Journal Review

I read an article that provides a list of online resources and web 2.0 technologies for new special education teachers. I would recommend that any new teacher, or any teacher looking for some new resources, to read this article and browse through these free online resources.

Article citation:
Billingsley, B., Israel, M., & Smith, S. (2011). Supporting New Special Education Teachers: How Online Resources and Web 2.0 Technologies Can Help. TEACHING Exceptional Children, 43(5), 20-29.

This article reports the top areas of concern for new special education teachers and provides a handful of online web resources for each area of need. The top six new teacher concerns are: content knowledge and standards, effective instruction, assessment, behavior management, collaboration with others, and managing the job/handling stress.  This article offers a variety of resources for the new special education teacher, and there are many more resources available that were not included. I found the table presented in the article most beneficial because it organizes and summarizes so many resources in one easy to read location. It would be a great document for any teacher to print or save and refer to when needed.

One disadvantage of the article and table however, is that the reader must go to the web address of interest and do his/her own reading about the topic. Although it is great that these online resources offer so much information about specific topics of concern or need, while browsing through some of them myself, I found them very overwhelming. It can be hard for new teachers especially to find what they need if they aren’t sure what they’re looking for to begin with. Sometimes too much information is not helpful.

This article would be valuable for beginning general education teachers to become familiar with as well. I would imagine that new general education teachers have many of the same concerns as new special education teachers and some of the resources may provide helpful solutions or insight for them as well. In fact, I bookmarked the website http://iris.peabody.vanderbilt.edu/resources.html which offers great advice and strategies for classroom behavior management that I plan to use this school year for my own benefit.

Another area the article explores is online social media as a collaborative, supportive environment for teachers.  The benefits of these kinds of sites are endless and it provides new (and veteran) teachers access to other teachers all over the world who can share their experiences, advice, questions, and knowledge with anyone who seeks it. After reading this article, I find myself wanting to learn more about Wikis and how they can benefit me and my teaching.  

It is becoming more and more important for teaching professionals at all stages (new, veteran, master teacher, etc) to become aware of all the incredible resources that are available on the internet and for no cost! While it can be time consuming and overwhelming to dive into some of the resources out there, the benefits can be huge. This article will surely aid new teachers in finding some helpful web resources for those areas of concern.