Andy

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8r1CZTLk-Gk Please click on this link for my favorite observation of this generations' attitude of today's technology. Enjoy, this since below may not keep your attention as well.

The difficulty many of my students have involved, at varying degrees motivation, executive functioning, and/or emotional episodes that may hinder or block their ability to fluently proceed with assigned tasks. Within my program, I must find ways to help these students address these roadblocks. Some of these things I have no control but for some I think that the more creative, the more current my approach the more likely I am to succeed. Technology as routine, as an expectation has to be understood to be a part of the solution. “The need to know and know it now”, way of life/function has a huge impact on how my students day will go. When a student starts to become anxious and say’s, “I don’t remember what I was suppose to do”, can be a motivation killer. The Resource Wiki addresses at least this one component. Our department recognized what I was trying to accomplish and threw in their full support. The only way this project could succeed was with as many teachers’ and teacher assistants’ contributing as much as possible. Regular education teachers that teach a large portion of students on education plans also recognized the Wiki’s usefulness and make contributions independently. This course was a catalyst to review what I had originally created and further develop its’ contents, it’s ease of use, and a way to get feedback from its’ users. Additional changes included an instructional video podcast entitled, “How to get the most out of this Wiki”, an ongoing survey on how it is being used and their opinions/comments for further improvement, new pages that contained links to other Web 2.0 tools (most provided by this class), as well as some clip art and photographs for aesthetics. Of the students not directly serviced by me, 87% said they did not know about the Resource Wiki. Of those that viewed my instruction video, 100% said it gave enough information to use effectively. When asked, “Did the Resource Wiki appear to be easy to use?” 100% said yes. Of the parts students found most useful, 53% said the links to web based resources, 33% homework and assignments, and 13% said links to teacher websites. Finally, 80% of students said they would use the Resource Wiki. This data is a result of the embedded survey linked (as mentioned above) on the Wiki sight. Students I directly service are familiar with the Wiki because they have, for good or bad, learned to rely on it for daily assignment information. The website is always on the board. Their eyes are directed to it when they ask about an assignment as an attempt to teach self-reliance and independence. They often sigh and reluctantly go to the website. They have been instructed to bookmark the page to save some time. This has been helpful and keeps the momentum going. As our school becomes further engulfed with technology tools, options and perhaps reliance, this Resource Wiki may become obsolete in the near future. The High School has been building a homepage that will ultimately have all teachers’ information available. I have not seen the commitment from staff at this time to fear the demise of my Wiki. Unless it becomes a requirement directed by the administrative team, district wide specific professional development opportunities and an in-depth technology support program, the homepage will continue to be a resource but not THE resource for students and staff alike.

= = =http://hhsnineandten.pbworks.com=