Students have a life outside of school.

It is this life that I got a glimpse of today when I visited a group home where one of my students lives. I was there to attend a transition meeting for this young man. I was struck by how much more meaning and relevance I could have added to my instructional strategy for him had I just known about the kinds of things and activities my student was engaged in at home. I will prioritize home visits whenever possible in the future. I know more meaningful goals and strategies will be the result of my understanding of a student's life outside of school.

Goals for my work on the web.

My goals for creating a wiki for my classroom are to expand the learning which occurs in our classroom to the homes of my students and to bring the needs my students have in their home and non school environments into the classroom. I had hoped to accomplish this by working more closely with caregivers, parents, family and friends and I endeavor to use the wiki as a vehicle to enhance and facilitate communication amongst us. In my looking around the Internet, in search of ideas which I can use to help my students, I discovered the power some educators had found in the use of a blog to collaborate with one another. This blog is my attempt to reach out to parents and other professionals who work for people with severe disabilities for their input, comment, opinion and advise. It is my belief that as Helen Keller said "Alone we can do so little and together we can do so much." I know that by working with and learning from others I can offer so much more to my students than I could working alone.