POST #1: Introductions and Sharing Your Past Experience

I am currently a stay at home mom and have taught in the classroom.  I have been out of the loop of teaching the past 5 years and wanted to get back into subbing in our local school system where my youngest children go to school.
I have no experience with taking any online AEA classes other than when I have renewed my child abuse certificate.
I choose this course since I was curious what online things there are to offer our educators these days in the classroom.  I found the course to be very interesting and helpful.  It was good for me to see what there is to offer and also see what my little ones will get to use now while they are in school.  Lots of great resources that seemed very user friendly.

I am currently teaching High School Spanish for grades 9 - 12. Previously I completed the mandatory child/adult training AEA online course. This is the first self-paced course for renewal credits that I have taken. I was interested in taking this course because it provides me with some excellent resources that I can access and use free of charge to enrich my classroom teaching and promote student engagement.

For the past fourteen years I have been teaching English at Davenport West High School. I teach mid to upper level sophomore through senior writing and literature courses (American Literature, Advanced Writing, Classical World Literature, etc.) I am also our National Honor Society adviser.

Prior to this course I've had some experience with the AEA's Online Resources. I routinely use SIRS with my students for their argumentative essays (research-based persuasive papers). It has timely topics and research that is balanced, providing support for both claims and counterclaims. It is organized well which helps students hone their topics, making their essays more relevant and impactful. It even shows examples of MLA citation. I have also completed mandatory reporter training through the professional development modules.

I was interested in this course for both professional and personal reasons. I know how helpful SIRS has been helpful with my classes, and yet I knew that there were many more resources that I had not explored. This was an opportunity to see what more I could bring to the classroom. I also had extremely practical concerns. My teaching license is coming up soon. I've had cancer twice in the last eight years and I've been doing dialysis for the past four. My work schedule, my frequent hospital visits, and family obligations make it difficult to take and keep up with traditional coursework. I appreciate that this meets so many of my needs.

Whoops. How did "helpful" get in there twice in one sentence?

Having worked for several years in with students having a wide range of disabilities and handicapping conditions, often in self contained settings, this course did well for me in a review of the conditions of regular general education settings.  The presentations were also valuable in addressing attention span difficulties, cognitive skills, on task behavioral expectations, and the venues for students to access 24/7, and how I can facilitate them.   The scope and sequence for students to access materials independently, and specific skill sets took some reflecting on my part, for me easily adaptable to special needs students.  These materials were in line for previous online coursework I've taken, especially as a technology coordinator.

I am currently a Title Reading teacher with the Calamus/Wheatland Community School district.  I have been subbing prior to getting hired here in January 2015 till the end of the school year.  I have also taught preschool and managed childcare centers for 18 years.  I also taught Title Reading in another district for 4 years.  I really enjoy teaching Title Reading and subbing in different classrooms.  I like teach different ages and grades of students.  It keeps me on my toes and current with the ever changing use of technology in classrooms.

I have taken other courses with AEA online professional development.  I have worked in classrooms using different technology but wanted to know other resources available.  I would hear students talking about them but had not tried them out for myself.  With this course I was able to see the different resources available for the different ages of students.  

I have been using the different sites in my Title Reading classroom.  I have been using the book sites for fiction and non fiction, and looking at the lesson plans that go along with the stories and how they meet Iowa Core standards.  I also help students do research on different places and so have been using the sites for aiding their research.  I also downloaded music to play during writing time and downloaded books to use with units I teach.

I taught 9 years as a k-6 art teacher, then relocated out of state (due to my husband's position) where I was the Assistant Director of Education at an art museum. When we returned to IA, I stayed home with our kids. The need arose in Ames for a very part-time art teacher this year. I had not taught in the public system for 8-9 years. It is amazing to me how much more is available for educational resources which is why I chose this class for one of my license renewal credits. I need to become more comfortable and aware of the technology and resources available to me to utilize in the classroom.

I currently am teaching 2nd grade in Northern Iowa at a Catholic School. This is my 3rd year teaching and second year teaching 2nd grade. I taught one year of 1st grade. I have not really used AEA Online resources simply because I was not aware of all that was available or how to use it. I knew AEA had an online section through the packet I got when I first began teaching, but my first year teaching was a bit overwhelming and I honestly didn’t even look through what I had received. When I saw this course, I thought it would be a great opportunity to learn what resources I have available and how to tap into them. I am excited to be able to use some of these newly discovered resources in the classroom. I enjoy using technology in the classroom and had many thought about how to use these resources while taking this class.

I have been teaching science in the Des Moines Public Schools for close to 40 years.  I currently teach 7th grade science at Brody Middle School (not too far from the airport in Des Moines).   I have taken a few mandatory trainings on the Iowa AEA Online system, but I have never taken a course for license renewal until this one.  I have always appreciated greatly the presentations made at my school by AEA staff.  I wanted to take this course because I started the year teaching the 7th graders about online research.  I included some information about the AEA resources but I had not done a thorough update of what AEA offers.  Because I was not as knowledgeable as I ideally should have been, my students did not take full advantage of the AEA resources.  I hoped that by taking this class I would be a better guide next year for my students.

I currently work for Keystone Area Education Agency as a literacy and ESL consultant. Within this position, I provide professional development on-site and in-district, as well as teacher/PLC consultation and overseeing our Title III funds. I have been here for almost four years. Prior to this position, I taught high school English and ESL in western Iowa.

As a teacher, I knew that the AEA online resources existed but used them intermittently. My students were guided to use SIRS and Gale (at the time, we used EBSCO) for their argumentative and research papers. Other than that, I wasn't exactly well-versed in the online resources. In my current position, the one I have relied on most heavily has been CultureGrams. With the students I serve, I am starting to see many more diverse languages, and, therefore, more diverse nations represented. I had my first student from Palau, and knowing nothing about it, I was able to do some quick research and provide insight to a PLC about the student, which helped making educational decisions much easier.

I was interested in this course because I am always looking for ways to incorporate digital resources into my professional development. With many of our schools being one-to-one, it was a no-brainer!

I currently work at a public high school teaching students in grades 9-12.  We work with computers almost daily to complete websites, research, and drawings.  I have not really had any past experience with Iowa AEA online resources prior to taking the self-paced course.  To be honest I needed to renew my teaching license and this was one of the options.  Before I started I figured that I might find some interesting stuff on here but was not really sure.  While going through the activities/tutorials I did come across some neat things I am hoping to some day incorporate into the classroom.

I am currently a fifth grade teacher at an elementary school in LeMars, IA. I have been at this position for fourteen years. Before this position, I taught sixth grade part-time for nine years. My first position was in a resource room at the junior high level for nine years.

I have used Teaching Book.net in my fifth grade classroom. The students enjoyed seeing the real live authors reading from their books and talking about their profession. I have also used LEARN-360 in my classroom.

Technology has always been intimidating to me. Finding this course online and self-paced sparked my curiosity to try tackling technology. Our school librarian has always been very helpful in sending links and information about AEA Online resources to the teachers in our school district. But for me, the problem has been finding the time to explore these resources. Taking this class gave me the opportunity to see what I have been missing. This class has made me aware of all the things I can utilize in my classroom. Hopefully over the summer I can start developing lessons using these resources.

I currently am a stay at home mom who is planning on getting back into the classroom next year as a substitute teacher.  I previously taught preschool for three years in Cedar Falls as well as Kindergarten for a combined seven years in San Antonio and Chicago.

I have had no experience at all with the Iowa AEA online resources prior to this course.  I find it interesting that I had never heard of it in my three years of teaching in Iowa.  I wonder if it is because I was teaching preschool and didn’t have a librarian (or someone else in a similar position) to introduce me to this or how I would find out about it if I were new to the state.

Because I had no experience with the online resources, my interest was peaked when I saw that there is a course that would spend fifteen hours exploring all the resources.  I wanted to become familiar with it so I would have another tool I could use when I get back into the classroom.

I have been teaching for twenty-nine years. In the past, as a classroom teacher, I have taught fifth, fourth, and third grade students. This is my first year in second grade at West Elementary in Emmetsburg and it has been wonderful.

Online courses have always seemed scary to me and, other than mandatory training, this is the first I have taken! USING IOWA AEA ONLINE'S RESOURCES has been very interesting and I am thrilled to begin taking advantage of resources about which I learned. As an "oldie," technology can sometimes feel overwhelming; yet, I am excited to share newfound tools with my students and peers.

I had been quite familiar with BookFlix and TrueFlix; however, the majority of resources covered in this course will be quite beneficial.

To be frank, I needed an additional credit for re-licensure. Because I used to have the dream of pursuing a Master’s in Library Science, I decided to be brave and register for the class. Although a Master’s is not likely in the foreseeable future, I learned so much! Our district is very fortunate to have an amazing librarian and I will be tapping into her experience if I need guidance in using these tools.

I have taught music for 29.5 years in the Grinnell-Newburg School District, with most of that time at the elementary level.  I currently teach all of our district’s third and 4th grade students and love learning about technology that has the potential to make me a more effective teacher.  

Prior to taking this course, I had used iCLIPART extensively and explored elements of LEARN360, CultureGrams, and soundzabound.  As a parent, I had “helped” my son use GALE and SIRS Issues Researcher just enough to feel frustrated, knowing that these were powerful resources but never quite grasping how to use them productively.  

When I realized there was an opportunity to earn license renewal credit for studying the whole spectrum of Iowa AEA Online Resources, I registered immediately!  I was excited to learn how to navigate the already-sort-of-familiar resources more efficiently, how to manage the overwhelming-these-are-too-frustrating resources with fewer meltdowns, and how the I-know-absolutely-nothing-about-these resources could possibly become useful additions to my repertoire of technology tools.

I've been teaching high school English for the past 12 years at two different districts in Heartland AEA.  Through the classes I've taught, I've had a fair amount of exposure to the online resources provided by AEA.  Primarily, I've shared the SIRS database with students while working on research papers, but I've always known there was much more out there that I could use.  I knew this course would be a good introduction to more of those resources, and it certainly was.  It is practically a one-stop for everything a student or teacher might need to complete or improve a variety of projects, not just research projects.

 For many years I was a teacher in regular upper elementary classrooms using AEA Online Services for  individual and class research projects in science, social studies and technology, BookFlix in reading, ClipArt for images, and videos for classroom instruction.   I am a substitute teacher for the Shelter Care Program at Heartland Area 11. I have substituted for all teaching and associate positions at both the Polk County Detention Center and Youth Emergency Services and Shelter. I am currently the long term substitute teacher in the AEA Classroom at Youth Emergency Services and Shelter in Des Moines. I am in the 7-12 math and science classroom.  I teach two periods of each subject, repeating subject matter for the second class. Many of my students come into class with an Individual Education Plan and some with restrictions on their internet use. Another challenge comes when their "Home School" requires them to complete research projects assigned to them while attending that school.
Previous to this current position,  I used the online services (as directed by the classroom teacher)BookFlix, iClipArt, Learning Zone,  for general research on both classroom and individual projects;  to obtain images from ClipArt for those projects and for videos for classroom and individual instruction.
I registered for the class to see what other resources I can use in the future especially as I undertake teaching summer school this summer.

I have been an elementary educator for seven years.  Six of those years have been in 4th grade and one year in 5th grade.  After a year away from teaching I am returning to instruct 4th grade in the Shenandoah School District.  Unfortunately, I have not utilized any of the AEA online resources in the past. I did, however, use some of the other services the AEA provides such as order books, book sets, and videos for literature circles, research projects, and author studies.  There were two reasons this particular course interested me.  First of all the idea of a self paced course where I can do the class on my time really appealed to me.  I need two more credits to renew my teaching license and this was a very efficient and convenient option.  Secondly, because I’ve never used the AEA online resources, I felt like the information in this class would really enhance the educational opportunities for my students.

I am not currently teaching as I live out of state.  When I was in Iowa, I taught at Clarinda Academy, Durant High School, and Project Ready.  Although endorsed in a number of areas, I seemed to excel in working with behavior problem youth.  I also enjoyed teaching Health.  Young people need information, and we have to not be afraid to tackle uncomfortable topics.

As I look at Texas licensure, I see what a blessing Iowa teachers have with the AEA.  I also taught in Omaha, and although their AEA equivalent has decent resources, it is pale in comparison to what is available to the AEA.  Knowledge is power, but you don’t know what you don’t know.  I took this course to see what other services are available through the AEA.  Boy, was I missing out on some tremendous resources.  Prior to taking this course, I did not know these resources existed.

I have been a social studies classroom teacher at the high school level for nearly 30 years. I entered the profession when we were still using typewriters! Computer technology is a challenge for me and even taking this on line course was a bit stressful at times. I do love using technology when someone can help me navigate, otherwise I get easily frustrated.

I have used AEA resources primarily to order videos and the past year have used the 360 library extensively. I have my students do research-based assignments and I really didn't know how to use the research features available here, so I was curious how helpful they might be to both me land my students.  I have never really taken the time to examine closely all of the other resources that are offered by our AEA and was overwhelmed with the possibilities after taking this course.

I am nearing retirement and needed license renewal credit.  I thought I could use the additional education about available technology, both personally and professionally. This course was suggested to me and I am so glad I  took it!