Day 1

As I sat in our opening class I was reminded of a comment a colleague had made to me when I considered returning to the classroom.  I had been a high school English teacher, pretty much the easiest gig in education.  My students were happy and some  reported university was easier and less fun than my classes so I was happy.  After several years away from class I; like many education administrators, was becoming frustrated with policy and bureaucracy so yearned to get back to the "simpler life" working with kids.  My older and wiser colleague said, "John, education has moved on, there is no such thing as just teaching anymore."  Pretty sure today convinced me of that.

Throughout the class today, when I was not laughing at myself, I kept thinking of "entry competency" and how far I would have to go to achieve any level of competency in this field.
To put this in context, 13 years ago I completed a Masters in Inclusion, I imagined that would have prepared me for this morning..not at all.

The day started well, an inspiring video, I described it as "joyous", in part because there was obvious joy at the accomplishment but also because, by the time my neighbour helped me to get onto the response site, all the good adjectives had been taken.

Later my new partner ( the first neighbour having recognized that I was going no where fast in this course) and I were assigned two acroyms and a platform... when I looked at the paper that was all I knew, I was looking at two acronyms and a platform.  Luckily my new partner was fearless when it came to technology so, although new to Adobe Spark she set about figuring it out.  I quickly learned that AAC ( not to be confused with ACC) referred to Assistive and Augmentative Communication and VOCA was Voice Output Communication Aids, finally some terms I recognized.

Unfortunately by the time we realized how sketchyvoice recording on Adobe Spark was, we were basically done.  I will also add that the top tutorials on Youtube for Adobe Spark used a platform that looked nothing like ours.

By the time I could truly appreciate the opportunity to view presentation platforms other than Preszi and PPT ( and learn that our presentation would not download into Showbie), class was over.

I did find myself at the end of the class, laughing at myself.

I have signed up hoping to develop a better understanding of tools available to teachers, reaquaint myself with classroom strategies.  As I mentioned at the outset, competency may always be an issue when dealing with Assisitive Technology, however I have  learned that one of the oldest adages remains true...careful what you wish for.