I have already written blog posts about two big “Aha” moments: 1- realizing on July 4 that I can overcome my fear of technology, 2 – the feeling that this might be what my ELL students feel like while reading nursing textbooks with vocabulary that was way over my head. So now I will write about a slowly building “Aha” that didn’t take place in a single moment.

This 3rd “Aha” includes the realization that people in my area have worse health problems than I thought, that a lot of these problems are linked to diet (diabetes, obesity including morbid obesity, severe pediatric tooth decay, heart disease, kidney failure, etc.), that a lot of these health problems are preventable (or can be managed in a way that reduces the impact), that there are barriers that may not be immediately obvious that prevent people from eating healthier and avoiding damage to their health and premature death (poverty, the high price of foods like fruit and low price of unhealthy foods, the distance to grocery stores in rural areas and high cost of gas, the lack of access to locally grown food in a heavily agricultural area that ships so much of the food out of the area, lack of access to regular medical care through a primary care physician due to lack of health insurance so people avoid going to the doctor or mainly go to the ER, and lack of knowledge about diet and health or not realizing how serious the consequences of poor diet may be), that the cost of all these preventable heath problems have a huge impact on the country’s health care system and its future capabilities.

I am still waiting to have an “Aha” moment about the solutions to these problems. I don’t really know what to think about a lot of the issues, like “To what extent should insurance companies cover medical expenses for problems brought on by people’s choices?”. I asked my mentor if a disease like diabetes or obesity is linked to genetics,  a faulty metabolism, or barriers like poverty, does that mean the person just can’t help it? She said something to the effect that although all those factors are involved, we don’t help anyone by promoting the idea that they have no control over it and no responsibility. I think she said that since it’s an INTERACTION of genetics and environment the disease state won’t manifest itself or won’t be as severe if the person eats a healthy diet, exercises, and/or takes their medicine. She said patients have to let go of the notion, “It’s not fair.” She said, “There is no fair. You take the cards you’re dealt and do everything in your power to make the best of the situation. You eat right. You exercise. And you take your medicine.” I’m still trying to figure out how we can make that more doable for people with economic barriers. I want to talk with my students about these types of issues and I hope I can figure out how to get them to have productive and respectful discussions in which nobody feels disrespected, blamed, misunderstood, or ignored. It would be so wonderful if my students could come up with even small solutions to even parts of the problems that present barriers to good health in our county. If any of you have any thoughts on this, please share them with me.

One thing that is an impediment to my ability to implement new technology is the time factor. It takes time for me to learn about and experiment with new technology, and it also takes an amazing amount of time to do what every teacher does every day just to prepare and teach good lessons, tutor, grade papers, talk to students, talk to parents, grade papers, sponsor clubs, attend meetings, and on and on. So ANY initiative that takes additional time will compete with time I could spend on preparing to implement new technology. This is no reflection on the quality or the content of the Common Core. It’s just a matter of  having enough time that most impacts my implementation of new technology. Whoa!! I just realized that’s a step forward for me. It used to be my fear of technology that was the main impediment. Now I really want to spend more time exploring technology, but I’m already feeling the time squeeze as the end of summer approaches and as writing my unit plan for the Kenan Fellows Program is taking a whole lot of time.

When I stop and think about it, I guess there are a lot of ways this experience at the hospital will connect to my curriculum, the students in my Biology class and even students at my school who are not in that class. Spending half a day shadowing healthcare professionals in almost ever clinical area and eating lunch in the hospital cafeteria has given me an opportunity to talk with many different people. So many of my students want to go into healthcare professions and now I will be better able to advise them about different careers, training, volunteer opportunities, internships, and graduation project advisors. I hope to have my mentor and the Nutritionist speak to my class and I will pass on information to my guidance counselor about people who may be potential community partners. The Latino Access Coordinator volunteered to check community education displays my students prepare in Spanish.

I hope that the Project Based Learning (PBL) lesson I am working on will make a big difference in my Biology students’ learning next semester and that they will make a big difference in the community as a result of the community education component of the project. I asked my mentor what were the biggest health problems in Duplin County and one of them was diabetes. I learned that so many problems are linked to diabetes: obesity, kidney damage, eye damage and blindness, nerve damage and amputations, heart disease and strokes, peripheral artery disease, and more. So we will do a PBL unit the extends over the course of the whole semester and connect what we are learning in Biology to diabetes whenever possible. (I’ve never created such a big PBL before, so I’m a little nervous about this.) There will be a number of major projects including presentations at an elementary school and displays that could be put in the hospital lobby, doctor’s offices, an optometrist’s office, the library, or other community education venues. Hopefully my students will be engaged and empowered by these projects.

I realized another connection between my externship and my classroom while I was trying to learn background information about diabetes. My mentor lent me a couple very thick textbooks on pathophysiology and pharmacotherapy that were way over my head. I spent a day and a half struggling through pafter page of fine print with each sentence containing 3 or 4 vocabulary words like diabetic ketoacidosis. It was so frustrating, overwhelming and tiring. I wondered if this is what it’s like for ESL students in my science classes where the academic vocabulary has so many words you don’t come across in everyday life. I have been thinking about what I need to do differently for those students and if any of you have suggestions, please let me know!!

My guess is that everyone else’s greatest challenge for leveraging technology to empower learning in their classroom is that they don’t have enough devices available at their school. Well that is not my problem. We have enough devices. My biggest challenge for leveraging technology is me. I am not as young and tech-savvy as the rest of you. I lag behind the other teachers at my school at incorporating technology into my lessons. Tech workshops strike fear into my heart under the best of conditions and after the WI-fi connectivity issues and my own information overload on Tuesday at NCCAT, I didn’t even want to do my online time log. But I guess yesterday I had a breakthrough. I spent almost all day looking at the software and apps mentioned at the NCCAT workshop…calmly! I have never in my life spent most of a day exploring new technology anxiety-free and actually “getting it”. I’m old school and my learning style isn’t to “just play with it” like younger people do. But I discovered I could watch videos and read directions and descriptions (I guess even teachers need differentiated learning) and understand it. I looked at 11 different types of software or apps and took notes on 7 of them. Now I’m thinking about asking my Principal if she would like me to share this info with the other teachers either during a meeting or as a handout or email. I think what gave me the push to overcome the challenge is the supportive atmosphere created by Craig, Lisa, the Duplin County teachers, and all the rest of you during our week at NCCAT coupled with the expectation that we would use more technology in our lessons and in our classrooms.

Now I have a question for all of you about online note-taking. When I read one of the blogposts on the Evernote site, I got the impression that you couldn’t have a team of students working on the same document at the same time – they each would have to email documents to each other. Do you have any thoughts on what is the best way for a group to take notes at the same time from different sources on a single master document which could be shared on different computers/devices after they leave school?