POST #1: Introductions and Sharing Your Past Experience

I have been a middle school reading/language arts teacher for almost 30 years. I recently returned to teaching after a 5 year stint as a consultant for a major textbook company. Upon returning to the classroom I was excited to see the resources available to students. I currently teach at FLSmart Intermediate in Davenport. We are a 1 to 1 district. I was interested in this course because I wanted to learn more about what our AEA had to offer for both students and educators. This was my first self paced course and I found it easy to use. I look to using some of these resources in class with my students as well as for my professional learning.

I am one of two Reading Recovery teachers and one of four Title I teachers in the Howard-Winneshiek Community School District. I give extra reading support to students in grades 1-3 in a small group.

In the past, my only experience with the Iowa AEA Online resources has been to use the royalty free images and photos from iCLIPART.com. I’ve used these images and photos on our Reading Recovery and Title I websites, as well as in parent brochures. I have used seasonal images for reading games and activities.

I took this course to learn more about the online resources available to educators, parents, and students. I am interested in learning more about BookFlix. I am also interested in the videos available on LEARN360. In particular, I am interested in short videos that I can use to supplement and provide background knowledge for my students with the nonfiction topics in the Leveled Literacy Intervention Program that we use in Title I. I am also interested in the images available on AP Images and Britannica to use when creating videos in response to text.

I have been a high school art teacher in the Sumner and Sumner-Fredericksburg School Districts for 17 years.  Since I have started teaching, the role of technology has changed greatly in my district and my art room.  My school district has had AEA 267 in Cedar Falls and AEA 1 Keystone in Elkader serve out district.  
In the beginning of my career, I used the AEA as a resource for videos.  Since then I have taken classses using AEAPD Online and used online resources.  My classroom has evolved from using the computer for taking attendance and grades to daily communication and sharing of ideas with students through our 1:1 initiative.  We have also added Computer Graphics I and Computer Graphics II courses.  Computer Graphics I focuses on digital art using Adobe Photoshop and Graphic Arts II focuses on creating iMovies.
This AEAPD allowed me to research and understand resources that will greatly enhance both classes.

I currently teach coding at West Middle School in the Muscatine Community School District. I did not use any of the resources this past year because I needed to focus on developing a coding curriculum.  In the past when teaching general computer science classes,  Atomic Learning and schools.iclipart.com were resources I used with the students.
 
There are three reasons this course is important to me. One, prior to this last year, it had been a few since I have taught technology classes and I noticed the the number of categories increased, and the interfaces for some of the resources has changed. I also assumed in addition to visual changes, features may have been added. Technology changes quickly, so it was likely there would be many changes and new things to learn. Two, I have never had any formal training on the AEA resources. I've had only introductions of the services in a PD setting supplemented with self-exploration. Unguided self-exploration only goes so far and requires a certain amount of discipline not always available in the reserve! This course will finally give a me strong knowledge base in the AEA resources. Three, I am on a technology committee and the AEA multimedia services has been a source of discussion of how to encourage all staff to use the resources or how to implement it uniformly across all subject areas. Having a  solid understanding of each resources will allow me to take that discussion to a new level.

I am an elementary special education teacher.  I've been teaching in Muscatine for the last 30 years.  

Our media specialist has been a great help in sharing several different Iowa AEA Online resources in classes in which I team teach.  I've observed the students using Learn 360 in the 4th and 5th grade classrooms.  I have used BookFLIX with my K-3 students.  I've especially liked the pairing of the fiction text with a corresponding nonfiction text.  The Read Along component has been especially beneficial for my struggling readers.  

Now that every 2nd-5th grade student in our school has their own laptop and the K-1st graders have access to their own iPads, I have wanted to make the use of this technology as meaningful as possible.  Just as the computers that we teachers have had provided to us have so many more capabilities than I know how to use, I know that the Iowa AEA Online resources have a vast capacity to help my students learn.  I wanted to take this course specifically to learn more about these resources for my students.

I have been teaching in the Storm Lake Community School District for the past twenty-two years. I am currently and have always taught at the fifth grade level (which I truly enjoy this age group of kids). I have been primarily teaching language arts the entire twenty-two years with some of those years teaching multiple subjects like social studies. I am in charge of teaching language arts to three different sections, and I also teach two different intervention groups. I have all ability groups of students in my classes and many of those students are ELL language learners. I have known about the Iowa AEA Online resource website prior to taking this course, but I was not familiar with many of the resources that were available or how to use them. Most of the time I just accessed the site to use it for the clip art. When I came across the listing of this self-paced course I was very interested in learning more about this site and how to use it for myself as well as my students. So much of our education now and with the Iowa Core has really enforced the use of technology, and I wanted to add to my resource tool kit some great learning resources that I can readily use this coming school year. After having completed the sections of the on-line course, I have learned that there are an abundance of awesome resources that are available, and I'm really looking forward to using them!    

I have been teaching high school Math for 27 years in southern Iowa and northern Missouri.  I currently work at Mormon Trail High school, and I am in the process of renewing my teaching license.  In addition to my teaching assignments, I am also the Academic Team sponsor.
In the past, I have used the Iowa AEA Online mainly to locate course catalogs for renewing my license and take self-paced courses or mandatory trainings.  It has been several years since I used the "Media Center" to borrow resources for my classroom.  I have always found there to be fewer available resources for Math than other areas.
This course interested me because I teach at a small school and need to make use of all the free resources available.  One of my Personal Professional Development goals is to make better use of technology in my classroom.  I thought this course would help me learn what resources are available and how to use these resources to increase student learning and reach students with varying learning styles.  

I have been the Home School Assistance program teacher for the Burlington Community School District for thirteen years. I work with students from kindergarten to 12th grade.  I have the wide range of struggling to gifted students and I am always looking for resources to support what my parents are trying to do at home.  Several years ago we made a field trip to AEA media center with our families to see the resources available and they were impressed. However, over the last couple of years we lost track of all the AEA offered

I have taken a couple of professional development classes online and loved the flexibility of them.  The self-paced is even better because I could plan it around the summer activities. When I saw this professional development course,  I was excited about learning more and being able share with our families again the options within the AEA. This class has been a great experience!

1) I currently work in Pleasant Valley, teaching 6th grade.  In PV, our elementary schools run K-6, so I teach with the oldest kids in the building.  I teach in a self-contained classroom, covering Math, ELA, spelling, writing, and social studies.  This coming year will be my 18th year at PV.  
2) Prior to the AEA self-paced course, I have had some interaction with the AEA databases.  My teacher-librarian does an excellent job promoting, introducing, and co-teaching the databases in various projects I do in my homeroom.  Specifically, I have used CultureGrams for country research for social studies and TeachingBooks.net for author research in our Culture of Readers projects.
3) I was interested in taking this class to get a better idea not only what all was available on Iowa AEA Online, but how I could best use these resources in my room.  My teacher-librarian hands out logins and passwords to each student the first week of school, and it seems like we hardly ever use the resources, which to me is a shame.  I wanted to better inform myself about what possibilities are included, so I can more regularly use them in a proper context.  I also want to take advantage of the fact that these resources can be used outside of school, making research opportunities more readily available to the students.

I have been teaching for 29 years, but the last 8 years I have been teaching middle school Family & Consumer Science in Harlan, IA. I teach a Family & Consumer Science Tech Lab which is an all modular class. Students work and rotate through 11 different modules which are all different topics. The topics range from cooking courses, to building bridges, designing CO2 race cars, to interior design and graphics.  I also teach two sewing classes and 7th grade Human Growth & Development. My past experience with using AEA materials has been limited, I was not aware of all the different resources you offer. I have used Learn360 but that is all. I am so thankful for the opportunity to take the self paced online courses you offer for license renewal credit. There are so many interesting topics and choices of classes. I chose this class because I want to learn what is offered and be able to find new, interesting, fun resources to use in my classroom. I'm excited about the Teen Health & Wellness resource for my Human Growth class. I am always looking for updated information with all the different topics we cover in that class. I am also hoping to find something new and fresh for my sewing class. I look forward to exploring all the resources you offer and start using them this upcoming school year.

My name is Holli Beenken and I have 14 years teaching experience in Illinois and now Iowa.   I have been out of the classroom for the past 6 years being a caretaker for my Mom and my children.   I currently have my daughters dual enrolled in the Mount Pleasant School District where I homeschool them through the use of the Homeschool Assistance Program through the district while they also attend TAG classes at their assigned schools.  I feel fortunate to have all of the benefits Iowa teachers receive through the AEA through the program.  

My past experience with AEA online only included the benefit of checking out materials through the website to utilize in my classroom.  I was grateful for those materials, but very much look forward to the more online, up to date services that I have just reviewed.

My purpose for taking this course was to discover new and innovative ways to bring technology to the forefront of my daughters' education.  

I am currently teaching at St Paul Lutheran School in Fort Dodge. I teach a combined grades 3&4 class. I teach all subjects to my students, including all their specials . I am fairly new to the AEA since I moved to Fort Dodge just two years ago. I first became aware of AEA through a PD at my school which was presented to us by a representative from AEA. She gave highlights of the different products available through AEA, both through their media and the online resources. However, I did not have or take the time to fully discover the wealth of resources available. Until now, I have only made use of items from the Online Catalog. I became interested in this course to learn more in-depth about the online resources AEA has available for teachers and students. I am excited to know more details about the products that AEA provides for students and teachers in Iowa and to become familiar with them so that I can incorporate them easily into my curriculum this coming school year.

I have been teaching at Drexler Middle School (Western Dubuque Schools) for the past 20 years.  Prior I was a substitute teacher in the district and began my teaching career at a private school teaching grades 4-8, all subjects.  I currently teach 5 classes of world geography for 7th grade and 1 class of U.S. History for 8th grade.

I have had very little experience with the Iowa AEA resources.  I mainly used this site for IClipArt.  I wanted to take this course through our AEA but it was cancelled because of lack of inerest.  While completing the ELP trainings on the AEA site, I saw this course was offered online and decided to complete it online.  I really just wanted to see ALL the options that are available for myself and my students.  The AEA digital library, Culture Grams, and the FreedomFlix really caught my interest and wanted to learn more.

This fall I will be teaching 4th grade at Manson-Northwest Webster.  For the past ten years I have been substitute teaching at Manson-Northwest Webster and I am also the assistant boys basketball coach.  Prior to that I taught 4th, 5th, and 6th grade at Keota for 11 years.  As a teacher in Keota, the main thing I used Iowa AEA Online for was the manditory reporter training, right to know training, and blood born pathogens training.  I also used the site to order videos to accompany lessons.  This was before digital technology.  I felt that this course would be good to take as I will be needing recources as I begin teaching 4th grade at MNW this fall.  As a substitute at MNW I gained some experience using the SIRS database in some high school English Literature classes.  I knew the AEA had several great tools and resources to take advantage of that will my students be successful.  I wanted to be able to use these resources knowledgably, so I felt this course was for me.

I have been teaching for 12 years at Goodrell Middle School in Des Moines, Iowa.  I have taught 6th, 7th, and 8th graders.  I have been a Math, Global Studies, and Science teacher.  Currently I am a 6th Grade Science teacher.

I actually had never used AEAOnline Resources.  However, I have used sites that are on it.  When I taught Global Studies I used CultureGrams.  The students would research various countries for projects and presentations.  I really enjoyed having the options of the Kid's and World Editions.  Most of my students used the Kid's Edition, but my higher readers liked the additional information found in the World edition.  I also have often used Learn 360 in the past to find videos and clips to supplement my teaching.  

The reason that I was interested in learning more about the AEAOnline Resources was to have more resources available to me as an educator.  The more tools we have at our disposal the better.  The fact that these resources have already been screened and deemed as appropriate to use is even better.

My name is Dee Hellmich, and I have been a teacher librarian for twenty-two years. The last ten years have been with the Emmetsburg School District. In my job I use many of the AEA online resources with my preschool - high school students and in preparing my lessons. Part of my job is to teach the students how to use the AEA resources. I also try to help the teachers find and better use resources in their classrooms. Some of the AEA resources are used by me much more than others in my own lessons and research. Therefore I have a better familiarity with some resources. Even the resources I use regularly have many more features than I use. Some features that I have forgotten about and others that I didn't know . This course is a refresher and learning course for me to expand on what the AEA online resources can do for me, my students and the teachers I work with.

For the past eleven years I have been teaching middle school and upper school English/language arts at a college prep school.  In terms of my experience with the Iowa AEA Online resources, I use them quite frequently.  Our media specialist is quite trained in the resources and always gives a lesson or tutorial to my middle school students on how to use them.  I mainly use SIRS -- highly recommend (require) this resource for persuasive and/or argument writing.  Even though I currently utilize the AEA's online resources, I feel/felt like I was under utilizing them; I knew there were/are resources I could incorporate that would benefit my lessons and students -- resources such as Teen Health and Wellness for my advisory class and I love what I discovered about Digital Storytelling.

I work for Prairie Lakes AEA as a special education consultant.  I am on the Students with Significant Disabilities, Assistive Technology, and KU Strategies team for the agency.  Currently I am serving a middle and high school as a special education consultant.  

In all of the roles,  I want to learn more about online resources and what access is available to assist students in their learning based on the Iowa Core.  Previously, I have not taken the time to learn the online resources, though I was aware that I was under utilizing what is offered.  My past experience has been with BookFlix and TrueFlix by sharing these resources with teachers and the features that are offered.  A student was learning to use a word predication program, the teacher and I used TrueFlix to encourage writing.  It was an IEP goal to learn to write about academic content.  The video ensured the student had background information, the audio book ensured he was reading all of the text;  this provided information for writing about academic content.  I was also interested in learning which resources that changed text complexity and were accessible to ELL learners.  I also want to have a deeper knowledge about all of the resources online to be able to consult with classroom teachers.

    I currently work in the Davis County School District.  I teach at the middle school and work in the special education department.  With my current position there are many task that needs to be managed.  I have a roster of 15 or so that I monitor their IEPs and co-teach.  Then the other half of my day is handling behavior issues while helping kids with coping skills.  
    I haven't used AEA much but I foresee that changing in the future.  This will be my 2nd class that I have taken through AEA.  I appreciate the fair price while being able to work through the courses from my home.  
   To be honest I was hoping to pick up a few things for school.  I found a several resources that I can go to for daily activities.  

I am excited to start my 14th year at Taft Middle School in CR and am currently the librarian. Prior to being the librarian, I taught Computer Skills classes. In both these positions I have used AEA Resources but never had any formal training on them. This course appealed to me for two reasons. First, it highlighted points I didn’t know such as setting up accounts to better share resources. It also pointed me to 2 new resources which I’ve already shared with teachers; FreedomFLIX and ScienceFLIX. Both our science and social studies curriculums are new and transitioning this year and these will be valuable resources for me and the teachers with whom I work. Second, I am also taking on a new role as the District Future Ready Librarian Facilitator. In that role, I’ve been asked to move our K-12 libraries forward and that requires work in the area of digital resources. There is a wide range of knowledge around the AEA Resources among the staff. Some librarians use and collaborate with others with ease while others do not. This course has given me a broader more solid base in all the resources that we can use and implement K-12.