POST #2: Challenges to Using Iowa AEA Online Resources

My biggest problem right now is being a teacher in Oklahoma, where I do not have access to all the resources available through Iowa AEA Online.  The school I currently teach at does have accounts with some of the same resources, so I was able to access them and investigate them that way.  Another way I will overcome this issue is by keeping the notes that I took during this course.  If my family moves back to Iowa and I get back into the classroom, I will have the notes I took to be able to quickly familiarize myself with the various resources.  I will also continue to use the resources my current school offers to stay up-to-date with technology available to teachers and students.  By staying up-to-date through the use of research, talking to other colleagues in Iowa and my own personal use of the sites I can access, I will be ready to implement these resources if and when I get back into an Iowa classroom.  

In my opinion, the greatest challenge to implementing these resources in my classroom is finding the time to learn to use the tools effectively. Anyone who has taught knows that if a lesson is to be learned, materials need to be prepared ahead of time. Most kindergarten students do not have the ability to sit quietly and wait for the teacher to figure out why something is not working on the computer. In order to make sure that I understand how a resource is accessed correctly, I need to make practice lessons until I am able to access my lesson materials quickly, regardless of content.

The list of resources on the AEA Online is seemingly endless. I need to try one section of information at a time in order to feel I am a successful user of any material. It is surely possible that I may never find a use for some of the resources due to the age of my students. I have found that I must spend a great deal of time during evening and weekend hours in order to be prepared.

Challenges I see to implementing these AEA online resources and how to overcome them are as follows.  
1.  The massive amount of information to sift through.  Much time could be spent researching a specific topic on the various online databases.  It can be overwhelming!  A way in which to overcome this obstacle is to familiarize yourself with a few databases that you know work well for your students’ age group.  Develop a “go to” list of AEA resources that you use all the time.  Once you have become familiar with a handful of resources, you will become more comfortable incorporating them into your lessons.  
2.  The need to always enter a username and password.  To maximize accessibility, one way is to create a Symbaloo curation page from which students can simply click on a tile, then be automatically entered into the databases.  At my elementary school, we tell the students to begin at the “waffle,” what the Symbaloo icon resembles.  Next, they find the yellow tile with the apple.  Once this is opened, the students have immediate access to the AEA databases.

My biggest challenge will simply be to find the time to train myself and my students. While I get excited when I browse through the options and get a lot of ideas, it can be hard to actually find the time to prepare something new. I often fall short on learning and implementing new technology and resources because I begin to prepare the lessons and materials for my students but run into problems and out of time to solve the problems. Teaching these resources to my students would be another challenge as anything that I teach for the first time requires flexibility in time. The standards that I have to teach in the amount of time I have is very tight so if a lesson takes longer than anticipated it can become problematic from the big picture. I think I can overcome this by reducing my learning curve and collaborating with a friend of mine who has more experiences with these resources.

There are so many resources available the challenge will be to identify which resource/platform will best help to meet the objective of the lesson.  The next challenge is remembering how to search, save,download, and/or share the resource being used.  To overcome this challenge I think that it is best to work as a team.  Teachers can support each other and share the load of finding resources to support lesson objectives.  Having a quick summary of each resource available to the team might also help as teams are getting used to using the new resources.

As I worked through this course I became aware of the many resources and feel overwhelmed by the sheer amount.  I know that my biggest challenge will be to become proficient in all of them.  I have started thinking about how I could use each one next year in my reading classroom.  I also know that I will want to share what I have learned with my colleagues as they search for materials in their classrooms.  I think my best plan would be to select two resources that will support my need for reading materials for a diverse population of students that read at varied levels.

I was also intrigued by the Atomic Learning site, but was disappointed when I tried to investigate it and realized that I had forgotten my id and password.  I have emailed the AEA Media Center to get mine as soon as I can.  I plan on investigating it further in case I missed something.  

Again, I am anxious to see how these resources can be used with my students, especially since I have to teach a reading strategies class next year for both 6th and 7th grade.

I was so excited to see the many resources available for use in my classroom. However, the farther I got into the course, the more overwhelmed I became. It felt a little like getting a brand new curriculum to use—so much great material, but there is no way to possibly use all of it. The greatest challenge I will face is most likely going to be remembering what is available and how I can get there. I tend to fall into a rut with the resources that I use, and neglect the other “good stuff” available. If I can dedicate the time to really exploring these resources, writing down the steps to get there, and marking videos or pictures I know would align with the standards and content I teach, I will most likely be more successful in using these wonderful resources.  If, over the summer, I spend even a little time on each of these resources, I can see myself using some of these resources on a regular basis. I have used Bookflix regularly, and now I know there is so much more available.

I am so happy to know about all of these resources!  I do feel it will be challenging to utilize these resources to their full potential just because there are so many.  It feels a bit overwhelming to remember them all!  I think the solution is to make manageable goals to incorporate these resources into units of study.  Also, sharing these resources with fellow grade-level colleagues and enlisting the help of our technology teachers will allow more of these resources to be tapped.  

It would be great to share this information with staff at a weekly staff meeting and use inservice time to get the whole building learning from one another.  Teachers are great resources for each other.  Implementing these technological resources will help enrich the learning of students by broadening the scope and depth of study and will also expand on various learning styles.  

I believe there would be some challenges in using the Iowa AEA online Resources.  One would be where to start there are so many good looking resources. I would be like a kid in a candy store not knowing what to pick. Once I pick a site it is going to take time to navigating the site and find was is useful and what isn't.  Another challenge is knowing how to successfully navigate each resource since they all do it differently.  They have different ways of saving files and having students use the site.  Another challenge is looking throug video bites to find what you are looking for.  I could spend a lot of time going through video clips looking for classroom supplements. Students could spend lots of time looking for information .  The biggest steps I would have to do is limit the time the students spend looking for information and narrow down what they should be looking for and giving key words to help with their search.

A challenge for me is that online access is not permitted in the classroom within the prison.  Security is the number one priority, so the teachers have access to the internet in locked offices.  The fear is that the inmates will somehow gain access to the Internet.

I need to successfully negotiate using online resources and still say within copyright laws.  I want to make sure that I am not violating copyright laws.  Through the use of flashdrives, we are able to play various video clips to enhance our teaching.

Another challenge is a matter of going through the vast amount of resources that exist.  The good news is that after taking this course, I have more materials to look at.  Now question becomes, when is there time.

Going forward, I will just have to find ways to successfully integrate the online resources to enhance the curriculum.

I have a para educator certificate but I am not currently working through the school system.  My first biggest challenge would be is finding password access to use the AEA online resource materials they have available .  And also if I am authorizied to have access to use the materials available since I am not working in the school system at this point and time.  I think the AEA has wonderful resource information available .   And since I am working out of home right now this would be a great  time for me to learn to navigate through AEA resources.  So I can be able to learn how to use it properly. And also how it could be very beneficial for any future career changes.  Being a para educator we are to follow the teachers plans.  And would have to clear with the teacher before using the resources.  I formally worked with preschoolers special needs children.  And I do see how some of the resources  could be very beneficial in the classroom .

Since I do not have a classroom, I cannot answer this question from a teacher's view, but I can say that it will be challenging to attempt to get teachers to use the resources. I think their challenge would be in remembering the extent of what is available to them, and then being able to teach their students how to access them.

I think most people would focus on the technologies available in schools and to the student. My experience, with international private schools, US school districts and and State Education Departments, has been that access and device issues are starting to be addressed. However, I think shortly after the technology issues are solved the issue of “fairness” will become a concern of all stakeholders. While having access to these great digital content resources, the disparity of different devices plus differences in access speed at home for individual students will introduce comparability issues with individual student performance. Studies show screen size has an impact on attention and retention by a student of digital content. Internet speed impacts the use of video and photograph resolution at home. The paper pencil environment may have been limiting for individualization but it was a great leveler for comparability. The internet and the concept of “bring your own device” (BYOD) give individual worldwide access to content, the challenge will become how to measure the value of that experience and be able to compare it. Every school and every individual learner is generating huge amounts of data. The challenge will be mining that data for improvements of economies and societies here in the USA and globally.

I think a big challenge for me in using the AEA Online Resources would be that I do not always feel comfortable navigating through new technology.  I appreciate that the AEA provides these tutorials enabling me to become better informed of the resources available to us as teachers.
 
The other challenge posed is that I pull out my students and have very limited time with my kindergarten through 5th grade students. When a set curriculum is to be followed, making sure that whenever I supplement with other materials, it must meaningful and valuable. Searching for ideas and making sure I have accessed appropriate materials for all six grade levels can prove to be quite challenging. Having said that, I believe that once becoming familiar with all that our AEA has at my disposal may indeed assist in that part of the challenge.
 
All in all, making sure that my students will benefit from my newly acquired understanding of AEA and its resources will be an area I plan to focus on. I can also get assistance from colleagues who are more tech savvy and help with becoming more efficient when planning to use resources on AEA.

Time is always an issue. With SRG, IB, Math videos and resources from the textbook, and Employability Skills, that leaves very little time to explore other great existing resources. It looks like this summer is the perfect time!

     I find that there are two big challenges when using AEA’s online resources. First, the vast amounts of information that a search yields can be overwhelming and secondly, the need to sort through the resources and discriminate what is relevant and what is not relevant to my student’s needs.

     The great news about the AEA’s vast chasm of links and materials is that it’s all in one place.  This cuts the time in half when scouring the internet for possible materials was a time consuming and sometimes frustrating process. Another benefit to this melting pot is that I do not have to determine reliability of the source material as it has already passed the rigorous standards of the AEA in quality control.  

     During the course I absolutely fell in love with the idea of Khan Academy and the video lessons, flipped classroom concept and structured content it had to offer.  I fully intend to implement parts of Mr. Khans processes into my own curriculum and classroom setting to help with student engagement and make data driven decisions to improve student learning.

The challenges of implementing AEA on-line resources would be determining what resources to use.  There is a vast amount of resources and choosing one may require a lot of time.  Then there is educating my students to navigate the resources that I chose to implement.  Another issue is having access to computers.  The middle school where I work accommodates over 700 students and scheduling time to use computers or tablets can be difficult.  
To determine what resources to use, I would select the resources that I think would be of interest to my students.   I would introduce resources and give my students some information as to what the resources can be used for and how each resource works.  I would allow students to pick resources they would like to use.  A vote to allow students to chose would be nice and it will also give students some ownership in their learning.
To access the resources, students would be allowed to use their own personal laptops, tablets, or cell phones. This could possible help with the limited amount of computers/ tablets available. I can also checkout some tablets for students who don't have access to a personal cell phone or tablet.

The biggest challenge that I have with using the Iowa AEA Online Resources is that we currently have six teachers sharing on mobile MacBook cart.  It is often a planning "nightmare".  Quite often I will plan a lesson that incorporates the use of the computers, but when I need to use them, I cannot because they have already been reserved.  I try to schedule the use of the computers far in advance.  But, anyone in the teaching profession knows that things come up, and you are forced to adjust.  This makes it difficult.  Another challenge that I face is simply time!  I don't have a lot of time during the school year to really explore all of the opportunities on the Iowa AEA Online site.  That is why I took this course.  It has forced me to sit down and really look into the resources.  I plan on doing more of that this summer.  Time in the classroom for the students to explore all of the resources is also an issue.  As much as I dislike giving up teaching my subjects for things like tutorials on how to set margins, double spacing, and using certain resources, I think this would be worth it.  I would, however, do it early on in the year.  That way the students will be familiar with the site when it comes time to doing our "big" research paper at the end of the year.  So, planning is what I am really going to focus on this year when it comes to using this site.  I will plan to use the computers on the mobile cart early on in the year so the students can become familiar with the site.  My expectations for the lesson would be to familiarize the students with it and nothing more.  As the year goes on we will become more familiar with all it has to offer.  

The biggest challenge that I see for myself in using the Iowa AEA Online Resources is computer availability.  I do not have computers in my classroom and it is difficult to find available ones that are in our building.  We do have a cart that is assigned to our "team" but they seem to be used quite often and whenever I go to look and use them, they are checked out.  If the availability is there, then I do not see that there will be a problem.  The only other issue that I can see would be the internet and if it is working.  It seems that we have issues once or twice a week with the internet going out and not working.

The biggest challenge for me will be finding the time to change what I do, add to what I do, and revise what I do.  There is no question what AEA had to offer is great.  My colleagues and I frequently discuss that if we are to avoid burnout, and continue to love what we do, we must change the way in which we do things on a regular basis.

My approach may be the following.  As I attend conferences and symposiums through the year I will continue to look for new ideas.  When I find an idea I like, it will then be time to go to the AEA Online Resources and see what they have to offer to help me work towards my new goals and direction in the classroom.  This could come in the form of new ways for students to interact with online resources in the classroom, new ways for the students and myself to browse audio and video resources of premiere ensembles we wish to emulate, and more.  This is possible with a plan and organization, but would not be possible to try to add too much at once.