Classes 2 and 3

I am feeling extremely overwhelmed after 2 classes. I was hoping that my anxiety level would decrease but no such luck. I like challenging myself, but I am wondering if this is too much of a challenge. If my students with LD feel like I am feeling right now in class everyday, it’s a wonder that they actually come to class. My respect for them has increased tremendously. I have done in-services in which the teachers are made to feel like they have LDs by wearing funny glasses, drawing via a mirror etc, but those did not have the impact that this class is having on my understanding. During the in-services, I experienced a momentary sense of being uncomfortable. It created a small sense of empathy and a desire to accommodate and support my LD students learning needs but no real understanding of their struggle. This course and the 2 weeks of anxiety, frustration and constant bombardment of things that I know little or nothing about has made me realize the courage and fortitude my students possess. I own an inothing. My cell phone, which I really dislike has no Gs as far as I know and according to my husband only works one way – when I need to call home as I tend to ignore calls in. If I wanted people to get in contact with me, I would have stayed home. I do not understand the constant connection to a mobile device. I can text, but it is a y for yes, n for no and cm for call me. I will admit that the cm is the one used most often. Added to the anxiety attacks around the technology, I am struggling with making my opinions know in writing for the cyperworld to see. I think I am a private person and this whole blog thing makes me very uncomfortable. I am definitely outside of my comfort zone and have to self-talk every time I think of the course to stop myself from dropping it. I keep reminding myself that this area is one for which I know little to nothing and that it is important to keep current. I want to do the best for my students and certainly do not want to become a person stuck in the past with regards to teaching methods. I try to keep current with best practices in the field of literacy and my LD students deserve the same care effort and respect. So with all that in mind, here I am, still in the course and trying to explore the itunes store. I have kids, so they can download, upload reload whatever I need. It works great – I give the list, my credit card, we both understand that they can add a few items on the list for their efforts and everybody is happy. Class 2 was a blur. I remember little except for the hyperventilating and the sense of pride when I was actually able to create a blog and add pictures and videos to it. A positive characteristic of mine with regards to technology is that I am not afraid of it and I am very happy clicking buttons and just generally messing around with stuff. Somebody will be able to fix what I destroy! I don’t have the vocabulary to know what I am messing around with, but I can open some icons, files and click links, icons, whatever on and off. Class 3 was a little better. I volunteered to find the definition and the article for our PowerPoint. I know I was taking the easy way out as I am very comfortable exploring ERIC and reading journal articles. I have to say that I was disappointed with the articles I found. Academia’s focus on knowledge for knowledge sake instead of knowledge for practical purposes does not meet my needs. I want info that I can use in my classroom to improve student achievement. Many of the articles were very specific and had little practical information that could be generalized. Hopefully I will find something relevant before too long. I did find a few WebPages that had helpful information. Towards the end of the night, I was getting bored, so I decided to browse the itune store. I was not impressed. I think this had more to do with the fact that I did not know how to search it than what was available in the store. I am still looking for the pod cast and iunversity etc stuff and I did not find many apps other than the ones Barbara had in the webinar my group watched. I was very excited by the apps I found from my Google search. I am wondering if they will be as useful as the description indicates. I have been disappointed with technology in the past and sometimes have found it more cumbersome that completing the task without technology. I will need to see if the school has iwhatevers and if we can try out some of the apps. Monday I will wander around the school to see the types of assistive technology available to our students and to get a sense of who is using what. I’ve posted links to the info that I liked on the side of my blog. FYI the ad on the calender is driving me crazy: Does anyone know how to delete the ad and still keep the calendar? Whenever I feel myself thinking I am Ok with what I know, and why change what's working, I watch this video.