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!!
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
Monday, October 13, 2008
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!!
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!!
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