Speech Pathologist use Inkless Resources Paula Sword Henry County Schools

Part of my role as a speech pathologist on Henry County’s leadership team is to seek out and/or develop resources for the more than 50 speech pathologists in the county. Their needs are quite variable within academics, learning styles, ages, and particular student needs. Over time many embraced technology and used it to enhance all facets of speech therapy; others were dragged to the computer kicking and screaming. Now, we are amazed as to its necessity. The budget crunch has caused many to rethink this vital link to learning – the cost of ink for printing has been a huge hindrance.

Among the plethora of speakers at GAETC were several who demonstrated and shared information about websites and tech tips for a wide variety of skill levels. It was perfect! Tammy Worcester, Tony Vincent, and Steve Dembo were very cognizant of the variety of skill levels within their presentations, let alone the redelivery of that information. Patrick Crispen’s updated google tips  and Bernajean Porter’s DigiTales were also packed with specific information that a tech-minded speech pathologist could use to enhance language and reading arts skills. It was an exciting conference!

Title of Sessions: a cross section of several:

                        “Tammy’s Favorite Tech Tips, Tricks, and Tools”

                        “Ten Tools for Teachers”

                         “Keeping Up with the Googlebots”

                         “DigiTales: The Art of Digital Storytelling”

                         “Little Hands, Great Reach”

Presenters: Tammy Worcester, Tony Vincent, Patrick Crispen, Bernajean Porter, Steve Dembo

Once back at school, I then went through my long list of sites to review which would be usable and which would be blocked by our internet security system. That was a little depressing, with almost two-thirds of the sites blocked. From that list however, I generated a one page MS Word document with the hyperlinks to the unblocked sites. All but two on the list could be actively used online without having to print anything.  Other home-accessible sites were listed separately for parent newsletters.

During our December PLU meeting, I was able to redeliver and demonstrate the sites on this document to all the speech pathologists and administrators present. The ripple effect has now been demonstrated, as other teachers, administrators, and those who were not in attendance in our meeting have also been using these sites, such as www.bibme.org to help high school students with bibliographies, www.wordle.net with first graders to work on weekly vocabulary words and use of descriptive language, and the tips on Google for lesson plan ideas related to the inauguration and ideas for the book Martin's Big Words. 

Conferences that are highly informative and immediately useful are always a joy to attend. Way to go GAETC!

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