A Success Story

One of my dreams is to work myself out of a job as an assistive technology consultant. Today, I came one step closer to realizing that dream.

Allow me to explain.

Last week, I offered a two hour workshop to a team of special educators. We talked about assistive technology consideration, guiding principles for technology integration, universal design for learning and free technology resources to support struggling learners. They had a chance to explore the Free Technology Toolkit Wiki. At the conclusion of the workshop, they were given an assignment to identify at least one resource to support their students, use it and then report back when we met again.

We reconvened today and our follow-up workshop started with small group discussions. Educators shared what worked and what didn't (because we know there are always obstacles). They heard each others ideas and got excited hearing how some of the tools effectively reached learners in new ways. A student who hated to write and typically avoided it, used Make Beliefs Comix and had FUN writing. Another student who has signficant spelling issues and can not correct his own work used Ginger Spelling to help him edit his work. Others shared their experiences with Voice Thread, UDL Book Builder and Wacky Web Tales.

The enthusiasm in the room was building. They needed the opportunity to continue to explore, collaborate and think outside the box.

It seemed the perfect time to introduce Word Magnets which I had recently discovered and blogged about. What would this group of K -5 educators do with Word Magnets? It was incredible watching them think up all kinds of creative activities for their students which they then added to an EtherPad, a collaborative, synchronous online writing space.

As we were reviewing the session, one participant asked if there was a way they could continue to collaborate. (Be still my heart!) There was uniform agreement that they needed and wanted to continue to share their ideas, successes and triumphs. Together they came up with a plan for how they could build upon the foundation they obtained from these two workshop sessions. It was incredible for me as the workshop facilitator to see how they were motivated to extend beyond these two workshops to make learning real for them and ultimately for their students. They recognized the skills they brought to the workshop and wanted to prolong the sharing and collaboration.

They accomplished tremendous things. I was just the facilitator. I am so grateful to be a catalyst who can now sit back and watch how they integrate the tools and strategies to support struggling learners in their district.

It was truly a great day. This is why I do what I do, so that teachers and students will no longer need assistive technology consulting because it is embedded in the culture of the school.

NECC 2007 - The Aftermath.

NECC 2007 ended yesterday in Atlanta. Reading the conversations about the paradigm shift during NECC itself are fascinating. Reading the blogs of edubloggers detail how the greatest energy and excitement came, not from the sessions, definitely not from the exhibit halls, but from the edubloggerscon unconference, from the Bloggers Cafe and from the Skype conversations that happened during sessions.
Jeff Utrecht posted the Skype notes from conversations that happened simultaneously while Will Richardson presented and during a panel discussion. How many times have you sat in a session with thoughts swimming through your head and no way to discuss them? The use of Skype brought a whole new dimension to the participant experience!

Those who engaged in the conversations talk about the impact it had on their learning. What are the implications for our classrooms? Do we just ignore this new use of a Web 2.0 tool or do we grab it's power for the classroom experience? I can hear the objections but this is another opportunity to engage in discussions about acceptable use with our students and involve them in the learning process. We know that we learn when we are engaged, and when we build upon prior experience. This would certainly take it up a notch! Engage the kids during lectures!

Other gems from participants: Check out the Nuggets from NECC (Wes Fryer), Remember the Bloggers! (Will Richardson) The VoiceThread from the Edubloggercon's group pic (Joyce Valenza's great idea! and think about the classroom applications again!), My Thoughts Tuesday at NECC (Jeff Utrecht again with an explanation about how Twitter was used during the conference), Dave Warlick put together HitchhikrNECC, Vicki Davis liveblogging Tuesday morning's Keynote Panel, and discover Joyce Valenza's Web 2.0 Meets Information Fluency wiki which will take you the entire summer to get through! (This is an incredible resource!!)

I know I missed a great deal...this is just a start...so check out the posts tagged NECC07, NECC2007 for information that appeals to you.

One thing that is conspicuously absent to me is any discussion about the implications for our students with special needs. Why is this? Is this because Web 2.0 is UDL and we are engaging all learners by definition? Not necessarily, because some of these tools will be difficult to navigate for those with visual impairments or physical disabilities. It will be interesting to see how this plays out as we strive to remove the barriers for ALL students. The need to keep the tools inclusive is an important, but neglected, part of this discussion.

Another take-away for me (and I didn't attend the conference) is the noticeable lack of student participation. (can't remember who blogged about that....anyone?) What would happen if we showed the tools to our students and watched as they used them as their own learning instruments, and more? We can't keep these tools to ourselves anymore - put them in the hands of kids over this summer. Is there a way to do this? And is there a way to include them in NECC 2008? There's plenty of time to plan that possibility!