I am an undergraduate student at the University of South Alabama in Mobile. I am seeking a degree in Interdisciplinary Studies. I presently work as an Instructional Paraprofessional in the Mobile County Public School System. I do small group intervention from k-3. I have been working as an Instructional Paraprofessional for about two (2) years. In the future, I will be seeking a master's degree in Elementary Counseling.

Tuesday, April 28, 2009

Home Is Sweet

Reading with Pod

Podcasting is one of the most exciting, widely use tool in educational technology. In this generation and the one to come, is what I call the musical era. Along with this comes tools at the listeners convenience for recreational, educational, self-enhancement, and self-training. Almost any adolescent, teenager and/or child has an iPod or MP3 player. I will take what is familiar with the students and create an enjoyable environment for intervention. Students who are struggling with reading and word pronunciation will benefit from this the most in my groups. Podcasting will make learning to read fun.

This is how I will utilize this tool in class. Through the school system, there will be a computer and audio cassettes available for each class; along with this I will purchase an classroom iPod or MP3 player. On certain days, there will be centers set up for fifteen minutes rotation. The students will have assign groups and work as a unit. The audio lessons will help children who have reading difficulties. The stories will be both educational and recreational. The video podcast will help students who are visual learners and the audio podcasts will help students who are auditory learners. The main core of this tool is to help children explore reading opportunities through helpful tool. For home readings parents who have computers are children with MP3 player could subscribe to http://www.apple.com/itunes/store/podcasts.html there are wonderful educational audio and/or video podcast for every grade level.

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Teaching With Blogs

Blogs are a wonderful tool to use as an extra resource. Mostly every household has a computer to access information; information is definitely what I would use my classroom intervention blog for. As an intervention teacher, I must keep up with the teachers to ensure a rich curriculum for the students. Teaching with blogs in the intervention curriculum is a new pathway into a brighter future for learning. It will help me make instant contact with the parents who are working and do not have the time to explore resources on their own; it will help me converse with parents who believe technology is the only source of communication. Also, the general education teacher will be able to track my curriculum and add comments on the progress of their students.

Teaching with blogs as a tool is a unique and cool way of posting homework ssignments; parents and students will be able to study at home together. Parents and students will have easy access to specific web-links as an enhancement to lessons topics. I will post an up-to-date calendar that will outline important test dates for the district and state. To engage the students into active participation; my classroom intervention blog will include educational games that are centered on particular skills. Their will be a section on “Hints for Parents”. This section will include ways parents can help their children study without making it so difficult. Sometimes, even after students have participated with intervention through the school some children still need extra help. I will make sure I include community tutoring programs web-links or addresses for parents for the summer months.

Show -N- Tell

Teaching academic is not the only thing in a teacher’s objectives or lesson plans. Let’s keep it real. Teachers are nurses, counselors, judges, and mothers you name it. Is this in our job description? Of course not, but let us face real life; students come to school looking for these characteristics in teachers whether we want them to or not. I am not implying that teachers should allow themselves to literally place themselves into these positions, but some children in our classrooms have not had the opportunity to be exposed or taught anything about character or values in life. Therefore, I will have Show-n-Tell each week.

Show-n-Tell are a character and value based curriculum. This curriculum will have weekly lessons teaching on certain values that will help shape the students’ attitude in a positive way. I may not be able to reach all students but some will be help. The weekly topics will be taken from the Aesop’s Fable podcasts and web-link. The Students will use puppets to portray each lesson. I will use the read, recite, and replay method to add fun to learning new and different things. All parents are welcome to participate with us through the Aesop's web-link at http://www.umass.edu/aesop/fables.php

iGoogle You

iGoogle You is another fun resource to help intervention surface to the top. Tutoring can become frustrating to the teacher and students if fun technique are not incorporated into the lessons plans. This is why I chose iGoogle Homepage as an extra resource. My classroom iGoogle Homepage is design to help my class in anyway possible. The students will have free access to any topic math, science, and reading, and social studies. The core of my intervention groups is center on reading but other topics of interest is always available for parents and students to explore. Also, for all parents who desire to e-mail through google; I have a g-mail gadget that will be open during my office hours.

The students will have training on how to go in and out of iGoogle Homepage to pull resources that are helpful. As always, this resource will have games for rewards for those students who worked hard during intervention. You have to reward them with something fun to keep their excitement fervent towards learning. For recreational intervention, I will use reading connecting to wild life. This fun-filled exercise will connect science and reading in a recreational atmosphere. The students will have progress monitoring on topics such as mammals, reptiles and vertebra es. They will learn phoneme sounds from the sounds animals make. For instance, snakes h-i-s-s the last sound they hear is "s".

ALEX

I will utilize Alex as for professional development, to keep in accordance with classroom room objectives and lesson plans. Alex helps school districts follow state and federal laws. Along with the teachers, I will take advantage of the course objectives and lesson planes for the grade levels k-3rd . Each quarter there are specific skills that schools must teach and every thing you need is already outlined for you. Taking advantage of this resource tool will help me focus on key skills and objectives for the students who are lagging behind. As a teacher it will help me professionally groom myself for the position for whom I was hired.

Also, I will have access to plan my intervention groups ahead of time because of the ability to follow course objectives and lesson plans. I like having my own Independence; utilizing Alex will give me this feeling of not always bothering the teachers for materials to use. I will know where they are and have time to create my own intervention techniques through these tools that are offered through http://alex.state.al.us/index.php, Podcast, iGoogle and Blogs. Alex will help make my adventure as an Intervention teacher a success. It will also help develop me into an loyal and dedicated educator in this 21st Century.