Abuse in School

Oh my goodness. I can't even speak. My eyes are full. This is why I'm in Special Education ... to do all I can to make sure this kind of thing doesn't happen!!!

Article: http://www.wrightslaw.com/blog/?p=1229

Toys for differently-abled children

Hmm .. interesting:

http://www.toysrus.com/shop/index.jsp?categoryId=3261680

Kittens for lunch

Aww ... all mushy and heart warming. I love these kinds of stories.

Panting in Pink

As this module on blogging and RSS feeds comes to a close, I thought this little pink mouse was a nice representation of how I feel. But let me clarify in that it's not because of blogging per se that I feel this way, but because of the myriad of responsibilities that were piled on my plate last week. I was in class on Bay Path campus M-F from 8:30-4:30pm. After school, I had to clock hours for my paid employment. Then there were the hours each night to spend on this online course and my other online course. In between times were life, family, small children, prep and teaching of Sunday School and Children's Church, laundry, cleaning, and other typical household chores, and the list goes on. Sleep was reduced to 2-4 hours each night. I survived by the grace of God and hopefully succeeded as well. For me the computer is a tool essential in my current life, but it's also become a ball-and-chain. I find I'm resenting it often. I'm hoping that after graduation, I will once again view it as my chosen friend instead of imposed necessity.

In order to have *one* day of vacation together as a family, we will be driving out to the Lancaster, PA area with my parents and youngest brother this Thursday night. The plan is to play at Cherry Crest Farm during the day on Friday and see the show In the Beginning at Sight & Sound Theater that evening. Then we'll drive home on Saturday. I'm sure we will all enjoy ourselves, but my enthusiasm is tempered because I know that after everyone is down for the night, I will be attached to my laptop completing school work. But to make sure the glass is half full, I acknowledge that at least I *can* travel with my family and *still* complete course work. Another wonder of technology today.

Don't Pass on the Periodicals

The module in our Ed Tech class about searching periodical databases definitely provided me with a duhaha moment, to use a phrase coined by fellow classmate, Julie. Why did I never read about the individual databases before to see which I thought would be pertinent? Duh?! Why did I never realize that when I came across an abstract during a websearch that I couldn't access due to lack of subscription, that I could go to a licensed periodical database through a library and presto ... access. Duhaha!! And using the article linker feature ... Aha!

I like the organized and structured form of licensed periodical databases for scholarly searches. I like the fact that before articles are published, they are fact checked and reviewed by editors or experts in the field. This saves me time (not eliminates the time) determining validity. I believe that proper search techniques and usage of these databases is very valuable information and I intend to start introducing these concepts in small, easy, non-threatening increments to my own students (and other adults).

Here is a summary of the strengths and weaknesses of a web search and a database search:

World Wide Web Searching

Strengths

Easy search technique w/ lots of info

Good for current topics

Good for statistics

Good for finding graphics, charts, tables

Weaknesses

No true structure or organization

Only developed in the last decade, so older publications usually need a fee to access or aren't available

Broken links ... disappearing pages

Anyone can post information

Licensed Periodical Database Searching

Strengths

Easy to search and narrow

Current & older issues available

Content reviewed by editors or "experts"

Easier to find evaluations, comparisons, analysis, etc

Can be more current than books

Weaknesses

Sometimes find abstracts only

May need to use more than one database

Time lag for publication of scholarly journals on current events

Reveling in research

The previous 2 weeks in our Ed Tech class was learning about searching for information on the web and in licensed periodical databases. I was already pretty proficient at searching the web although I admit to having never looked at the online help for any of the search engines. When I did that on yahoo and google, I found so many cool short-cut features. I already knew about and used several of the features, like automatic conversions, but I found so many others like:

• equation calculation
• use of the ~ character for synonym searching
• typing a business category and zip code gives websites, maps, reviews, and contact information
• flight status
• tracking numbers for UPS, Fedex, USPS
• typed before a web address gives a list of pages with similar content

(the <> characters are just to separate what you type from my other text. You don't actually type them)

I think a positive for web searching is availability of information of all kinds literally at our fingertips. On the same token though, the large amount of information could be overwhelming or tiresome when having to sift through non-pertinent information and evaluating each site for validity. I usually only pick from first or second page search results and often times wonder if I've let a jewel slip out of my hands by not making it to the third page. In my own practice, I will still search the web first to see what's available and for it's quick-access, but then depending on my topic, I will absolutely head over to the licensed periodical databases, where searches can be easily narrowed and the validity can be more quickly determined. And now that I understand and can use RSS feeds, I will no longer have to visit certain sites separately when looking for information, but will be able to save time by scanning my favorite webblog sites via google reader. In my book, anything that saves me time and maintains accuracy is invaluable!!!

Eureka! A wiki!

In our last two class modules I especially enjoyed researching about using wikis and blogs in the classroom, because it was a topic with which I was absolutely unfamiliar. My first two questions were, what's a wiki and why would you want to use it in the classroom? And find out I did with streamers and fireworks and 'Eureka's'!

I first learned the basic difference in purpose between a wiki and a blog. Blog visitors simply add comments to the original content, whereas wikis allow visitors to actually change the content. Blogs are created by one author and wikis are designed to be created and authored by more than one person/student and have searchable documents. So, this is good defining type information, but why would they be so great in a classroom?

After reading the article, A Wiki for Classroom Writing by Brian Morgan and Richard Smith, I visited a website they suggested called arrrpirates. This is a really neat little site created by classes in 4th-6th grade to show off their research on pirates. They each took a content area under the pirate topic, researched it, and created an online version of a report, complete with links to the other areas posted by their classmates. Their peers and teacher could add, delete, suggest information for each area and so help each other create the best version of their information. This one small example, really opened my eyes to what a great learning experience this could be for students. Traditionally, students are either all assigned the same topic or each are given a narrow field for research/reporting. Then the only way the other students can learn from the research of their peers is after the information is validated by the teacher, students have to sit through presentations or such. And I believe presentations definitely have their place and can certainly be done in conjunction with a wiki. But in general, I'd much prefer to spend time poking around on a website rather than sitting through hours of presentations which may or may not be informative and entertaining.

Then I took the idea a bit farther, and started wondering if there was a way that wikis could benefit my own home schooled children besides just the technology instruction and fun factor. Then I thought, how neat it would be to be able to collaborate with other home school students from near and far on a single wiki. The peer interaction on a project like this would be a nice change. My children get lots of peer interaction in activities and clubs and fieldtrips, etc, etc. But they only have a small circle of peers with whom they get to share the products of their course work. Mostly they are sharing work samples with adults. I think this is an idea worth researching. So far in my web search I have found several wikis about home schooling itself, but no kid project sites. Surely there are home schooling families that are using this for project purposes??? Perhaps they just haven't been tagged under homeschool or I need to work on my search parameters. Regardless, I think this is a great idea for me outside of the public/private classroom.

Thumbs up on learning about educational purposes for wikis!

Blog Purpose

So, here goes ... my first blog and it's all due to a class assignment. I have read people's blogs in the past and while I enjoy reading what some of my friends write, I mainly keep up with them through their Facebook accounts. And honestly, although my grade may be negatively affected by this comment, I've always viewed personal blogs from the despair.com point of view. Their demotivator poster says, "Blogging: Never before have so many people with so little to say said so much to so few."

But like our classmate, Roxanne, said on her post, "Down the Rabbit Hole" I go. I'm trying to keep up, people! Although I'm kicking and screaming on this one. I don't want my so little to say to be said to so few people or to so many people for that matter. ;-)

The first thing I did was to add yet another email account to my list; gmail. Then I lamented the fact that in creating this blog I had such a limited number of templates. I searched around, found some very pretty html codes, but then found that they didn't have the gadget capability I wanted. Boo. Then I spent some time using the research I did in the last module to add some awesome blogs to my google reader so I could easily follow them. Now THAT is a function that I understand and is useful to me. But adding my own posts? Not sold. In fact, I joined those blogs privately, because I did not want people to be able to link to this blog.

Then I thought, now who in the world is going to want to read about my research on long-term outcomes for adults with autism who did or did not receive early intervention? Who is going to want to read about my research on stress causing diabetes? I don't even want to read my thoughts about it! I wanted to read other people's thoughts about it and I did! So I decided to go onto YouTube and try to get some inspiration from leelefever's Blogs in Plain English. I love those "in plain English" movies.

When I first researched wikis and blogs in the classroom on the licensed periodical databases at Hatch, I did find a personal use for a blog and am very excited about it. I will be starting a blog in which I post my children's literary, art, drama, and music creations complete with audio and video podcast. (Remember I'm a homeschooling mother) Currently, I send samples of their work via email to bunches of family and friends across the world and then I read the feedback emails to my kids. But how much cooler will it be, if my kiddos can see their work posted and see the comments all on one page. And they will not *have to* have a blog/blog reader in order to keep up, because they all follow me on Facebook and I can easily link my blog there. Yippee! I think it will be neat for my family and friends to read each other's comments as well. But alas, that will have to wait. And in the meantime, I will be grateful that I'm getting some valuable practice right here and now.

More on my journey through this Ed Tech class later ...

(btw: did you notice that if you click the links above that they open in a separate window so you can't leave my blog without purposefully going! Now how much irony does that show after all my ranting about not wanting people to read my "so little words." BUT I'm proud that my html came back to me enough for me to do that.)