POST #1: Introductions and Sharing Your Past Experience

     I am a Family and Consumer Sciences teacher in Durant, Iowa.  This is my 12th year of teaching FCS and I absolutely love it. I have all of the 7th graders in an exploratory class for a semester.  I also teach a comprehensive FCS class that spans two semesters.  My Foods and Nutrition class also spans two semesters.  Adult Living is a semester class as is Parenting. FCS teaches practical living skills to help prepare students for life!
     My past experience with AEA online consists of a brief overview of some of the features by an AEA staff member during staff development.  I have to admit that I am not tech-savvy and the brief presentation was a bit overwhelming! One of the Spanish teachers here introduced me to the CultureGrams sight which I have used on occasion.  I have also used Learn360 for informative video clips in my various units.
     There are several reasons for my interest in this course.  Taking a course on line was very attractive. The fact that this course is self-paced also was beneficial. I also am challenging myself to become more familiar with technology and the resources available to me.        

I am a special education teacher on the 5th grade team at the Charles City Middle School. I co-teach two sections of English Language Arts and one section of math. I also provide supplemental and pull-out instruction to meet students' IEP needs. I have had students use BookFlix in the K-4 grades, but that is about the extent of my previous experience with the AEA Online resources. I always wanted to learn more, and I appreciate the opportunity to do so, while also gaining one credit for licensure renewal.

All Charles City students in third grade and up now have 1:1 Chromebooks. Our struggling students need extra support in using their computers, including access to tools such as the "Read and Write for Google" extension. As our district moves toward project-based learning, I would like to help students fully use the AEA Online resources for their research. I appreciate the accessibility features of many of the resources, and I can see that it would be easier for many 5th grade students to search for needed items using those resources rather than the open web.

I work at Sidney Community School District in Sidney, Iowa. I teach foreign language (Spanish) for grades 9 through 12. In my previous years of teaching I have used different online resources that helped the students improve the four skills in the Spanish language. I didn’t really use the AEA online resources much in the past because I didn’t think I would find something related to my area. When I found out about this course and the possibilities of implementing new material to my class, it got my attention. Technology plays an important role in today’s education. Public schools are implementing or finding a way to get more technology for the students such as iPads, computers, smartboards, etc. Our school provides students with their own laptop for Junior High and High School and iPads for Elementary School. Laptops are not only used for typing an essay, as there are several online resources we can use to enrich our classes. This was another reason to take this class. Also, teachers must determine how technology tools are used, and they must have some professional development training that will help master these resources, which is why this class was perfect.

I am currently in my ninth year as a high school guidance counselor in the St. Joseph, Missouri, public school system. I am updating my Iowa license with this course in order to relocate to Iowa and pursue a position in a school district there for the 2017-18 school year.  I have taken a few other AEA Online courses in order to update my original Iowa teaching license. At this point, I have taken several AEA Online courses and have found them to be extremely beneficial, especially in terms of the changes that have occurred in education in the state of Iowa, along with the depth of resources available through the AEA agencies.  This course (Using Iowa AEA Online Resources) has been extremely valuable. These resources did not exist when I got my original teaching license in 1979. With today's emphasis on using technology in classrooms, this course will assist me greatly in my pursuit of a new job in Iowa as I will have the AEA resources close by when I need them. I really like all of the searchable online resources. Students can greatly benefit from those types of resources, unlike in the "old days" where one had to dig into dusty libraries and order "journals and periodicals" in order to complete an assignment.

     I have been working for the Storm Lake School District for over six years.  Two of those years I taught 5th grade social studies, but currently I teach English language learners (ELLs) at the middle school.  I teach 5th-8th grade newcomers- students with limited English- and co-teach 7th grade science and 7th grade language arts.
     Before taking this course I had an idea of what resources the AEA had but did not know the variety of resources they are able to offer!  I’m very excited to put these resources into use in classroom.  The resources cover anything from nonfiction books to audio clips for student projects, this is very exciting.
I initially took this class because I really wanted to learn of the resources the AEA had and how they would be useful in my classroom.  The self-paced course is very convenient because I could do a bit at a time.

I am Michael Ward. My wife and I just recently moved and both started new jobs. I currently work as a pastoral associate and director of faith formation for a Catholic Parish.  In my current role I am responsible for the religious education program for grades k – 12. I am also responsible for our RCIA program that brings adults and children into the Catholic Church. I am also responsible for preparing couples for marriage and to have their children Baptized. I am also responsible for on-going faith formation in our parish.

I have only had any experience with AEA online recently. I have been out of education for several years. I rediscovered AEA online after beginning to be interested in renewing my teaching and administrators license.  I have completed one other online course.

I have taught and was an administrator in schools years ago and I am familiar with BookFLIX. I liked that resource and wanted to learn more about the other resources that the AEA’s were offering. I think that many of these resources are so very valuable now with so many schools going to 1 to 1 computers.

For the past 14 years I have been an Industrial Tech teacher. I have taught the hands-on classes, such as auto and welding to the more engineering directed classes, such as drafting and electronics. Regardless of the class there is always a fair amount of math and science involved. This is one of the reasons I chose to pursue courses from the Iowa AEA. I was able to get exposure to the resources available and see how they could be used in my class.
My personal experience with the AEA has been limited to an on-line mandatory reporting course done on a Saturday less than a year ago and a 4-day class taken over the summer. Other than that, I wasn't really sure what the AEA was about.
I have found some excellent resources that my students and myself can use to fortify the learning experience. What interested me about taking this course was the ease of the program once I started and found all of the available resources that would give my students information.

I'm currently teaching 2nd grade after having spent the past eight years as a first grade teacher. I also coach middle school track in the spring. This year I took on the role as a model teacher in the elementary school.
Most of my experience with using AEA on-line up until now has been with print and production. I'm a huge fan of Teachers Pay Teachers and all the resources they have. AEA offers affordable options for making posters and colored copies for my classroom. They also deliver to the school on a weekly basis. This helps out a lot as it eliminates one more errand for the week.
My interest in taking this course was to simply find out what else AEA had to offer that I could use in my second grade classroom. Our school is 1:1 from third grade down, so I really wanted to find new technology for my students and myself.  

For the past 2 ½ years, I have been a substitute teacher for the public school system.  My expectations as a substitute teacher is as follows...
 
-Assume all duties of the regular classroom teacher promptly and in accordance with district/school rules.
-Execute class and lessons according to the absent teacher’s written teaching plan.
-Ensures that the method of instruction and classroom management are in adherence to the school’s policies    
  and goals.
-Creates a positive classroom environment, alters teaching to suit students of different learning styles.
-Monitors student progress and motivates students.
-Plans the lesson, as much as possible to the course that will meet the classroom, individual needs, interests,
  and abilities of the students.  
-Reports to the designated authority about problematic student behaviors and student safety-threatening
  occurrences such as accidents and/or illnesses.
-Maintains accurate, complete, and correct records as required by law, district policy, and administrative
  regulation, pertaining to teacher and students.
-Consults with parents regarding student study or behavioral concerns.  
-Maintains confidentiality of student or school related information.
-Accountable for the decisions regarding students and teaching methods, and the students behavior.
-Correct student work, administer exams or quizzes, and participates in field trips.
-Assists the administration in implementing all policies and rules governing student life and conduct, and, for
  the classroom, develops reasonable rules of classroom behavior and procedure, and maintains order in the  
  classroom in a fair and just manner.
-Performs other duties consistent with the position as may be requested by the Principal or Superintendent.
-Adheres to the professional code of conduct adopted by the Iowa Board of Education.
                                                                                                                (Requirments for DMPS)
 
My experience with the Iowa AEA online resources has been little to none. Prior to this course I had no idea about a lot of the resources  available to students through Heartland. I have only taken two courses at Heartland AEA, one online and the other in the classroom for professional development credit.  This would be my second online course at Heartland AEA.

What interest me about taking this course, Using Iowa AEA Online's Resources, was the curiosity of the different online resources that may be available to staff, parents and students.  Being knowledge of the different resources, knowing how to access them can only better my teaching and the students learning.
 

I am currently a substitute teacher in Cedar Rapids and College Community and renewing my license.  It has been fascinating being back in the classroom after being in business and out of teaching for over 30 years.  

I took another class from AEA, which was Twitter for Educators.  It was extremely informative.  I had no idea how much I could learn from Twitter to apply to education!  Jonathan Wylie at Grant Wood AEA is an outstanding instructor!

I was interested in this particular class because I am getting back into the classroom after being out for so many years and thought it would be a great holistic class to learn what resources were available from AEA.

I am a high school Spanish and ESL teacher in West Sioux Community Schools in the far northwest corner of Iowa. I ave been teaching now for well over 20 years.

My experience with AEA online is fairly limited. In reality the last time that I actively used AEA online was to renew my last teaching certificate 5 years ago. The courses taken then where "timed" in nature and not the self-paced variety of this course. I really like this self-paced option a lot!

I am REALLY pleased with the quality of this course. I wish that I had taken it years ago. Besides the motivation of getting my license renewal credit of course, I have felt -and still do- that we as teachers, here in my district anyway, are not nearly as well informed about the potentially great learning resources available through our AEAs. With each high school and middle school student having a very powerful mac computer as a learning resource, I am looking forward to using many of the learning sites introduced and presented in this class.

I am a substitute teacher for the Des Moines Public School System in Iowa. I am currently renewing my profile to continue with my position. I enjoy Subbing in this district and have found it a challange and fullfiling. Working with So many schools and so many children can be a chalange
Prior to this I worked for my family SCUBA Shop. Yes SCUBA in the middle of Iowa! I literally grow up underwater. We would use the local High School pools and Classrooms to conduct our classes. The Fun part was going to exotic places to do the Open Water Experience to complete the training. Don't get too excited, many of the open water Experiences were in Lakes and Quaries. If we had enough Divers Willing to go to someplace warmer, then that 's when all the training pays off. Our Shop Sometime get called into the local high schools to put on an "I tried SCUBA" under the supervision of the PE Teacher. Most of the students participate and have a wonderful time.
With this in mine, that might be the reason I decided to Substitute.
My challange as a substitute is computers. Hopefully I can overcome this obstacle. Some day I will have a "good" computer to work on.

I am currently in my fourteenth year as an educator. I began my teaching career as a first grade teacher in Minnesota. I loved the experience of working with children through one of their foundational years. We were a very small private school and at that time, I did not even have a classroom computer. The most technology I had was an overhead projector. As time progressed, the school introduced more and more technological resources. I moved up to working in a middle school capacity after eight years of first grade.

I have now moved to Iowa and currently work in a middle school classroom. I was told that I have AEA resources available to me, but never put much effort in exploring these specifically. I had little exposure to all the many collected resources of research databases, music and video files, and book resources available to me.

What peaked my interest in taking the online class was our Curriculum Director passing along a list of some of those free AEA resources. I soon realized how much there was and wanted to get a deeper look as to how to use these resources in the classroom. I have been learning so much along the way through the course and have already used some of the resources in my classes. I am anxious to improve our learning environment through the resources available.

I am a retired 33 year military reservist and 25 years civil servant.  When I retired I was determined to do something I wanted and not had to do but only on a part time basis. I have always been interested in teaching and interacting with kids.  Getting my substitute authorization seemed to be a perfect fit.  I have been subbing approximately 2-3 times a week for the past year and truly enjoy it.  

Recently when I subbed a class I had to utilize the schools media system.  Fortunately, there were a couple of great kids to help me.  This course interested me and I hoped to get a better grasp of maneuvering through the various media venues.

I am an ELL teacher in the Cedar Rapids Community School District. My students make up 30% of the total school population, and they speak a combined 22 languages.  Because of the unique challenges presented by working with this diverse group of learners, I am continually looking for new ways to build schema and add engagement to my language lessons.

Prior to taking this course, I was familiar with only Bookflix, Learn 360, and iClipart.  My favorite of the three tools is probably iClipart, because I create a lot of the materials I use with my ELL kiddos, and there are a ton of high-quality images available.  

My motivation for taking this course lies mostly in curiosity. As I've stated, I am always looking for new and engaging teaching tools, and the hope that I may find a resource that's perfect for my classroom was certainly present. More than that, however, was the fact that I really wanted to know what kind of fun things I can access to satisfy my own curiosity.  Upon completion of the modules, I am especially intrigued by Culture Gram; I think I could probably spend a lot of time building a travel bucket list from the information provided there!

I am currently employed as a first grade teacher in the Burlington Community School District.  I have been in this position for 18 years.  I teach reading, writing, math, science and social studies.  I have also incorporated The Workshop Model in the last three years while teaching these subject areas.  

I have been using the Iowa AEA Online resources for several years now.  I began by using BookFlix and eventually TrueFlix to supplement what I was teaching in Science and Social Studies.  I also use Snap to find videos or video clips to go with our current curriculum. I have also used Power Knowledge Life and Physical Science Sites.  My students and I love to have these resources available to us. It helps to reinforce what I am teaching, sometimes in a more exciting format for my first graders.  

I decided to take this course in order to expand my knowledge base about the online opportunities available to my class and I through Iowa AEA online.  We now have a class set of chrome books and I would like my students to be able to start accessing some of the aspects of AEA online. They are currently using Bookflix and I am trying to get them started with Pebble Go.

This might be redundant of an earlier post.
I currently work for the Des Moines  Public School System in the state of Iowa. I substitute for the district and find it rewarding as well as challenging. I enjoy the lower grades and find the Middle and Senior grades challenging and insightful. I have had allot of on the job training. I sometimes return to schools after Summer Brake or Spring Break and many students remember me from the previous term. I may not know their names but I find it rewarding that they remember me.
In some of the Elementary Schools I bring in my stuffed Orange Octopus. They get enjoyment having him "visit" them at their desk. I explain that Octopi are shy creatures and normally only come out at night. But today "Ozzie" took a nap last night so he could visit the class. With this information they get a short lesson in marine biology and I get to know the class better.
Currently I am "Updating my Profile to continue my position. I chose the Atomic Learning: 21st Century Skills because I have little experience in this area. My goal is to acquire a computer of my own and explore the internet and beyond.

I am currently co- teaching preschool class of 3 and 4 year olds at the Goddard School in Waukee, Iowa. This school is the first Goddard school to be located in Iowa. I am responsible for planning activities, setting up the classroom environment, assessing the children's development, interacting with and supervising the children and communicating with the parents on a daily basis through daily conversations as well as through an online app called Tadpoles.

The owner of the school as well as the educational Director are passionate about play based curriculum. This inspires me since I am passionate about play. Play is a child's work.

In the previous preschool program I worked at, I was aware of AEA online learning resources through our early childhood consultant and the school district's librarians. I did not have an opportunity to use the resources though.

In the fall of 2017 I have been asked to co-teach the Developmental Kindergarten class at Goddard. I am excited to use the online resources with 5-6 year olds. If I use online resources with my current class, I would probably only use the online stories. We do have desktop computers in all of our classrooms which facilitates the use of the online resources.

I substitute taught for about a year when I first graduated college at UNI and then I taught preschool for 4 years in Ames. Currently I am staying at home with my two kids, but I plan to go back to teaching in the near future.

I don't have a lot of experience with the AEA online resources. I knew what it was, but I hadn't used it a lot or really knew all that it was capable of.

Since I am currently not teaching I am always looking for ways to stay up to date with new resources and advancements in education. When I decide to go back to teaching I don't want to feel like I am completely lost and behind everyone else. I felt like this course might be a good chance for me to see all that the AEA offers and give me ideas of how I could use it in my own classroom someday.

I am in the process of renewing my teaching license. It has been over 20 years since I was a full time teacher. I previously taught kindergarten and 5th grade. Currently, I am working in the district as a substitute teacher and associate. As a substitute associate I help students with mild disabilities/special needs. As a substitute teacher I fill in for teachers who are absent. My job is to follow the lesson plan to keep the students on track with the teacher's goals.

Because my license has expired I need to complete 6 credit hours. This is my 5th self-paced course and I have really enjoyed all of them and the flexibility they allow me. I am so impressed with all of the resources available to teachers and students through the AEA.

This course was of particular interest because, "In my day" this was not available. Because of this I need to catch up to the rest of the teachers on the resources that are now available. I look forward to becoming more familiar with them and implementing them in my new classroom.