POST #2: Challenges to Using Iowa AEA Online Resources

The biggest challenge I see in using AEA online resources in PE is that the students will actually use these.  Since we do not actually sit down in a classroom setting and work on the assignment I can not physically see them going to the actual resource.  As I would give the assignment on google classroom and then have the students reply or turn in when they are out of class.  

Unless I take a class time and have them get on the site and work through the question or assignment at that specific time.  I would be able to have the students bring their computers since we are a 1 on 1 school each student has a computer.  The students would be able to sit in the bleachers or on the gym floor and work their way through the problem.  But then again I would be losing their 20 minutes of exercise.

 I have had the opportunity to use a few of these resources that Keystone offers. I Have used the SIRS Issue Research and Britannica Online when I completed my Masters Degree. I also use them often when I want to research a specific topic.
 I have  used  the AP images for a number of projects in my room. I  incorporated the AP images and  students spellings words into my Ozmo.   This  give the students  a great opportunity to practice their spelling words with a visual. The selection and  timeline of the AP images is what I  like the best.  
I also have used BookFlex and Truflix in my classroom.  I use  Bookflex to reinforce  my Literacy instruction. I  have used Trueflex to incorporate  a few of my Social Skills lessons. One of my favorite  resources is iclipart. I  use this resource  almost weekly, for projects, making games, bulletin boards, etc.
I am excited to learn about Soundabound and Culture grams. I have been introduce to teachingbooks.net, but  have not utilized it in my classroom as much as I probably should. I have always  been overwhelmed and appreciative of all the resource that the AEA has available to teachers.

I would have to agree with several of the comments already posted (recently).  The biggest challenge to utilizing the AEA's online resources is to figure out which resources to use for different subjects.  Someone said it could take a year of PD to familiarize myself with all or even some of what each resource has to offer.  A good suggestion posted, as someone already said is to choose maybe 3 sources; research to see what subject each could be used with.  Then look at which specific units would be useful with one of the 3 sources and begin researching within a source to see what images, videos, sound bites, etc. would fit with a specific unit/chapter.  Once I feel confident in incorporating different resources' materials into a chapter/lesson, I would store each source in my Symbaloo account so it is easily accessible and already organized by unit/ch/lesson.  Then as each year progresses, more sources can be studied and incorporated so my list of resources for what I teach each year can grow.

The biggest challenges for using the Iowa AEA Online Resources for me is time.  As a second grade teacher I have to make the best use of my time or I will lose the students' attention.  I use Bookflix on a regular basis and am pretty familiar with it.  My students are not quite ready to do any research or online searching independently yet.  I also agree with previous comments that there is a huge wealth of resources available, it would take time to become familiar with all of them.  I do try to incorporate different Iowa Online resources into my instruction whenever possible.

I need to set a goal for myself to try to become more familiar with different resources and try to figure out how to incorporate them more frequently into my day to day curriculum.  I also need to introduce my students to some of the more "kid friendly" resources.

I am a classroom teacher at AEA267 and work with students with severe disabilities.  I have been teaching for the AEA at River Hills School for 9 years.  Our student population is made up of those with several disabilities but many have autism.  Using visual formats to teach this group of students is one of the best ways to engage them.  I was interested to explore the resources available to help me sift through all of the materials available so that I can find materials that best meet the needs of the students.

My challenge is finding the time to go through each resource for students but the course has helped me to see that there are areas that I can use from several of the sources to improve my students' access to curriculum that I am currently not accessing.

I also want to share some of the information with  colleagues to enhance their classrooms for older and younger students.  We particularly struggle to find appropriate curricular tools for our older students and I see great value to share for this population.

I agree with others; if you don't use the online resources often, there are so many that you could get them mixed up on which one to use.  Maybe a cheat sheet would help to keep them straight.  Each staff member should go through them and then pick a few to start with and build from there.  Really knowing what each one will do, will help determine if you will use it in your subject area and such.  

Another challenge that I am not sure about is if our students already know about these resources and if they know how to use them.  It may take up some class time to teach students how to use the resources if your library hasn't already.  This may take extra planning and class time helping students and with some of the resources setting up their own accounts.  Most of them seemed to have good helping or tutorials that would provide students with assistance.

The biggest challenge I face in my situation is lack of access to technology.  We have 3 computers with access to the internet, and even then we have a copper wire running to the building with a 1.5 mg internet signal.  In other words, no more than two computers at a time can be connected to the internet.  If more than two computers are hooked up to the internet at once, the signal is too slow to get any work done.

Luckily, we are adjacent to a local community college.  Teachers may use the internet on planning and work time.  We are working on a grant to secure more computers and better internet signal, but it will be quite some time before we hear about the grants.

The other big challenge we face is lack of professional development and training for teachers.  Because we are non-profit and early childhood, a majority of our staff are minimally certified or entry-level employees.  I wrote a grant to offer additional professional development opportunities for staff, but again, time will be the biggest challenge.

I believe one of the biggest challenges I will face is finding time to locate the information I need.  The resources that are available to teachers via the Iowa AEA online is amazing.  My biggest challenge will be trying to use them in a way that will best suit my students.  I have found that my students love to be using computers in the classroom.  So I am challenging myself to try to find connections they can use for each of the units I am teaching.

The biggest challenge toward using Iowa AEA Online resources in my classroom is the nature of my class.  Because of the limited amount of time that I get all students in Physical Education, we want them being as physically active as possible.  That does not mean we could not adapt and integrate them on an occasional basis, just that it is not always an ideal setting.
With that said, we do have class times where we are in a classroom and discussion various health and wellness concepts, goals and challenges.  Teen Health and Wellness can be a great resource to supplement what we are teaching.  

Technology is not always my friend.  Especially while learning something new.  That alone is what will be most challenging for me. I am relieved to have learned that the resources AEA offer have tutorials with step by step directions. They programs seem user friendly, even for non techies like myself.

The other challenge I will have is finding ways to implement these resources with students as young as three years old. BookFlix is a resource I'm exited to use, as is Boardmaker.  Visual prompts are crucial with young students, especially those who struggle with language skills.

     I think the biggest challenge to using the Iowa AEA online resources will be to sift through the amount of information that is available. I would definitely ask colleagues about what resources they use and get their suggestions. When the resources are available to me, I will probably choose to work with one or two of the resources at a time. Once my students and I felt comfortable with the sites, I would start to implement another online resource. I am interested in obtaining background music for presentations. Another resource that I am interested in is Culture Grams. Finally, the challenge for me is that I currently don't have full access to all of the online resources.
     
     

One of the biggest challenges I see in utilizing the AEA Online Resources in the volume of material provided and the time it takes to understand how to best use the resources.  The way I intend to tackle the volume of resources is to focus this year on the sites most suitable for the student I serve 1:1, particularly in reading activities.  Although there are so many resources to explore, I have begun looking at TeachingBooks.Net and using video book trailers "to prime the pump" so to speak, before we start a new book. BookFLIX is already a resource that has been useful and I am thankful to have taken this course to learn even more about what it has to offer.  Another challenge is simply the fact that I need to adapt to my student's needs within the scope of what the student is capable of, the demands / limitations of time in a school day, and serve the expectations of the teachers.  Becoming more familiar with what Iowa AEA Online has stimulated my thinking about how its resources can be used to enhance the understanding and comprehension of what my student is learning.  I can talk to my supervising teacher about how this could best be accomplished.

I think the biggest challenge for myself, and probably many other educators, is finding the time to look through all of the resources and correlate to what I am already teaching.  It is time-consuming enough to plan and align lessons to the CORE and ELP standards during the limited PD time we are compensated for.  I know there are many tools and technologies that the AEA website(s) can offer me, but it will take time to figure out what best fits with what I have already spent many hours planning.
I think the first step for me in overcoming this challenge is to go back and look over what print resources I have used in my units already this year and try to figure out if there is an electronic resource on the AEA site that would accomplish the same goal, thus saving consumable resources. I think it is also going to be something I have to tackle a little at a time, unit by unit, over the next couple of years.

As a substitute teacher, one of my biggest challenges would be to know how to access and use the websites. The students are so much more capable of using this information over myself as they use it everyday or most days and I don't use it very much. Once I have read the teacher's notes for what they would like done on the days that I sub, I try to pull up whatever website that they would like the students to use or some teachers would use sites for informational movies for students to watch. I would make sure that I was able to access those sites and hopefully know how to work the sites so that I don't waste the time of the student nor the teacher.
Not being in the classroom everyday and becoming familiar with all that is available for students these days is a disadvantage for some substitutes teachers. Being middle aged has some advantages in that I know and understand how to use computers and have some experience with the internet and how it all works but as technology advances especially in the classroom, there will be more draw backs for us in that we won't know what the students are using in order to achieve their educations.

There are a few challenges that I will face when using the Iowa AEA Online resources in my classroom. The biggest challenge I will face is time. There are many of resources that would be very beneficial to my students; the problem is that I only have my students for thirty minutes a day. That means I will have to be very selective in the resources that I use. BookFlix, and TrueFlix come to mind right away, but there are several other resources that would aid in my students learning as well such as:Atomic Learning, AEA Digital library, Learn 360, and Britannica Online.  All of the resources would be beneficial to the students in other areas as well.

 I may not be able to completely overcome the challenge this year, but I have a plan in mind for next year. I will begin implementing my plan this year but will not be able to introduce all the resources I would like to and use them to their fullest potential.  I am currently working on plans to incorporate BookFlix and TrueFlix into my current lesson plans.  I then plan to introduce the resources: Britannica Digital Learning, Gale, AEA Digital Library to aide them in projects that are connected to the books once they are completed.  I will start with one resource at a time and get through as many as I can this year. I will use Atomic Learning to help me when introducing new technology skills such as as the tools available when making a slide show. Next year, I plan to introduce more resources.  I will introduce a new resource and/or review one each time we complete a unit to help complete the culminating activity. That way they will become more familiar with using the resources.  
 
 

My biggest challenge will probably be just keeping familiar with the different sites and remembering how to navigate in them.  Thankfully, they are all pretty user friendly once you get in them.  Never the less, the "use it or loose it" principle applies to most of us, especially those of us who are professional substitutes.  Usually as a sub, we do not have very much time to prepare for a class.  Often with literally minutes notice we have to show up in a classroom hoping for a detailed lesson that more than often is not very detailed.
By using the AEA Online Resource sites on my own time, for my own use, may keep them fresh in my mind and allow me to keep familiar enough with them to be able to recommend the right site for the right purpose to the students.

So many possibilities to choose from, but so little planning time.  With all the possibilities, I try to utilize a few of the resources at a time.  I incorporated Britannica right away having students gather more information. I also used this in a compare/contrast assignment. As vast as this site is, this may be all the resources my students will need.  With the ability to link the many resources to Classroom, it gives me peace-of-mind that my students will not need to navigate very much through the web.  I like this idea, and it is all compiled by reliable consultants and professionals.  

As I stated in the beginning, there is so little time to delve into everything at one time.  Then as time marches on, one can either stagnate or forget what resources are available.  This would be reason enough for me to continue to get more in depth information in each area that would be of benefit to me.  I would enjoy seeing how each could be used in my discipline

The biggest challenge for using all of this new information is, without a doubt, time.  Finding time for me to search through all of the information and make decisions as to what I want to use in the classroom will be challenging.  Then finding time to teach my students how to use the resources I choose for them or do their own searches will take more time.  How do I justify losing that science instructional time?  Along with that, technology at school isn't always reliable or accessible, so that can complicate issues.

I already have my students do research projects, debates and presentations.  They make videos, power points, posters, etc.  I usually let students develop these on their own.  Perhaps it is just a matter of giving them more direction on these assignments by taking them to the AEA site and show them what is available and how to use it.

Although I understand the need for staying current on technology and resources for the engagement of 21st century learners, there are a few prominent reasons why I have been reluctant to learn and add new resources to my classroom. The first being that I don't have time to learn new technology or preview new resources and figure out how I could apply them to the courses I teach. Another being that I am comfortable using the technology and resources I know and don't want to learn others. The final being that I don't want to have my time wasted learning about a technology or resource that will not be applicable to my classroom or engaging for my students. The first step in overcoming my self-imposed implementation challenges has already been taken: choosing to take this online course. Yes, some of the content provided I was already using, or would never be able to use, however, there were plenty of great resources that I was introduced to that I will seek further knowledge about and apply them to my classroom. Now I have to allow myself the time to explore the new resources and think of how I could implement into my classroom.

My biggest challenge for implementing the Iowa AEA Online Resources in my classroom is that I am a substitute teacher and therefore don't have the building number and password to use to access it. Another challenge is that I don't have access to alot of things that the regular teachers have access to. I would love to use the resources they seem very good and informative and fun but I don't have access. I also don't have my own classroom and am limited on what I can do because it isn't my class. The class is run by the teacher and I have to follow what they have for us to do each day. They have their instructions for the substitute for the day and I have to follow those instructions. If however I was a regular teacher and not a substitute I would definetly use these resources. I would love it. The only way I could overcome these challenges would be if Iowa AEA Online resources gave substitutes access to these resources. And if I became a regular teacher in a regular classroom I would have access. However I could help students out with the resources if they are logged into the system and need help. Now that I have taken this course I would be able to help them more.