I can't believe how much I have learned from this course. I have started a Special Education website for parents that I'm hoping will help them better understand the whole IEP process. I know I still have a lot of work to do on it but I think I have the foundational skills to move forward. I also created a wiki with Elyssa Brand for the T.A.s at Doyon. It would be great if this could provide a place for more communication and collaboration among our special ed staff. I'd also like to find ways to use it for mini professional developments opportunities.

Entering the world of blogging is a new experience for me and I'm not sure yet how how much I will use it. It's something I will need to play around with more. Podcasting sounds great and I'm looking forward to subscribing to some in a variety of areas. I set up an IGoogle Page today and am excited about all the possibilities it has for organizing information. As with everything else, I just need more time to browse around and find what works for me. I'm really interested in finding a way to put everything I need in one place. Is that possible?

Jackie Potter shared her website with me and I loved her pictures of her dogs! We also looked at Cindy currier's Program Manager Website which gave me some great ideas for mine. Looking at both of the websites and talking to Jackie helped me to better define what it is I want to communicate in my website.

The only suggestion I would have for next year would be to have one small group session per day for "beginners" to go through some of the basic navigation skills.

It feels like the more I learn , the more I realize there is that I don't know. Today we learned about Podcasts. My husband loves listening to NPR and I'm sure there are lots of things that he misses. It would be great to subscribe to the podcasts he's missed so that he could listen to them later. Now i just have to get him an MP3 Player!

I'm continuing to work on my Doyon Special Ed Web site and am really excited about getting it up and running. It is hard to figure out exactly what to put on it and how much information is the right amount for parents. The whole IEP process can be so confusing and at times intimidating; sometimes too much information can just lead to more confusion. I also want the site to be simple and easy to navigate.

I can't believe tomorrow is the last day of the course. It really has gone by so fast. I know I will forget some of what I've learned but I hope that I can hold on to the stuff that I really want to use. Fortunately, I have a couple of great resources available to me at Doyon (especially Amy).

I'm really excited about the website that I started today for Doyon Special Education. I've wanted to do this for along time and just haven't taken it on until now. So far I've inserted an image for the homepage and started working on a couple of the pages. One page that I think will be really helpful to parents is a page explaining what all the common acronyms are that we use in the IEP. Right now I'm just worried that I won't have enough time to get it ready to go before school starts. I also want to work on the wiki that Elyssa and I have started for the T.A.s. How many days 'till school starts?!?

Friday 6/25 Entry

This morning I set up my Google Reader and started a Special ed Wiki with Elyssa Brand. I felt really productive and excited about moving forward with these two endeavors. However, this afternoon I felt like I really needed to review all of the different terms that have been presented because everything was running together. Is this a wiki or a blog?? How do I get to my Google Reader? And what do I need it for anyway? What is a RSS? Oh no, where's Elyssa?

O.K., I'm exaggerating a little. Amy G. came to my rescue and all was well again. The special ed wiki looks like it is going to be a great tool for sharing information with T.a. s at Doyon as well as among special Ed Teachers. I plan to present the idea to them at my welcome back meeting in Aug. Google Reader is a great tool for keeping up with the changes in Special Ed. regulations and current trends in the field as well as personal interests such as gardening and Italian cooking. Looking forward to learning more after a relaxing weekend.

Wiki or Blog?

I'm just beginning to understand what the difference is between a blog and a wiki. Actually, I really didn't know what a wiki was at all until today. I want to set up some type of information tool for the Special Ed. Program at Doyon but I'm not sure yet if a Website is the way to go or not. Maybe a Website with a Blog?