If someone had told me in Dec. 2014 that I'd be Tweeting in two months, I would have said ya right. Now that I've played around in the Twitter "sandbox", I've found that it is quite useful. I enjoy the ability to network with individuals of the same study. Articles, research, ideas, techniques, and information are shared through networking.
Especially in smaller, remote rural school districts, there is usually only one Speechie who serves the school. Thus, collaboration with fellow Speechies is rather limited. Having serviced one such school for three years, I can testify to some of these challenges. Though I work for a special ed. unit and have a supervisor, we still encounter challenges.
Among my favorite has tags are #SLPeeps, #SLP, #SLT, #WeSpeechies, #SLTchat, #slpbloggers.
Find me on twitter: https://twitter.com/slpptchr .
Saturday, February 28, 2015
Saturday, February 21, 2015
What Does it Mean to be a Teacher (SLPP) (A15)
My parents believed that teaching and nursing were very respectable professions for women. As a teenager, I worked with kiddos in VBS, children's church, the church nursery, and did babysitting. When I was a Junior in High School, my dad strongly encouraged me to consider a career in education. After a divorce, four children, and eleven years later, I enrolled in college.
I had grown up in a community and in a time where teachers were respected. If you had gotten into trouble; you prayed that the teacher wouldn't call your parents. But, times had changed and as a first- year teacher, I soon realized it.
I don't remember when I first heard the quote "Those who can, do. And those who can't, teach. What I do remember is that I thought "What a lack of respect"! As a college student to first-year teacher, I had a bumper sticker on my car that said, "If you can read this, thank a teacher."
Since everyone has experienced a school, many people believe that they know education. However, education changes with time. We have moved from "teacher directed" to "child center" to a more eclectic methodology. The pendulum swings. A perfect example would be the traditional teaching of reading to whole language. As education and technology change, teachers also must change their teaching methods. (from slates to paper, to paperless).
When I went to elementary and high school, children with some special needs ie down syndrome never went to school. They were kept at home, sent to a special school, or institutionalized. Now, they are entitled to a free and appropriate education in the school system. With that passing, school systems and teachers had to adjust to the change.
Working in school systems for fifteen years, I have had the opportunity to work with many so-called "inferior blueberries". As teachers, we can not change their situation; we can advocate on their behalf. We can impact their lives, either negatively or positively. We can turn them on to learning or turn them off.
For me, my pay isn't only measured in dollars and cents. My greatest pay is paid with that "light bulb" moment or when a former students eagerly greets you. As an SLPP, I celebrate with my students as they "graduate" (are dismissed) from services.
I had grown up in a community and in a time where teachers were respected. If you had gotten into trouble; you prayed that the teacher wouldn't call your parents. But, times had changed and as a first- year teacher, I soon realized it.
I don't remember when I first heard the quote "Those who can, do. And those who can't, teach. What I do remember is that I thought "What a lack of respect"! As a college student to first-year teacher, I had a bumper sticker on my car that said, "If you can read this, thank a teacher."
Since everyone has experienced a school, many people believe that they know education. However, education changes with time. We have moved from "teacher directed" to "child center" to a more eclectic methodology. The pendulum swings. A perfect example would be the traditional teaching of reading to whole language. As education and technology change, teachers also must change their teaching methods. (from slates to paper, to paperless).
When I went to elementary and high school, children with some special needs ie down syndrome never went to school. They were kept at home, sent to a special school, or institutionalized. Now, they are entitled to a free and appropriate education in the school system. With that passing, school systems and teachers had to adjust to the change.
Working in school systems for fifteen years, I have had the opportunity to work with many so-called "inferior blueberries". As teachers, we can not change their situation; we can advocate on their behalf. We can impact their lives, either negatively or positively. We can turn them on to learning or turn them off.
For me, my pay isn't only measured in dollars and cents. My greatest pay is paid with that "light bulb" moment or when a former students eagerly greets you. As an SLPP, I celebrate with my students as they "graduate" (are dismissed) from services.
#ndedchat (A22)
On Wednesday Feb.4, I participated in my first in #ndedchat or rather I lurked for a few minutes and then signed in and observed. Two weeks later, I participated in it; however, instead of writing A1 at the start of a tweet, I wrote Q1. I was so embarrassed so I just observed from that time on. Such a silly mistake!
I would participate again. It is fast moving so next time I will again read the questions ahead of time, but I will also have answers to specific questions typed up so that I just have to copy and paste.
I would participate again. It is fast moving so next time I will again read the questions ahead of time, but I will also have answers to specific questions typed up so that I just have to copy and paste.
How Has Technology Changed My Teaching (A18)
I went to college for Elementary Ed following my divorce. My oldest two children were in kindergarten and second grade at the time and were using computers in school. Having been out of school for ten years, I knew I had to learn to use a computer. So, the first semester, I took Keyboarding and the second semester I took Intro to Computers (back in the days of Lotus and Word Perfect). Since then, I have been a certified teacher for 19 years and have worked as an SLP-P for 6 years.
I started writing lesson plans with paper & pencil. As soon as the teachers were given computers, I created a lesson plan form and started doing them on the computer and printing them out. One copy was handed into the office and one copy was taped in the traditional lesson plan book to be handed in at the end of the year.
During the summers, I taught full day summer school for first graders. I was allowed to have the student computers from other rooms (each classroom had one old Apple that needed the boot up floppy). We had computers set up with a printer. While I worked with half the class on reading, the other half were typing an assignment (name, address, phone number) and then were allowed to play a game of their choosing. The shift, enter, delete, and space bar keys were color coded. The color coding was explained and visuals were created to help the children. Also, since my children were out of school for the summer and older, I incorporated their assistance in helping the students with the computers.
As time went by, our school got internet and a computer lab; however, the students only had access to the internet in the computer lab. Having a computer lab, the school started offering an after-school technology program which I co-taught. Back then, the internet was quite new, child safe search engines didn't exist, and filtering was rather poor. The children were able to print their science fair information, captions, graphs, and pictures versus handwriting or drawing them. Also, with internet came the ability to email our lesson plans. However, we still had to print a copy for the office and put a copy in our binder to be turned in at the end of the year.
About the same time as the internet came, teachers each received a computer for their classroom. I used Publisher to create a slide show for the first grade reading words that the students would encounter in their new story. Every day prior to reading the story, we'd review the words learned in the previous story plus cover the current words. (I had to keep track of whose turn it was to run the slide show as it would cause an argument.).
Now as an SLP-P, the majority of my job is working with students to correctly produce phonemes with the correct use/position of their articulators (tongue, lips, teeth, etc). My greatest tool in this is a mirror (pretty low tech). However, I have learned to use different software and Tienet (a state site for IEP's). Boardmaker is a program that I use a lot to create visual schedules for students and articulation activities. If needed, I could create a communication book using the program; however, I have not worked with students with those needs as of yet.
With the internet, comes a wealth of resources. We no longer have to copy, draw, or color most of the resources that we want. I have used Pinterst and Teachers Pay Teachers on numerous occasions to find various activities to incorporate in therapy. Also, Quia is an online site that I use quite often in therapy whether it's language or artic. At first, I used Quia on a touch screen computer with the younger children.
With overcrowding at schools in western ND, others may need our rooms at times. Having an Ipad, is great for the convenience of having to move to another area without much notice. With various apps, I can use it for articulation and language. However, I have found limitations with many of the apps such as the ability to individualize the to specific needs or the ability to randomize or shuffle the order in which items are presented.
I have and will continue to share some of the tool learned in ED521 with case managers and others at our sped unit, but that will be for another blog.
I started writing lesson plans with paper & pencil. As soon as the teachers were given computers, I created a lesson plan form and started doing them on the computer and printing them out. One copy was handed into the office and one copy was taped in the traditional lesson plan book to be handed in at the end of the year.
During the summers, I taught full day summer school for first graders. I was allowed to have the student computers from other rooms (each classroom had one old Apple that needed the boot up floppy). We had computers set up with a printer. While I worked with half the class on reading, the other half were typing an assignment (name, address, phone number) and then were allowed to play a game of their choosing. The shift, enter, delete, and space bar keys were color coded. The color coding was explained and visuals were created to help the children. Also, since my children were out of school for the summer and older, I incorporated their assistance in helping the students with the computers.
As time went by, our school got internet and a computer lab; however, the students only had access to the internet in the computer lab. Having a computer lab, the school started offering an after-school technology program which I co-taught. Back then, the internet was quite new, child safe search engines didn't exist, and filtering was rather poor. The children were able to print their science fair information, captions, graphs, and pictures versus handwriting or drawing them. Also, with internet came the ability to email our lesson plans. However, we still had to print a copy for the office and put a copy in our binder to be turned in at the end of the year.
Now as an SLP-P, the majority of my job is working with students to correctly produce phonemes with the correct use/position of their articulators (tongue, lips, teeth, etc). My greatest tool in this is a mirror (pretty low tech). However, I have learned to use different software and Tienet (a state site for IEP's). Boardmaker is a program that I use a lot to create visual schedules for students and articulation activities. If needed, I could create a communication book using the program; however, I have not worked with students with those needs as of yet.
With the internet, comes a wealth of resources. We no longer have to copy, draw, or color most of the resources that we want. I have used Pinterst and Teachers Pay Teachers on numerous occasions to find various activities to incorporate in therapy. Also, Quia is an online site that I use quite often in therapy whether it's language or artic. At first, I used Quia on a touch screen computer with the younger children.
With overcrowding at schools in western ND, others may need our rooms at times. Having an Ipad, is great for the convenience of having to move to another area without much notice. With various apps, I can use it for articulation and language. However, I have found limitations with many of the apps such as the ability to individualize the to specific needs or the ability to randomize or shuffle the order in which items are presented.
I have and will continue to share some of the tool learned in ED521 with case managers and others at our sped unit, but that will be for another blog.
Sunday, February 8, 2015
Moves
Since graduating from High School, I have moved several times. This map shows a few of those moves. I made the map using Skitch.
From my childhood home to Bismarck
From Bismarck to a farm north of Pollock
From Pollock to Aberdeen
Aberdeen to Herreid
Herreid to Yankton
Yankton to Tioga
From my childhood home to Bismarck
From Bismarck to a farm north of Pollock
From Pollock to Aberdeen
Aberdeen to Herreid
Herreid to Yankton
Yankton to Tioga
Moves
"In My Opinion" page link
For some reason, the "In My Opinion" page doesn't show up on my home page. So here is a direct link.
http://slpptchr.blogspot.com/p/in-my-opinion.html
http://slpptchr.blogspot.com/p/in-my-opinion.html
Blog Help
Since I made a mistake with my blog, I watched a youtube tutorial video. I'm thankful that he misspelled a word, because he used the layout option to correct it. With the layout option, I was also able correct my issue.
Blogger Youtube tutorial video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwjjHngOsLY
Blogger Youtube tutorial video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwjjHngOsLY
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