THIS IS FUN!!

Finally, my internship is FUN!! I have done a LOT of work since I last posted (which adds up to a lot of hours, but since they are fun, they have flown by!!). Since my last post, I have sent home permission slips to video tape (and got all but one back), got the video camera, bought the wrong size tapes, exchanged the wrong tapes for the correct ones and started taping. I realized that my friend who owns the camera never got the cord that allows it to upload to the computer, so I went and bought one (yea, it was like $30 but I told my friend that it was my "rental fee.") I finally uploaded all the videos I had taken so far and realized that b/c I kept looking at what I had taped, I had of course taped over other stuff I needed. So I taped and re-taped and taped some more. It took me about a week to get everything I needed of the students (including trips to other schools). I didn't have time at school to tape myself programming the devices so I took three students devices home with me for the weekend. I have spent yesterday and today (Sat. and Sun.) taping some more, uploading more, realizing that I had been uploading the long way and that everything I was doing, the computer would do for me, and taping some more. It is 5:30 on Sunday and I have just finished taping everything I need (I hope). I did take off a few hours yesterday to see Twilight with Stacy (LOVED IT) and work on our group project for the other class, but I'm done. I also spent more time working on the actual website. I tried to upload my uploaded videos, but it was taking forever, so I decided that I will upload them to Teachertube (school version of YouTube that isn't blocked in my district) and post a link to them instead of putting them directly on pbwiki. This coming week, I will be finishing my bibliography and my website and making sure all the loose ends are tied up. I'm almost done!!! WOOHOO!!

Opps...one bright spot!

I forgot to add something to my post. I have been searching for a video camera that I could use to tape then upload the clips to the computer. I have asked my school and even filled out a request for USC to get one of their cameras. I haven't heard back from USC and my school's are either not digital or they are broken. BUT... my department head, a good friend of mine, has offered to let me use his personal one. I'm a little wary of using someone's personal camera, but it is exactly what I need and he keeps it at school, so I have access. WOOHOO!! One dilemma solved!

Waiting is a tiring game!!

Right now, nothing much is happening. I am playing the waiting game. My next step in my project is to video tape students using the assistive technology in the classroom and taping myself, programming the different devices. Right now, I am waiting for permission for parents/guardians to tape. I have gained permission from one parent already, so I am trying to schedule a time to go over to tape. The student is at the high school next door so it shouldn't be too hard to get away to tape a bit. The parent has also given me permission to borrow his device (it is the student's personal device, not the school district's) so I can tape the programming. I should be able to tape him by the end of this week then take his device home this weekend and tape. The other student I would like to use is a little harder to get in touch with. She lives in a group home here in Cola, but mom lives in Greenville. I am debating on whether to just tape the programming of her device and not worry about having her on tape. A teacher here at my school has a student who has special needs and has offered to let me use him anytime I need to. This would help because I wouldn't have to worry about getting everything done during school hours. The only problem is he doesn't actually use the devices in the classroom, so it wouldn't be very authentic. I'm trying to weigh my options: is it better to go with convenience or authenticity?? If I went with the convenience I would of course make a note on my final project (the website) that the student used in the taping does not use the device on a daily basis. What do you all think?

I hate idle times!

Okay, this blog is completely different from my last one. After being so excited about everything I was doing, these past two weeks have been at a complete standstill. I was writing my permission to video slips three weeks ago and needed feedback on the wording I was using. I sent it to my administrator, Jina Gettys, who works with special education. She informed me that there was a committee in charge of studies conducted within the district. I explained to her that I wasn’t working on a research study; I was just making a resource for teachers and parents to use. She got me in contact with the head of the committee, Dr. Lais Zachary, who emailed me the form I had to complete. My heart dropped out when I read that it takes four to six weeks to get permission to conduct a study after I turn the paperwork in. I called the head of the committee (who, luckily, I have worked with in the past and knows me pretty well) and left a few messages about the project I was working on and how it wasn’t a research study. I waited and waited, but still hadn’t heard back from her. One week later, I was sitting in a meeting with Jina, my administrator, and she made the comment that she was glad it all got worked out. I told her I had not idea what she was talking about and she informed me that she had gotten an email the week before approving it and that my name was on the list to have received it. I asked her to forward it to me, because for some reason, I didn’t get it. She did, and I thought everything was good. I was set and ready to start getting my permission to tape. One week later, I run into Jina again again. She asks me if I had set up the meeting with my principal yet. I asked her what she was talking about and again she asks me if I got the email. For some reason, Dr. Zachary had been sending emails to me but I haven’t been getting them. Luckily, she had “CC-ed” them to Jina or else I never would have known. Thankfully, this email said again that I was approved, that they would be sending me a formal letter through inner district mail and that I just needed to touch base with my principal, Marie, to make sure she knew what was going on.
My meeting with Marie was this afternoon at 1. It went really well. She gave me some pointers on how to get permission from the parents and some more resources to use. She also looked over the site that I had been working on and gave me some editing tips. So now I’m getting in gear to start taping. I am contacting the teachers/speech therapists within the district that I have been working with to get contact info. on the parents of the students that I want to tape. I will be making phone contact tonight and tomorrow night, then send out the slips (either through the classroom teacher or the parents’ emails) by Thursday of this week. I should be good to go for taping by next week. Whew!!

It's an exciting time (and a LONG blog!)

I’m very excited!! After not doing a lot of hands on work the past couple of weeks, my internship has “exploded.” I took Thursday off from work at visited a high school in my district, Dutch Fork High School. The low TMD/PMD class is housed there (that stands for Trainable Mentally Disabled and Profoundly Mentally Disabled). They are pretty low, but the things they can do are amazing!! I knew a lot of the kids that were there, since the middle school program for TMD and PMD is housed here at my school (just FYI, in case you are interested: I teach EMD which stands for Educable Mentally Disabled-when they leave middle school, they go to Irmo High School-the TMD/PMD class go to Dutch Fork High School. That is your special education geography lesson for today! :0) ).
The TMD teacher, Ms. Mantsch, went with me so she could observe the students and the class. I had so much fun!! Those kids are amazing (yes, I know I just said that, but I had to say it again). We got to participate in their morning routine, with morning calendar and reading time. One student use a Go Talk + to answer questions during morning calendar. She was quick with it too!! One thing that I always have to remind myself is the response time (the time it takes the students to process the question, find the answer on the communication board) then press the button. But M*, there wasn’t any wait time. She was quick!! One downfall for M* is the fact that she has to have a teacher sit next to her to change the “boards” so she can answer all the questions. I know most of you don’t know what I mean when I say that, but it is time consuming and doesn’t allow the students to be completely independent with the communication device. The device she was using has 9 places per board record a word or a phrase. I think (and the speech pathologist agrees with me) that she could work with a board that is higher, with 32 places.
Some of the other students used a “rocking” plate switch to answer questions on how they feel (happy/sad). They use a ton of signs during calendar time and have a sign of the week. This week, the word is “finished.” If you want to know what the sign looks like, go to http://www.commtechlab.msu.edu/sites/aslweb/browser.htm on internet explorer and look up finished under F. They have a written description as well as a short video clip (you need QuickTime to view) on how to actually do the sign. At the end of calendar time, the students sing a song to remember everyone’s names. They just started a new song, and since the kids are still learning it, they sang both the new and the old song for us, using instruments that are designed for students with ambulatory issues (like a big ocean drum which acts as a shaker).
During this visit, I was also able to work with the speech Pathologist during two of her sessions. M* was our first, and I got to see some assistive tech that I had not seen before. We also worked in the Orthopedic Impaired classroom. These students are generally on grade level but have a lot of difficulties with movement. They have a lot of assistive tech in this classroom, esp. with communication devices. We worked with C* and his Dynamo communication device. C* can answer any questions you ask by either finding the symbol that has been programmed into the device (which is very time consuming) or he can spell the word.
I stayed at Dutch Fork for about 5 hours, and then since we had to stay at school late that night, I went ahead back to school and worked on my final project. I am making a wiki to use as a resource on assistive technology for teachers, students and parents in my district. I worked for three hours Thursday night then again on Friday for 3 ½ hours. If you want to check out what I have done so far, the web address is http://specialeducationtechnology.pbwiki.com
Please feel free to leave comments about how I can improve the site. I need all the help I can get!!

More research and less hands on

Since my last post, I unfortunately haven’t been working hands on with any of the technology. Since that is my favorite part of my internship, I am a little bummed. Instead, I have been working more on scheduling visits to view the technology, getting permission to video students using the technology and trying to track down a digital video camera that I can use to tape. I have also been searching for related articles for my annotated bibliography. There’s a lot of research out there on assistive technology, but I am trying to find those that are related to using the technology in the classroom. Between this internship, my other class and my students, I am staying very busy, but am enjoying finding new technology that I have never seen before and learning all about what is being used in my district.

Assisting others through technology

My internship is well underway. I am really enjoying learning about the different products that are available and how much assistive technology is being used within my district.
Since my last post, I have been researching different products and journal articles on assistive technology. Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to find a lot of research, but I am still looking. My supervisor is our lead assistive technology teacher in our district. She just completed the course work for her masters. One of the papers she wrote was on assistive technology and some of the research she found will be helpful to me.
I have also been making contacts within my district. I sent out an email asking for special education teachers to email reply with what products (software, programs and hardware) that they current use in their classrooms. As of now, I have gotten over 75 replies, not only from special education teachers but other teachers who teach inclusion. I have set up an excel spreadsheet to keep up with all the names, locations and products that I am interested in.
On Friday, September 12, 2008, I made my first visit to Ballentine Elementary School. I interviewed one of the music teachers. BES houses the Occupational Disabled elementary class. The music teacher works with these students when they come with their general education peers. I’m unsure whether the instruments she uses would be considered assistive technology or just an adaptation, but I really enjoyed looking through all her information. Even though I teach what I do and have worked with students with various disabilities for over 10 years, I never thought about how they would be able to play any music or how a regular music class would be adapted to fit their individual needs. The neatest thing she showed me was a recorder (remember Three Blind Mice? How about Hot Cross Buns??). All fourth graders must take lessons on playing the recorder. The adaptive on she purchased using grant money (it costs about $15.00 versus the $2.00 version used by most students) that comes apart. This is so the holes can be rotated to fit students with finger dexterity issues, or students whose fingers are missing.
I have scheduled two more interviews with teachers at Dutch Fork High School for Tuesday, September 16. These will be with self contained special education teachers, so the products will be more assistive technology. I have more the schedule in the coming weeks, but look forward to seeing everything that is being used. I plan on checking everyone first then scheduling times when I can video tape using the different products/programs and programming them for different students.

Blog #1

This is actually my first time blogging, so please bear with me as I begin this new experience. My internship for 650 will be to create instructional videos for assistive technology devices, then upload them to some kind of website so my fellow teachers and others will be able to have access to them. I am hoping they will use the videos to not only learn how to program the devices but but use it as a resource to find new technology or math students with the technology they need.

Like some or most of you, I was at a loss as to what I should do for my internship when I first began this class. I was under the impression that I would "shadow" someone at their job. I'm not sure where that came from, but I was highly mistaken. Dr. Wissick had emailed me back in the spring and told me to be thinking about how I could do my internship in special education and assistive technology. Since I was still under the impression that I was to be "shadowing" someone, I started thinking about people who work in that field.

When we actually got into the class, I was still pretty clueless about what to do, so I emailed Dr. Wissick again for some ideas. When she wrote me back with the idea I explained above, and I realized that my options were wide open, I was very excited. I took her idea and made it my own by adding more to it. I'm very excited about this opportunity to learn more about the different types of devices/software that is out there. I have also spoken to various people in my district who are looking forward to using the videos as a resource.

There are still some "bugs" that I need to work out, like determining where I can put the videos. Is there a place that can host my site that I can create, or will I need to post them to youtube/teachertube, then create a new page on my teacher site through my district to house the links? These are issues that I will be working on throughout the semester, and I'm sure others will come up as I am working but for right now, things are looking good!

Intro

Hi everyone! I'm testing my new blog. Hopefully it works. Check back later for more information!