What do You Want to do Before You Die?

Inspired by the Buried Life and surrounded by all sorts of teaching talk and classes, I have continually thought about what I want to accomplish before I die and the phrase 'make a difference' continually runs through my head.  I had no idea what I wanted to be growing up but my senior year of high school transformed me into who I aspire to be today.  After dropping an honors English course with a teacher who kicked me out of her class the previous semester no less than once a week, I was placed into a 'peer tutoring' class in a special education room.  Having no experience with special education, I was apprehensive to say the least.  I thought maybe this would just turn into study hall or I wouldn't even have to show up but I was so wrong.  I was introduced to the most life changing experience I could ever have.  I found myself out of my comfort zone and learning to deal with adversity like no other event had ever showed me how.  I was found talents I never knew I had, but most importantly though I found my niche.

As the semester concludes and eventually the year, I hope to pursue my dreams of becoming a special education teacher and look back and say, "I made a difference."  My hope is that all of you reading this can do the same and maybe add this to your bucket list not as something you can ever cross off, but something those who find your bucket list will be able to cross off for you.  I hope you look back on all your experiences here and use what you have learned to truly reach your full potential and make a difference in whatever path you take.

Bloggers Beware!!

Just released today and blowing up all over the Autistic community is this article published in the Huffington Post.  If you have the chance to read it you really should! It is extremely interesting as well as promising for the Autism community.  The article is not what this post is about though.  It is about the comments below the article that have me almost to the point of shaking I am so frustrated.

Take for example this comment..."It's immunizations...that 's why the dramatic increase in recent years."  I have a few questions for you there: What are you basing your opinion off of? Where did you get this information? Did you even read this article? Or this nice fellow..."I think it is chemicals and pollutants also."  I would like to pose the questions above to you as well. 



Case in point...blogging has not only created a community for the intelligent to share ideas and collaborate instantly, but also opened the door for the idiots, the morons, the uneducated, and the stupid to grace us with their input on serious issues.  So please remember...be careful of what you post and be smart about it.  Take others opinions into consideration.  And make sure the community you are creating by posting is constructive rather than the opposite. 

Teknologikly Addvanced

O how I love spell check!  Over the past semester we have learned about so many different assistive technologies to help children learn but what we must not forget is the technology we have used over and over again, often without even realizing it.  Think about when you sit at your computer and type out that dreaded final paper and see that little dotted red line appear when you spell a word incorrectly.  The purpose of this post is to encourage you to explore what you already have available at your fingertips and master it.  Find a purpose for it.  As our nation's school districts struggle with money, you will need to be innovative in your thinking about how to help your struggling students.

Just this past week I had a professor tell me that she cant write well, often forgetting how to correctly make a certain letter.  So how does this problem get solved? She only types.  She didn't need the latest iPhone app, didn't need to download a new program, simply needed a computer to best help her learn. 

How many of you know how all the Excel formulas to help you with your math homework? Think about how much easier that math homework would be.  Why don't we teach our students how to use all of these? They can even check their homework themselves in some cases (This is a good thing as it lessens your workload)!

So I leave you with this advice...know your software inside and out. All of it.  Spend time figuring out every nook and cranny your school software has to offer and think about where it can be incorporated into your teaching strategies. 

What I of ALL Teachers (not only SLA)

Chris Lehmann posted an article about what he expects out of Second Language Acquisition (SLA) Teachers and I thought to myself..."This is what should be expected out of every teacher."  As a current student and future educator I am constantly critiquing my professors, myself, and my classmates on how well they teach as well as thinking about what I would love for them to do to make things better for my learning.  Included in this constant analysis would be instances where a teacher says one thing and completely disregards what he/she is saying just a few minutes later.  The following is an example of what I mean shown in a dialogue between professor and class while learning about ADHD....

Professor (While referring to the powerpoint): "As you can see the average child with ADD cannot concentrate on a single subject for an extended period of time."

Student 1: "How long is the attention span for your normal college student."

Professor:  "Well I would say that about after 35-45 minutes students will start to wander and 'tune things out'"

Class now continues for an hour and a half going through the powerpoint....

Professor: "Okay we will take our break now."

Do the math on that one for me and practice what you preach.  You just told me that I'm most likely going to be losing attention after 40 or so minutes so why are you lecturing to me for over twice that amount of time?   With all of this being said I would like to add #11 to Lehmann's list and generalize it to all teachers.

#11) Please be accountable for what you teach and give me the best opportunity to succeed in your class.  Even if that is a two minute break where I can get up and just stretch without missing anything, it would make a world of difference and optimize my learning. Thank You.

Asperger's...So Intriguing

As a teacher going into special education and hopefully pursuing a Masters in Autism I found the Skype conversation particularly interesting.  Since Asperger's usually affects the social and emotional portion of the brain, I really expected him to struggle with this type of communication.  He really impressed me! The conversation showed just how much of spectrum Autism in general can cover.

One of the most amazing encounters I have had in researching Asperger's occurred through none other than ESPN (sarcasm).  Clay Marzo is a world class surfer with Asperger's who struggles to interact with the public scene surfing usually embraces.  When interviewed about his condition and what it feels like to be around a large group of people and socialize, he says his cup overflows.  He looks at it as if he has a cup for socializing and everyone has a big bucket.  When this cup overflows he just has to get away from it all.  As a future educator for students with special needs, I need to always be aware and accepting of the different issues my students could be having and so my best to really get in and understand what's going on inside that head of theirs.

The top image shows the brain imaging of a person with Asperger’s when they see an emotion of love.  The bottom shows the same brain activity for a person without Asperger’s.

E-Books - Technology, Controversy, and the Future

Technology over the past few years has greatly expanded the digital capabilities of learning in and out of the classroom.  Digital texts have been a large part of this expansion, allowing multiple books to be transported with ease and viewed at any time.  Among the controversy includes copyright laws and genre barriers.  Before reading the article in First Monday, I never had thought about genre and E-Books but I think it plays a vital role in the success of future development of E-Books.  Obviously certain genres appeal to an E-book more than others would. For example, if the display for the E-Book is up-datable daily, a blog would be a great genre to be read on an E-Book display.  However the converse would also hold true.  If the display was not up-datable, this would eliminate an entire genre of readable content, thus lessening the possible value of learning.

The other part of the debate would be the legal portion of it.  The First Monday article shows just how this is a problem.  We need to think about the copyright laws and the fact that some of the older books have very tedious processes to reprint.  This goes back to the genre point again, we would eliminate yet another genre.  These two factors combined could run the digital industry almost into the ground.

Only the future holds where this industry can go.  With advancements in technology, I could easily see the industry taking off.  However at the same time there could be some major drawbacks and obstacles along the way.  What are your opinions? What are the limits of this industry and what will make it flourish?