! Having recently had the experience of being with no computer access from a Thursday through a Monday at work, I came to realize how truly dependent we have become on these devices. No e-mail, no IEP access, no SMARTBoard, no Microsoft Word. We were truly lost as a staff, as were the students who have known it no other way.
This will truly be a learning experience for me!

CED 531, Class Five

The process of digital storytelling can be quite complex but very rewarding. I have completed several multimedia projects on my own to detail trips I've taken with friends and family. For my students, completing multimedia projects requires a great deal of support, but they are certainly within our reach. One idea I have been contemplating is doing something with VoiceThread to chronical special projects that we do in our classroom. There seems to be a lot of mystery in what takes place in a resource room. This would be one way to provide some insight for people visiting my website. My thought would be to load pictures of activities that we've done and then allow the students to make comments on the project. Doing so would give them the opportunity to evaluate what they have done and formulate their thought as to what they have learned. Additionally, Voicethread has the capability to add and delete pages over time, so it could be an easily edited on-going project. They would also build on their abilities to summarize important information from the activity and speak coherently. As I write this blog entry, I'm further convincing myself that I should be doing this project. As always, my greatest enemy is time. Any multimedia project that we engage in, my students and I take on with great enthusiasm. We'll have to fit it in at some point during the remainder of the year!

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CED 531, Class Four

Last week's class was not as relevant for my personal teaching situation as others; although it was still valuable information. Creating an assessment rubric for multimedia was an enjoyable experience. When four like-minded people get together and try to develop a rubric, it's amazing how fast we can develop an assessment or a technology-based project. I can't imagine being able to do the same with many of my colleagues. The rubric we developed was definitely designed for slightly older students. With my students, we would need to use pictures for the criteria. We would also need to spend significant time training them how to use a rubric. My students' tend to have an elevated self-confidence. Teaching them to be reflective and honest has proved to be a difficult task!
I have to admit that podcasting is one area of technology that I am not very knowledgeable about. In my classroom, it would probably be best used as a parent education tool. It's often challenging to get my students to stay on the same topic for more than a minute. With their many speech and language challenges, it would likely to difficult to get an intelligible piece recorded. Perhaps it would be a strategy for some of my higher functioning students. I've yet to be convinced.

CED 531, Class Three

The use of storytelling in education can be extremely powerful. Using sites like the Screen Actors' Guild and RAZ-kids.com has been a beneficial tool for engaging my students in learning. I could see using the Point of View element of storytelling as a valuable way to tell stories in our social skills lessons. For children with perceptual disabilities, understanding other students point of view in social situations is often very challenging and requires intensive instruction in reading emotions to help them understand other people's viewpoints. However, when information is portrayed through digital media, they are often more engaged and better able to understand perspective. Therefore, I could use peer models to model social situations and then utilize voice overs to provide greater insights into how their peers may be feeling. In addition to using the point of view element, it would also incorporate the gift of your voice element. Now, if I could only create a few more hours in the week to get this done . . .

CED 531, Class Two

I found this week's work on VoiceThread to be a great tool as well as a great frustration. Our frustrations were not born from VoiceThread's tools themselves but mainly from Internet connectivity issues. We were also disappointed that we were unable to upload music to VoiceThread. For the most part, I really liked VoiceThread for a few reasons and am strongly considering using it in my classroom. Primarily, I liked the ease with which photos could be uploaded and voice-overs recorded. When working with the population that I work with, the easier the better! Additionally, I like that the presentation is easily viewed by anyone you choose to share with. I did my first PhotoStory with my students this week. The process of copying and distributing the videos is much more time consuming than it is with VoiceThread. I could also see parents and co-workers contributing to VoiceThread from different locations making our project more interactive and enjoyable for the kids. I continue to be impressed with all of the resources available free to educators that are worth-while!

CED 531, Class One

I feel like this class is going to be interesting, and I will finally learn some new technological skills. Theory is great, but application is much better! I currently use PowerPoint to write modified versions of books we read in guided reading. About a month ago, I had our library media specialist give me a crash course in PhotoStory. Next week, I'm going to attempt using PhotoStory to write a version of "Banana Sometimes," one of my favorite readers, with my first graders. Since it's a small group and a smaller project, I thought it would be a good maiden voyage.
As a resource teacher, I don't have much time to do anything other than teach reading and math. I would like to find a way to incorporate more creative applications into our work. One idea I have would be to do a portfolio of student growth. Since I typically have students for three years, it would be enjoyable and a great reflection tool to see their growth across those three years. I would also be happy to support classroom teachers in using digital storytelling to recap field trips, the second grade mealworm project (yuck!), or any other project they have in mind. I'm looking forward to learning simple but effective methods to tell digital stories with primary age children.

CED 521 Overall Class Reflection (Week Six)

This class has greatly expanded my understanding of a philosophy behind technology integration. While I still question how practical this scale is at the early elementary level, my knowledge of the LoTI scale has encouraged me to re-examine my instructional practices and challenge my students to use technology in a manner other than to check the temperature and play reinforcement style games and activities.

On a personal level, the demands of this program and everything else going on at work and in my personal life has taken my ability to multi-task and handle multiple demands to a new level. While I always considered myself to be a fairly good multi-tasker, I have definitely gained time-management skills and an ability to be more relaxed about stressors than in the past.

I have also greatly appreciated the flexibility and responsiveness that Ed has given as an instructor. More than with any other class, I feel as though he understands the demands and reality of those demands. Although challenging and at times frustrating, it has truly been an enjoyable class.

CED 521 Class Five Reflections

After reading through many of my classmates' blogs, I have a few reactions. Primarily, I felt my stress level rise as I read through everyone's anxiety-ridden rants about everything from work samples to managing life within the confines of this program. I too am feeling the stress of the program and knew that it would be intense. I wasn't prepared for the intensity that it has been! I'm hoping that once I get through the anxiety of report cards, conferences, a slew of IEPs, and moving, I will have more time to be more relaxed about this course. The philosophy I've tried to adopt within the stress of the last month is to keep plugging along, somehow it always all gets done. Who needs sleep anyways??? Another overarching theme is the lack of definition in criteria for assignments. This course has been better than most, although I still feel somewhat unclear. It would really help to have examples of some of the bigger projects (i.e. unit plan, comps). I additionally appreciate Ed's willingness to drop some of the "busy work" assignments from this course. We are still definitely meeting all the criteria without having to do as many seemingly pointless assignments. I sure hope he teaches again!

CED 521, Class Four

I found Wednesday's class to be somewhat different. I liked that our concerns were addressed and questions were answered. It's nice to know that someone is listening!

I was surprised at the different takes on the LoTI presentation. I assumed that they would be very repetitive and somewhat dull. Instead, I found each presentation to be unique and somewhat different although the information presented was similar. I also found the unintended use of our web conferencing to be a new and valuable experience. I have to admit I was a little uncomfortable because it was so different than anything I've experienced before. In the end, I thought it was an excellent demonstration of our technology skills and a great way to problem-solve. In the past we would have post-poned the presentation. It's amazing what can be done with technology!

CED 521 Class Three Reflection

I found tonight's class to be particularly intriguing and rewarding. Watching the examples of Ed's students was truly impressive. It makes me want to teach older kids for a while until I remember my high school teaching experiences! After watching his videos, we watched a kindergarten's class project on what their grandparents and parents recalled about kindergarten. I enjoyed seeing an in-depth project that young students were able to achieve! It gave me hope for this unit project.

While the assessment presentation was interesting, it was pretty much review. As a teacher in a Professional Learning Communities school, I have been assessed to death in the last year. Good information - but somewhat redundant from my classroom experiences.

The most valuable part of the evening was having the opportunity to work on our projects and ask questions. I often find assignment directions to be vague or confusing. Having the opportunity to muddle through it and ask questions was invaluable. It saved many frantic e-mails amongst our study team members! Thank you!

CED 521 Class Two Reflection

In watching the George Lucas video this week, I was very impressed with the tasks that these students were completing. As a special ed teacher working with very young children, I often lose sight of the possibilities that exist for older students. In all of these activities, I saw not only the academic benefit of these projects but also the social skills that are learned through PBL. I would imagine that students who routinely participate in PBL are better equipped to meet the communication demands of the workplace than students who do not. What better way is there to teach and learn interpersonal communication?

After class, I viewed the "Pay Attention" video on TeacherTube. I found this to be a powerful video which may help to persuade some of the more technology reluctant teachers. As a younger teacher, I often find myself better understanding the student perspective of technology than the general teacher perspective of technology. While many of my co-workers are more than willing to try technology, I still find myself being an advocate for technology based learning a few times a week. Slowly, I think the majority of them are starting to come around.

CED 521 Class One Reflection

This week's class forced me to look at my instruction through a new lens. I had always thought that I was a good integrator of technology. My SMARTBoard, in particular, has provided access to computers that was previously unavailable to many of my students. While I assumed that this was excellent integration, LoTI caused me to reconsider. While I understand that the ultimate goal is for the technology integration to be natural and the means for the source of information, I am still unsure of how this would look for students functioning at a three to six year level. Of the examples that I looked at on-line, none of them would push much beyond a LoTI Level 3. I'm interested in anyone's input on how to promote higher-level thinking skills on the computer and am continuing to seek advice from colleagues. This class was truly the first in the program that pushed me out of my comfort zone with technology usage. Although it's not a comfortable place to be in, I feel it is necessary to expand my abilities as a teacher and push myself to new levels.

CED 525 Class Four Reflection

I found our WebQuest work to be very interesting. As an undergrad at UW-Madison, I created a WebQuest on using music in education for my computing class. Since that time, they have fallen off my radar of ideas for the classroom. With enough searching, I'm sure I could find one that we could do as a group in my academic instruction. I did find an excellent site that I shared with the second grade teachers on basic economics concepts. The WebQuest is entitled Making Money
They were elated to receive it! I'm looking forward to see what the kids do with it. One of the challenges of being a resource teacher is the feeling like I can't deviate from a reading lesson and basic math instruction. I'm hoping to have a little time in the near future to do some further investigation into some possible WebQuests that could be used in the resource room.

I also found the idea of Creative Commons to be new and intriguing. We often get lectured at school about copyright laws which has led many of us away from adapting things we find on-line for classroom use. I definitely need more time to investigate this concept further and develop a better understanding but I do feel as though this has good implication for technology based instruction. Time's sure are changing!

CED 525 Class Three Reflection

While not being the most uplifting class, I found this week's class to be very informative and interesting.

I was very intrigued by the resources available on tappedin.org Several of the topics in the next month are of interest to me. I'll definitely have to check out the special education and "math and technology" forums to see if they are of value to my current teaching situation. I am always searching for new methods and materials to diversify instruction.

The time we spent on Internet safety was eye-opening for me. I have always considered myself to be very cognoscente of distributing personal information on the Internet and otherwise being savvy about Internet safety. I was amazed at the piece we watched on the soccer player in California whose identity was traced through the seemingly innocent information on her profile. This week's class made me re-think what the students in my school are accessing at home as well as the information they may be providing to others on-line. After viewing this information in class and then reading and viewing more at home, I think our school needs to take a stronger stance on educating children about Internet safety at a younger age.