One Way to Collaborate

I recently read an article about learning and networking using blogs as the piece of communication.  This article talks about how blogs have positively affected companies and schools when people create their own blog for answering questions and getting feedback from others.  These establishments value the sustained conversations they can have with each other and the collaboration they find when they utilize a tool like a blog.  In general, this article talks about the effects and implications of using a blog and/or blogs to communicate within an organization.  I can relate this to my goals of collaboration with my colleagues and parents and will use this article to show that blogging is an effective tool in communicating ideas and questions.  Here is the citation for my article:

Karrer, T. (2007). LEARNING AND NETWORKING WITH A BLOG. T+D, 61(9), 20-22. Retrieved from Academic Search Complete database.

Introduction

Welcome to my blog! I am a special education teacher in the Manitowoc Public School District and have been for teaching two years.  I realize that this is not a long time but I decided to create this blog in hopes to increase the collaboration with parents and colleagues from not only in my community, but all around the world.  Communication is a huge factor in the process to helping our students be successful as lifelong learners.  I want to work together with you to try to increase the communication and collaboration with teachers and parents so we can work together and leave no child behind.  As a special education teacher, I am a valued resource to teachers and students so they both can be successful in and out of school.  In order to do this more effectively I wanted to compile a list of resources, helpful strategies, a place for questions, and a way for me and others to post responses to topics we discuss in this blog.

Here are just a few questions I have, feel free to post about any of them.

Have you created a blog?
What are some helpful ways you use it in your classrooms?
How can special education teachers better serve our students?
What do you think about inclusion?
How do you feel about team teaching?
What are the different kinds of team teaching that you see?
How can I better communicate with parents/caregivers?
What resources would you like to see on this blog?
What are some strategies and/or instructional methods you use with your students who need an alternate or modified curriculum in order to be successful?
What publications, articles, and people have you used to inspire you or give you new ideas (i.e. "The Sisters," The Daily Five, Lucy Calkins)?

Feel free to add to my questions.

Strategies and Useful Information

I found these wonderful resources through my graduate course and wanted to post them here.  I believe I can use these blogs to find new and intriguing strategies to use with students, parents, and teachers.  If you would like to check them out as well here they are.

Michelle's Special Education Blog

Mrs. Thorp's Third Grade Blog

Check these out and let me know what strategies you think are valuable to use or would you like to add.

Collaboration

         At the beginning of each year I renew my goal of collaborating with other special education teachers, classroom teachers, specialists, and other colleagues on a weekly basis.  I value this time spent with my associates because it gives me a chance to get on the same page with schedules, assignments, updated information, student work, and any questions the others have for me or a time for them to answer my questions.  It is also a GREAT way to learn some new strategies, find valuable feedback, get answers to questions, and learn from others that have been teaching longer.  However, I find that as the year goes on, the time I spend collaborating becomes less and less because of time restraints, schedule changes, and every known excuse in the world.  Whether teachers are busy and/or I'm working on something that just came up, I will sometimes miss my scheduled times with certain people. I feel really bad because this is a time that I feel is necessary to create a collaborative effort on the subject of our students that we share.  Knowing what each of us is doing and how we can connect it to the classroom is HUGE and for us to not be on the same page, we are just doing a disservice to our students and their education.  But what do we do then?  Sometimes we are able to reschedule in the unlikely event of having another spare 20 minutes in our schedules.  We could also just skip that week and make notes for next week.  I have tried creating a wiki to encourage more online discussions and collaboration, but technology takes some time to learn and become valued.  I'm not sure where to turn for ideas on collaboration, so I am posting to see if anyone else has ideas.  Or do you think that creating a blog will lead to better collaboration?  Thoughts?  Ideas?