Hello, my name is Erin Ehly! I live in Omaha, NE with my husband, and I work at Omaha South High School as a special education teacher. I teach students with mild/moderate disabilities in what is known as the "Alternate Curriculum Program." This means that due to the cognitive abilities of my students, they require a specialized curriculum that focuses on daily living skills, vocational skills, and functional academics. I graduated from the University of NE-Lincoln in May 2008 and I have been working at South High School ever since.I have a fair amount of experience with technology. I wouldn't say that I can do everything, but I work with technology on a daily basis and if I do not know how to do something, I tend to learn it quickly. I am definitely more of a Mac person, but I will work with both. My personal computer is a Mac, but my computer at school is a PC. The version of office that I use is Microsoft Office 2008. I try to use technology in my classroom from time to time. We read a weekly newspaper off of the internet and I use a projector connected to the computer to display the newspaper to my students. I have about 8 computers in my classroom and we do educational games/activities on them during the week. I also have to students search the Internet for assignments at times.
The reason that I decided to pursue my Master's degree at PSC is because I was ready to go back to school. It had been two years since I completed my undergraduate degree and I was just ready to get back to school and learn more to enhance my knowledge of things in the classroom. I decided to enroll in PSC because they offered full online classes. I really like online classes and I enjoy completing things on my own at my own pace. I honestly am not sure yet what I want to do with my degree, I just want to be able to learn all that I can. I am pretty excited about taking another technology class, because I believe that I can always add more technology into my classroom.
Welcome to class! I hope you enjoy the course. I have revised the course to incorporate Twitter. I hope you find that to be a valuable way to network with other teachers of students with mild/moderate disabilities. So, being a MAC person, are you ready to get the new iPad? I guess the question should be the black or white one :-).
ReplyDeleteI haven't gotten the Ipad. My Mac Book Pro and Ipod keep me pretty up to date on things. Although, my husband has hinted around about wanting to get one.
ReplyDeleteA friend just brought one over tonight. They are VERY nice! We are testing them out in our district with students in the SPED department. Maybe one will come your way!
ReplyDeleteI am right with you Erin about the structure of classes in this program. It is great to take one class at a time and be able to work through the assignments at your own pace. The break between spring and summer classes will be nice as well!
ReplyDeleteAs for the iPad 2...when I was in San Francisco last weekend about 40 people were lined up outside the Apple store at 7am waiting for the release of the new iPad at 5pm. I couldn't believe that many people would just hang out all day long for a bit of new technology.