Literacy Guide Justification
At heart, I am a Special Education Teacher and I know how exhausting and confusing an IEP process can be for all parties involved. I decided to create a literacy guide for parents, guardians and teachers to follow. It supplied the law (IDEA 2004) to be read over, the ten most important steps in the IEP process, linked them to a website that explained the IEP meeting, gave them follow up information (what to do if the IEP should be modified) and a resource to find online support groups. These are the basic parts of the IEP process and what I feel, are the most important.
I used websites as my digital tool; they are fast and easy to use. The websites were all easy to understand, navigate and read. I believe everyone has access to a computer and the Internet (either at home, work, a friend or library) and should be able to quickly link to these websites to gain a better understanding of this topic.
In terms of participatory culture, I think adding the website: www.abilitypath.org was helpful because it brings people with a similar topic (child with special needs) together. Everyone who accesses this web page and participates in it's blogs has a child with special needs and needs advice. If it weren't for Network Neutrality I wouldn't have been able to write my literacy guide in the way I did. Without being able to access the Internet quickly and without any censoring I wouldn't have been able to use websites as my digital tool. When I think back to our advertisement deconstruction assignment it made me look over each one of my websites and how their appearance may effect my population. Each website was aesthetically pleasing; soft colors, inviting images and outlined in an organized and easy to read manner. I was greatly pleased with the "look" of each of my websites and feel like they will help parents to not feel overwhelmed. When looking over week 10 I think about how easy my guide would make it to email information to fellow teachers, parents and guardians. The Internet makes this world much easier to navigate. Being able to find several links (like the ones I have posted), put them into an email, and then send them to several people at once is something that we may just take for granted! Having access to email is a true treasure and we can use it to our advantage!
My hope is that my literacy guide would bring parents, guardians and educators some guidance in an easy to follow and understand way. The basics are broken down and made accessible. My guide relates to several modules in our class; participatory culture, Network Neutrality, Advertisement Deconstruction and Email. Would love for a parent who is struggling to understand the IEP process to utilize my guide and give me feedback on it; does it help or confuse you further?
Hi Christene,
ReplyDeleteI think that this is a great idea for a guide. As a teacher, other than ONE required course that incorporated special education, I never received any additional training about IEPs. Yes, I know what it is and why we have them, but I cannot confidently say that I know the ins and outs to it. We now have all of our students IEPs connected to the same site we enter grades and take attendance with, and to be honest, I find the site awful and it has made IEPs even more "complicated." Something like your guide would be useful during new teacher orientations before the school year starts. Great idea.