Monthly+Reflections+for+Internship

July

This training addressed an area in which I needed more expert advice and assistance. I found the training for Kurzweil text-to-speech very helpful. I was not very familiar with the details of this software, but saw the benefit to students. I had written a grant to upgrade the system that was currently in our school district, purchase more licenses, and attend a training workshop. One teaching assistant that was familiar with the program attended with me. This training consisted of viewing the upgrades such as new buttons for voice notes, graphic organizers, new voices, and new menu screens. We also learned how to input users into the new user management database as well as how to run reports and troubleshoot problems within the database. I felt that the three hours were very useful and overwhelming. There is so much in the software! I don’t think I could learn all it can do. I was able to receive and retain enough information to get me started for using the program and training other teachers on the basics.

August

In early August, I presented a technology professional development workshop on Kurzweil text-to-speech software. The session was attended by the teaching assistants that would do most of the work with the program. I was able to present the basics of the program that I had learned during my July training. During this session we also worked together to setup procedures for student/teacher use of the program. I came into the discussion with some very set ideas. The ladies in attendance were able to bring ideas and concerns with my procedures. I enjoyed the discussion and debate about how to make the software available and effective for students. I did change my perception about what was best and allowed the ladies to determine how to implement the program at each individual campus. It was also decided that since I was a teacher and “in charge” of this software and training that I would be the one to share the procedure with each campus. This session opened my eyes to how little some teachers listen to the teaching assistants. I felt awful about that! These ladies often work with the students more than the teachers and yet they are not listened to. During the discussion the ladies continually asked if I would be the one to tell teachers the procedures. This was a time of growth for me as a professional. I can look back to my previous years of experience and see that I did the same thing – not listen to the assistants around me. I can say that I found a new value in those around me even if they don’t have an education degree.

As a part of my job as an Auditory Impairment (AI) teacher, I constantly work with assistive technology. I did not realize how that fit into the technology standards until reading our textbook. I was very happy to find that I am already doing a small portion of Standard 2. Each year I meet with the teacher(s) of AI students. During this meeting I introduce the teacher to the basics of hearing aids and troubleshooting hearing aids. I also explain how an FM system works. I then have the teacher walk through each step of how to turn on the FM system, troubleshooting, and turning it off. I also discuss the students’ accommodations and how this will affect their classroom experience. Accommodations can include captioned media, seating arrangements, written as well as oral instructions, oral testing, note-taking assistance, and spelling tests – multiple choice instead of oral. Teaches can feel overwhelmed at all the information. I make sure I give them everything in writing after the meeting so they can refer back. I also make sure my students know how to work the Fm system, hearing aids, and what accommodations they need. Teachers appreciate the students’ knowledge and the open door policy I have. My open door is my cell phone. Teachers can call me anytime and I will walk them through anything over the phone or I will come to the school to help. When I need help or can’t figure out how to troubleshoot a piece of equipment I call an audiologist. She will come to my office or a school when needed. This year the beginning of the year meetings went well and teachers felt comfortable with the equipment (and by having my cell phone number).

September During weeks two and four I met with two different schools to present mini-workshops on Kurzweil text-to-speech. The first school was a high school. I met with the teacher and teaching assistant in the Student Assistance Center. The teacher seemed to understand the program quickly and jumped right in. The teaching assistant was more leary and wanted someone else to do it for her. The TA was the person put in charge of making sure a student had all his work in the Kurzweil program. I would model how to do something once or twice then make her do it. She was very slow at performing the activities and asked a lot of questions. She did take notes. I gathered that she learned by reading more so than hands-on. This session was a little more frustrating for me. I struggle to slow down enough for those not familiar with a computer. I will have to work on this. The fourth week I met with an elementary school. This mini-workshop also contained teachers and assistants. This group wanted everything to be very fast paced. Their biggest concern was getting the software loaded on all the computers and getting all the students entered into the user database. Once those problems were solved, these ladies jumped in with both feet. The group worked well together to divide up jobs so that the campus could be effectively using the software within two weeks. It was a great experience!

During September I had to troubleshoot FM equipment. This is a time when problems are expected. Teachers are still getting used to the equipment and the students. I found that some teachers were leaving it up to the student to do everything (at an elementary level). I had to set up expectations for both the student and the teacher. I reviewed the information given to everyone in August about how to troubleshoot and take care of the equipment. I also offered encouragement that the teachers can learn how to operate the FM system. I have noticed that the FM equipment scares teachers. I ask them to go talk to last year’s teacher to ask any questions. Teachers making connections with others who have used the technology (and survived) seems to be the biggest help. Once they have the confidence that others have done it and they can do it too, I see a big difference in how much I am called for little things.

October

This month focused on FM equipment. I had some problems with a new kind of equipment so I had to rely on my audiologist to come and help me. This relationship has really worked well for me. I have learned so much from her! Throughout the San Antonio area there are only two main districts that serve the largest number of hearing impaired students. Our representative from Phonak came to town to meet with the two educational audiologists from those districts. I was invited to attend as well since I do part of the audiologist job in my district (dealing with FM systems). We attended two different trainings. The first focused on the new line of equipment from Phonak. I was able to learn about the new hearing aids, FM systems – programming as well as interactions with older equipment, and how to plan for a growing number of students. The second training involved the troubleshooting of FM systems. We learned how to take apart equipment, how to trade out parts and put it back together. These transmitters are basically mini computers so it was very eye opening to see the inside and how it all works. After learning the mechanics, we were able to learn new software used to program hearing aids. The software also monitors FM equipment usage and problems. I plan to use the software to help track FM system usage so that I can document that FM system accommodations are being implemented.

November

This month brought a new assistive technology issue. A student was asked to watch a video and then take a quiz on it. The problem that arose is that for my hearing impaired students they cannot hear the video as well as others and miss major pieces of information. I knew about Described and Captioned media, but had not truly considered its impact for my students in the classroom. When using the program previously it was for signing students and had a very limited library of videos. When I learned about the video quiz, I began to research the Described and Captioned Media Program (DCMP). I found that it has expanded into only DVD and streamed videos. You also now order online only. I researched TEKS and then the DCMP video library. I wanted to ensure that teachers could find videos that related to their TEKS. I was able to setup multiple accounts (one for each school) and share the information with Special Education coordinators. When I met with one special educator, we spent close to thirty minutes exploring the DCMP site and its implications. The teacher was very excited to have a new resource for both special needs and general education students. This is a new idea for most people when they think of assistive technology. Teachers seemed to be very happy to have something to turn to for captioned media since some sites like UnitedStreaming cannot be captioned. They also love the fact that it is easy to use.

March

Ms. Barnett is a Special Education teacher in Alabama for kindergarten through second grade. She needs a computer-based reading program and resources for her students. She asked if I knew of something online she could use. I was able to research reading for special needs. Unfortunately, there is very little online other than products for sale. I was able to find two reading sites that can be used as resources for ideas and support. Ms. Barnett would love to find a reading program that is online (more than a site like [|www.Starfall.com]). At this point in time, I am unable to find an actual online reading program. I did find a few sites that offer reading software. I have given Ms. Barnett the information and will be meeting with her at a later time to see if I need to research other options.

I was able to meet with Ms. Burton, principal of Harvest Elementary. She agreed to be my supervisor for this internship. I met with Mr. Barlow and Ms. Burton to discuss the experience plan. We were able to come up with several options for the technology standards. I will be narrowing it down at a later date.

April

Kindergarten teachers were very excited by the UDL Book Builder. This group of teachers interacted well with each other. Each teacher was able to share ideas and discuss which would be effective. There were two teachers that seemed to be the leaders. Those teachers that sat quietly for the most part were asked by the leaders for their opinion. As ideas were discussed, I would add comments about how the program worked or model something for them. The team decided to focus on creating books for students’ to use at the beginning of next school year. These books will focus be social stories about kindergarten. Once the teachers understand and are comfortable with the program, they plan to teach their students how to import pictures and type short stories. I will continue providing support to these teachers as they implement the Book Builder.

The kindergarten and special education teachers seem to lacking in technology. They have old computers, old software, and no money. We are in the process of identifying needed hardware and software. There is not any money available for these purchases so we are turning to grants. I spent time researching grants that applied to technology and could be fairly easy to write/plan. These teachers feel overwhelmed by what they do not have, what they want, and what is being asked of them. They want to write a grant, but feel intimidated by the idea. I tried to break it down to the basics – identifying their wish list and must have list. After receiving this I will be able to work with their team to identify which grants fit their needs.

The last activity this month was meeting with a second grade teacher to discuss assistive technology in her room. She is having a hard time finding videos that can relate to her course of study standards and be on the appropriate level. I introduced the DCMP website. We spent time exploring the site to find video relating to her upcoming lessons. She was very excited about using the site. I was surprised to see how excited she became over a simple thing. She was surprised to find an assistive technology that meets the needs of all her students.

May

Elluminate Session and Technology Committee- Standard 8 - Indicators TF-VIII. D.1, 4, 5, 6, 7 The Elluminate session was the beginning of the technology committee meetings. The presentation covered material from the district level concerning school level technology plans. I had never experienced this particular meeting software. Some aspects reminded me of the Adobe Pro software used with Lamar. During the meeting it did seem that most schools were unfamiliar with the software and how to use it. Several times during the presentation, the presenters had to stop to explain how to do something in the software or try to figure it out for themselves. My impression is that this is either very new to the district or not used often enough for users to feel comfortable. Within my committee, the teachers that had served on the committee previously seemed to take control of the conversations. They decided when we would meet and informed the new members how it had worked last year. This same dynamic carried over into the next meeting of our committee. One teacher did begin to take over the leadership role since she knew how to format the information in MS Word. As a committee we struggled with meeting times and scheduling conflicts. During the course of meeting, we decided to meet as smaller groups to work on the tech plan. This year was an update year using new survey data so not much had to be changed. We discussed issues identified in the survey and solutions to those issues. Most of the committee members seemed upset at the survey results without understanding why teachers felt that way. The other new member and myself worked very hard to feel a part in this process. Even while creating the budget and professional development plan, committee members seemed to have a bad attitude. The prevelant thought was 'no matter what we write here, it won't happen'. I felt this was due to budget constraints and the building atmosphere in general. Overall, the technology plan was easy to update using new data survey results. The committee was able to successfully complete the plan within the district time frame. This experience was very interesting. I learned that most committee members are only concerned about what happens at the building level and are not aware of national trends or standards. When bringing up the national standards several members just roled their eyes. I chose to reveiw the plan myself to ensure it did met national standards. The template given from the district did meet all national standards. I also learned that teachers do not always realize that daily activities and curriculum meet technology standards. We have decided to expand my online course in Schoology for all teachers in the building in order to encourage technology integration.

Kindergarten Multimedia Project - Standard 5 - TF-V.C.2 This was a very fun project. I worked with seven kindergarten teachers in order to create a multimedia project for the kinder graduation. The team did have a team leader, but decisions were normally a group consensus. Technology skills ranged from beginner to advanced. Several teachers did not know how to burn pictures onto CDs or how to load them into the DVD maker program. I met with those teachers who needed help to show them how to do what they needed. I would then leave them on their own for a while. Most of the teachers were able to complete their part of the project on their own or with very little help. The biggest struggle for these teachers seemed to be honoring traditions while stepping forward. I was able to assist teachers on the night of graduation by running the sound and computer needs during the program. I learned how to deal with a larger group working on one compilation project. Each teacher presented a different attitude toward the project and wanted a different level of involvment. This team worked well amongst themselves and were quite easy to lead. I know that in the future I will need to be more firm about deadlines. I will also need to make sure that the program/software being used is on more than one computer. Each teacher had a limited time to input pictures due to sharing one computer.

Adding Activities to Field Experience Plan- I have been selected to present at the North Alabama Technology Conference during July. The technology committee also wanted to use my online course from Schoology as a professional development activity next fall. These two activities will be added to my Field-based Experience Plan. Ms. Burton will be meeting with me closer to the beginning of school in order to plan details for the professional development.