POST #1: Introductions and Sharing Your Past Experience

1. I was a stay-at-home mom while my children were small, and then became a substitute teacher at HLV.  I continued that for over 20 years, especially enjoying the preschoolers.  When there arose a need for a part-time position for a PK-3 teacher last year, I decided to apply, and am now in the middle of my second year.  I have a total of 21 students, split between two morning groups, each meeting twice a week.

2.  I've taken online courses for "Blood-born Pathogens" and "Mandatory Reporting", but until this year had not tried the self-paced courses.  I just finished the "Social Media" course.  

3.  Since I needed two credits to re-certify, I decided to try the self-paced courses.  It has been convenient to do this instead of trying to fit time in to drive to a class during the school year.
   

    For the past year I have teaching at the Fort Doge Correctional Facility.  I teach offenders who are working to obtain a high school equivalency diploma.  When I worked in public education (1980-2002) I would borrow films, VHS tapes, learning kits, and books from AEA Media, but I have no experience with Iowa AEA Online.  I took this course for two reasons.  First, I needed the credit for license renewal, and secondly I wanted to see what Iowa AEA Online has that could help teach adult offenders.  I am glad to see there are some resources available that will be of assistance.    

I am currently in my second year as a Substitute Teacher, in and around Cedar Rapids, IA.  I am able to sub in a wide variety of classes, all the way from PreK-Kindergarten, up through High School, including Music & PE.  I also teach Taekwondo in my own studio in Cedar Rapids.  I am in the process of renewing my teaching license, and hope to secure a full-time position in the next school year.  

Before my experience as a substitute, I had very limited access to (or reason to discover) the resources that were available.  Over the last year and a half, through my experience as a substitute, I have been exposed to a wide variety of technology and resources, and as Educational Technology has been a "hobby" and area of interest of mine for the past several years, I became interested in seeing just exactly what resources were available to teachers, in all the different grade levels and areas of curriculum.

This is my primary reason for taking this course, to get credit for recertification, but it is also interesting to me to see what a huge array of resources are available to teachers now.  Very, very different than what I had been aware of previously, and much larger than I expected.  I have a Middle School Endorsement, and I am possibly interested in a full-time position in one of the curricular areas -- it will be very beneficial to me to know about the plethora of resources available!!

   
  For the past forty-one years, I have been actively engaged in the teaching profession and employed in many teaching capacities; k-12 in the public schools as both an academic and specials teacher, as a teacher in private institutions, as a high school guidance counselor, and as a coach in multiple sports.  Needless to say, the use of technology in education has changed DRAMATICALLY during my professional life!!! Following the death of my husband in 1990, I fell behind in utilizing and developing my technology skills and am currently continuing the "catch up" process.  The good news is that I have always had a strong connection to the AEA i my area.....first at Kirkwood.....then, with ALL of the AEAs as I served as an AEA liaison through my state professional organization (IAAHPERD).  In the past twenty-five years HAEA has been the area AEA for me and the time during which I have fallen behind.   I very much would like to improve and remediate my skills in utilizing online resources of the AEA. When the need arose to secure PD courses for renewal of my teaching license this course was a logical choice.  

I was a second grade teacher for two years from 1999-2001. I used the interactive living books in my classroom at our computer centers. I am not currently employed outside the home as I have chosen to stay at home to raise my six children.  I am taking this course to receive credits to fulfill the requirements for a substitute license and to renew my teaching certificate. I plan on returning to the schools as a substitute teacher.
I have had no experience with Iowa AEA Online resources before beginning my online course.
I was interested in knowing what topics the AEA website had to offer. Also if the schools my children attend use these online resources and the classroom teacher or the technology teacher offers instructions to the students on their availability and classroom use.
I found the bookFLIX to be the resource I found to be the most interest to me as a parent of children who use the livingbooks at home.  I will be introducing them to bookFLIX!

For the past six years I have been substitute teaching for Pleasant Valley School District for Junior High School and High School - primarily math and science classes.  I had previously been aware of the AEA Online Resources since my wife teaches and my children went through the school system over the past few years.  As a substitute, I have been exposed and expected to monitor “webquests” and other research requirements the students have worked on while I have been in the classroom.   Occasionally, their normal teacher has left links to various resources for me to show videos to the class – specifically science experiments and lessons detailing math concepts.  I was interested in this course after overhearing the Junior High School librarian describe the various databases available to a class while I was subbing.  I wasn’t aware of the magnitude of the resources available and wanted to broaden what I knew about.

I have been a substitute teacher for four rural school in the Siouxland area to date encompassing middle school to high school.

The only experience I've had with the Iowa AEA Online resources is taking various online classes for recertification of my substitute authorization.  

I became very interested in this resources because as a former educator, researching support material for classroom enrichment was always a time consuming endeavor.  Multiple search methods and sources were diverse but certainly not centralized.  Due to budget restrictions, if it wasn't found on the web or I purchased it myself it wasn't available.  I'm impressed by what Iowa AEA Online has to offer.  I feel as a result of taking this class I will be better prepared when subbing what the primary educator is referring to when classroom instructions refer to the AEA website.  Typically classroom material is provided, but not always in a last minute situation or the instructors do not know I have experience with this resource.  I also have grandchildren.  Knowing that this resource is used in the schools helps me related to them and hopefully use these resources to enrich our time together when I have the wonderful opportunity to babysit them.  :-).  I would like to have access to these resources as an educator.

     I am currently employed part time (.40x/2 days weekly) as K-5 physical education teacher.  This year I have taken several courses in technology in an attempt to remediate my less-than-stellar compute/technology knowledge and skills.  I wish I had taken this course several years ago as I have fallen behind in my use of AEA as a tool for my teaching.  Things have changed dramatically in the forty-one years since I first began my teaching career in the Kirkwood AEA area.  Whereas I first used visual()ld fashioned")and printed media for the teaching of health and PE quite extensively, I now (due to a change in the level at which I teach and to the significant reduction of time that students have in my area) use very little media/technology for direct instructional purposes.  However, I have learned that what is currently available can be very much like continuing education for me and I plan on using the AEA in that way.  I also can see that this is a tool I can use to help my grandchildren.

I have been working at a  Catholic school for 25 years in many different levels.  I started at 4th grade for 10 years and have spent the last 6 years at high school level working with Freshmen and Sophomores. I have had a lot of experience with AEA from taking classes to ordering booksets and videos to use with my students.  I have used some of the online tools also but have decided that I needed more education about the online resources so that I could use it in my classroom for research papers, book reports, and debates.  I feel that students need more resources  and I feel AEA is a resource students can use anywhere. Another reason that I am interested in this course is because of the copyright section.  We currently had an in-service on following copyright rules and I wanted to learn more about it so that I was following and teaching my students the rules.  I am now using this to help with writing research papers.

I am currently teaching 5th grade at Earlham Elementary School. I teach in an all-inclusive classroom, so my role involves teaching all subjects.

Prior to taking this course, I had used Learn360 to watch videos in science and social studies. A co-worker of mine had introduced that source to me, otherwise I wouldn't have ever used it. While taking this course, I have already begun to use CultureGrams with my students, and they really enjoy it!

I chose to take this course because I was interested in learning about safe, reliable resources that I could use with my students. I wanted to use them within my teaching and show my students how to use them for research purposes. We do several research projects/papers in which students rely heavily on google when researching. They still struggle to find good articles and information, so using Britannica Online would be a great tool to introduce to them.

I currently do not work as a full time teacher but have been on call as a long-term sub for specialist music classrooms.  I currently run my own business and have not been teaching full time for several years but I taught a total of 20 prior to my new career.  I keep my license up in case there is an emergency need in the districts near me.
Past experience with AEA online was limited because of the resources that were available for music.  However I have used the service to help my own children with their classes in school.  We have used Britannica Online, Culture Grams, SIRS Issue Researcher, and Teen Health and Wellness.  I wanted to take the course to see how much had expanded since I was in the full time business and I am surprised at how much more is available to teachers and students.  The copyright issue was always a concern in music and training students as to what you can and can't use is much easier now with the wealth of information online.  I also like the ability now to use media and music clips for presentations and will add that to my private studio summer courses.

I am an elementary music teacher in the Waterloo School District. Prior to this course, I had a brief introduction to the Iowa AEA Online resources when I first joined the district. However, it was several years ago, and I have not used these resources much since then. However, after learning about many applicable resources to my teaching, I am looking forward to using them in my lessons in the future.

I am currently a substitute teacher in a rural area.  Previously, I taught middle and high school band in Minnesota.  Since I completed my teacher training as well as my first teaching jobs in another state, I have not had a lot of experience with Iowa AEA online.  A family member suggested that I look into it as an option for earning renewal credits for my teaching license.  One of the reasons I was interested in taking this course was to gain a better understanding of the resources available if I go back to teaching full time.  I grew up in Iowa and had a vague idea that AEA existed, but from a professional viewpoint, I did not have a good understanding of what AEA had to offer.  I was also interested to find out what kinds of online resources are available to schools.  Since I live in a rural area, access to quality resources is sometimes difficult.  As both a teacher and a parent, have been pleased with the resources that AEA has to offer.

Currently, I work at the Chariton High School as the ESL, Reading, and Special Education teacher. I also have an endorsement in 5-12 English. I have co-taught in the English (9 and 10) and math classrooms and participate in the Language Arts, Special education, and ESL data teams. In the past, I mainly used the clip art, atomic learning, and the online special education resources. Since our school has computers for all students and Promethean boards in every classroom, I felt the need to be updated on current issues regarding technology use in the classroom. The Digital Citizenship course opened my eyes to facts and issues regarding digital media use. With this connection to technology, the next best course would be a focus on using the resources available online from the AEA. The posters from the AEA showing the user name and password hang on the walls of our high school, a constant reminder of their availability. I wanted to know in depth information concerning both student and teacher use of this invaluable resource.  WOW! What an eye-opener!

I received my substitute authorization in 2012 and have been working for two school districts (Adel-Desoto-Minburn and Perry) since that time.  I am still currently a substitute teacher for both districts.  I spend the majority of my time substitute teaching Middle school grade levels (6-8 for both districts), but occasionally work with the high school grade levels as well.
Prior to taking the self-paced course, I had no idea of just how many different types of resources the Iowa AEA had to provide to students and teachers.  Before taking this course, I had absolutely zero experience with any of the online resources (with the exception of YouTube (which was for entertainment, not education)) that had been mentioned in this course. I was under the impression that the AEA was strictly for professional development and recertification of teachers.  I was completely blown away when I learned that not only teachers, but also students, are able to access a vast amount of information through so many different resources in order to help them with their educational needs.
For me, this course was something I felt I needed to take to help not only the students I work with, but also for myself as well.  I am currently working on receiving my Masters Degree (MAT) and wanted to know what types of resources students could really take advantage of.  From my experience as a substitute, the Iowa AEA online resources are ones that do not seem to be used as often as they should, given the amount of information that can be provided by them.  By taking this course, I feel better equipped in helping students with projects by guiding them towards utilizing these resources I have learned about. I also hope to use these resources when I become a teacher myself.

     Currently I am unemployed and retired from the millitary. For the last five years I have been working a full-time job with veteran's compensation claims. Prior to that I did two years of substitute teaching and really enjoyed working with the students and doing something that I felt was very rewarding. I also liked the fact that I was able to teach a variety of subjects at various grade levels and at  different schools in the surrounding area.
     I had no experience with Iowa AEA Online resourses before taking this class and I would have to say that all this information is a somewhat overwhelming.
     Being a member of the baby-boomer era, computers have always been a formidable adversary. When I read the introduction to this class, I was hoping to become familiar with all the different types of educational instruction that is available through AEA.
     

My name is Dawn and I am a substitute teacher for several of the local districts. My areas of specialization are history, government and Spanish for the secondary grades. The only past experience I've had with Iowa AEA online resources is a couple workplace seminars describing what's available. I have not used it in the classroom- I do what the teacher has planned. The workplace seminars made the online resources sound valuable to students and classroom teachers. I would love to explore CultureGrams, GALE, and AP Images to use in social studies or Spanish classes, if I do a long term subbing job and must make my own lesson plans. Teachers in a few schools have stapled bookmarks with resource listings to students' midterm grade reports. Access to Brittanica Online could be very useful to students trying to get an overview of topics or research information.

I have the fun job of teaching art to kindergarten through 6th graders at Trinity Catholic School in Protivin Iowa.  I have had this position for the last 9 years, and I also work part time at the West Union, Iowa library.  

My experience with AEA online resources in my classroom has been mostly for finding clip art, but I have worked with BookFlix and TrueFlix with my son through his class.  I have also taken other online classes and have enjoyed them. I was interested in what the self-pased classes have to offer to enhance my teaching.

I was interested in taking this course to learn about other online resources that I can use for presenting lessons in my art classroom.  I like to use visuals, including videos, for inspiration for my students and I wanted to learn about some of the things that are readily available and geared for safe classroom use.

I am currently employed as a substitute teacher in the Des Moines School District at middle and high schools.  I have been serving in that role for the past eight years. Prior to taking this class I have not had any prior experience to using the AEA Online resources. I was interested in taking this class because I thought it would be beneficial to be able to assist students if a teacher left instructions to utilize one of the resources in their lesson plans. Also because I enjoy learning and increasing my knowledge base about resources that will better enable me to fulfill my role as a substitute effectively. I was quite impressed with the diversity of the resources available; some of them I was familiar with from college. I enjoyed the class and learned a lot as well as getting a credit I need to renew my certification. I look forward to being able to utilize the resources.

I have been a para for 11 years with the Pleasant Valley School District.  I am currently at Hopewell Elementary and work in the BD program. I work with a 2nd grade boy all day.  I have also work in the Autism program.  This is my first time doing the online resources.  I did not know what to expect.  I did not know how long it was going to be and that you had to do projects.  I like that you can take your time and go at your own pace.  I don't have that option since I need to renew my para certificate so I can sub. for my BD teacher.  I did find this section very interesting and learned a lot about the different options that teachers have and can use in the classroom.