We're in love...

On Saturday, I posted about Pinterest. Today I am going to show you how I've been using Pinterest for my early intervention work. I began by just looking at all of the different boards out there, and as I mentioned, like Alice you can find yourself in a any number of crazy places!  So let's backtrack and talk about how I found some of my pins.  

Once I realized that I wanted to collect pins that reflected images around early intervention and assistive technology I first searched the kids section. There I found many other images from OTs, PTs, and SLPs and teachers. Then I went back to some of my tried and true websites and started pinning those images as well.  And then I thought, wait a second, I am repinning from others, why not invite those folks to pin to my board?  And you should see how it has exploded, I've added a dozen followers, too!   

Here's another shot of my EI Board, which you can follow here: http://pinterest.com/caseywaid/ei-ideas/

Are you using Pinterest?  If so, I'd like to follow you and read about what you are doing with your boards.

Whew...we're back!

Last month we talked about using Delicious for keeping track of our bookmarks. In the weeks since, we've found that many of our friends are more excited by Pinterest. Pinterest is an app (or application) that can be used as an add-on to Facebook or separately. To use Pinterest, one must be invited by another user. It seems to take some folks a little time to get the hang of how it works, this post will explain how we are using it. Once you've gotten over those hurdles the fun begins!  

Pinning as a way to Bookmark

Pinterest really comes out of the design world. Users have boards, think inspiration boards or bulletin boards. Onto which they "pin" images. You can then follow other users, their individual pins or just repin their finds to your own boards. When you first join you start with some generic boards, onto which you can pin your first finds. You can also create your own boards, with their own names. The fun is watching what is hot and popular (more on that later).  

As someone who doesn't self-identify as particularly crafty or arty I was a reluctant pinterest user. But I can safely say that I have both gotten the hang of it and I'm having fun! My neighbors are both crafty and involved in architecture and design so their boards have lots of design ideas, they separate them out by color or period. Meanwhile, not suprisingly, I am using some of my boards to collect ideas around early intervention and assistive technology, as you may be able to see here: http://pinterest.com/caseywaid/ei-ideas/

Popular Pins

One can find, that like Alice you drop into a rabbit hole when hanging out on Pinterest, so beware! You can view all pins, or search by categories, you can get lost, nah sucked into viewing loads of boards and pins! Then you may even find yourself down at the IKEA searching for spice racks that will make the most marvelous little bookshelves...found on this great blog:  theplanetpink.com . Unfortunately, our local IKEA is out of stock on this lovely item...they pegged me immediately as a Pinterest user, and said that though the folks over at http://www.ikeahackers.net/ had been at this for much longer it wasn't until Pinterest that they really saw DIYers who intended to hack their wares for other purposes.  

Hacking Pinterest

And my use of Pinterest to track early intervention strategies and assistve technology would probably fit under the heading of Pinterest hack. It can be hard to predict which social media site or app will be popular. I will probably use both Delicious and Pinterest for now. Let me know which ones you are using and how you are using them!

Bookmarking

With so many websites, videos, and blogs out there, bookmarking is even more important than ever. We are currently grooving on the new Delicious site to keep track of our bookmarks. The new Delicious allows you to create stacks, or interest areas, identify images from the website, etc., and share your stacks with others. You can also follow others stacks.


Why Bookmark?
We would argue why not. But, O.K., we'll bite. Delicious, Reddit, Digg, and other Bookmarking sites, allow you to create lists of sites so that you can quickly find those sites,even when away from your own computer.  Here's an interesting overview of how to use social bookmarking sites, I haven't decided if I completely like the aesthetic, let me know what you think: social bookmarking know how


What Are We Bookmarking?
This week we were researching Assistive Technology, and each time we found a new bookmark we quickly added it to our stack. We can share our stack via email, links or they can be found by other Delicious users who can follow our stack. We can also search Delicious for other stacks.


What Will You Bookmark?
What bookmarks will you create? What will you include in your stacks?

More on Using Webinars to Inform

Preparing to Present

In our last blog posting, we talked about how to develop an engaging webinar. Now let's turn our attention to the next steps for insuring that your webinar is successful. Once you have your presentation prepared, it is important to practice, practice, practice. I personally don't advocate creating a very tight script, but you should have a loose script for each slide. Your audience can tell if you are reading your script, and to be frank, if that's what you are doing, they'd rather you emailed them the script and let them read it.  Decide beforehand how you'l handle the chat.  Will you, as the presenter, scan the chat and read it aloud? Will you have the producer read the questions/comments at certain points during the presentation? You will notice that I have only spoken about how to minimize the cognitive load of the learner--I don't want to scare you, but the cognitive load on the presenter is quite high. So be prepared. I estimate that the load is twice as high as a F2F training. You will be tired--but if your learners enjoyed your session and got a lot out of it it is all worth it.

Preparing for Disaster
OK, that sounds bad, but really, it is important to think about what you will do if the video suddenly crashes, or if the audio isn't working.  I use two computers whenever I am presenting. I log in to one as a moderator and the other as a guest. That way if one suddenly crashes, I can hopefully stay connected via the second one. I prefer using VOIP to present, but will call-in using a phone line in a pinch. You should be very familiar with how to troubleshoot the audio and video before your first webinar. I also print out a copy of my PowerPoint--I lie, I print out two, one has each slide individually, the other has the outline with the trainer notes. I also prefer to give learners a second phone number and email address that will connect them directly with the producer. That way, everyone on the line isn't listening as the producer troubleshoots Susie's problems with her java download. Once I have my redundancies in place, I hope for the best and if the worst happens I try to keep calm and carry on. Remember, your learners won't know if things are not going as planned if you don't let them know!  

Informing Using Webinars

Webinars
Hosting webinars, and recording for later viewing, is another way that we can inform and support families and professionals. But it is important to understand that a webinar is not as simple as taking your current face-to-face presentation and showing it via the internet. All learning requires that the learner take their current knowledge, examine the new information and somehow combine the two. While webinars mean that learners can do this from the comfort of their living rooms, it also means that they have many more distractions--dogs, kids, Facebook, email. You get the picture. But have no fear, there are ways to grab their attention, keep it and inform them! 

Developing Instruction
Think about what your audience wants to learn. How will you help them combine this new knowledge with what they already know? To be useful, your instruction must meet their needs. Do not to overload them--really think through if you need that animation or audio clip.  Balance using the available technology with its usefulness. It is important to base your instruction on how people learn. Thankfully there is plenty of evidenced-based practice in this area. If you have both words and pictures on a page, place your words near the pictures. A separation of words and pictures tells the brain that it is looking at two different ideas. You are already asking the brain to work hard, don't mistakenly ask it to overwork.

Engaging the Learners
One of the advantages of a webinar, or synchronous learning environment, is the interactivity.  You can post a poll, ask people to raise their hands, answer questions using the microphones or in the chat box. If you want your audience to interact, you should begin your session asking folks to answer a question. Where is everyone?  Are they at home? the office? When planning out your presentation think about natural points where you can check in with your learners. This helps them stay engaged. With a webinar you need to be more deliberate than in an face-to-face (F2F) training. In a F2F training you know if the room is with you, against you or asleep! Online, you've got limited ability to see what others are up to--some webinars allow you to "peek" at your learner's desktop--but it seems too "Big Brother" for me! Rather than stalk your learners, make sure you are more engaging than Farmville! One way to prepare participants that you are expecting this to be a two-way interaction is to open the room early, begin to engage with participants using the available technology. I often open up the webinar room a half-hour before the session, which means that my producer (the person who handles all of the technical aspects of the training) and I are "in" the room about an hour before the session.  We have the PowerPoint loaded, we've checked the audio, the call-in line, etc. And we hope, fingers crossed, that we don't have any glitches.

Community of Practice

Professional Development
Another way to inform and support is to create a Community of Practice (COP). As long as the internet has been around, there have been COPs. Sometimes these were accomplished using listserves. A local or national group would create a listserve and invite people they know to join.  In the last few years COPs have migrated to sites like Ning! The T A and D Network, a network of programs funded by OSEP has had COPs for some time and is now using a Ning site as well (You can see more on OSEP here or here). To operate a COP like the one used by TADNET, requires paying the fees required by Ning! and hoping that folks can find your COP, or you can simply join TADNET.

Part C Regulations

In my last post, I discussed how one might use social media to inform families and the field about potential policy changes.  Today, I'll talk about real policy changes that will have impacts on early intervention.  The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, was reauthorized in 2004, and the final regulations were just released in September of 2011.


Reviewing the Regulations
Many groups reviewed the proposed regulations.  In 2009, the IDEA Infant and Toddler Coordinator's Association (ITCA), Part C Coordinators for many states, worked with the Division of Early Childhood of the Council of Exceptional Children (DEC) to produce joint comments.    The Early Intervention Family Alliance,  (EIFA), a group of family leaders (disclaimer--I am a Founding Board Member and Past President), submitted comments on the proposed regulations.  More information can also be found at the OSEP-funded National Early Childhood Technical Assistance Center website.