Let's Talk Technology!

Caroline Petersen, M.S., CCC-SLP, Speech-Language Pathologist

My life has been dedicated to helping children address speech and language challenges. Over the past 15 years, I have worked as a Speech-Language Pathologist. My career began at the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota, providing home-based and center-based services to children birth to age 5 in an Early Childhood Special Education program.  Since then, I have worked for the Bellevue Public Schools in Nebraska. Today, I work as a Speech-Language Pathologist at Avery Elementary School in Bellevue, Nebraska.  I am a certified member of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association and a member of the Nebraska Speech-Language-Hearing Association.  I hold a Bachelor of Science degree in Communication Disorders from the University of Nebraska at Kearney and a Master of Science degree in Speech-Language Pathology from the University of Nebraska at Omaha.  

With technology becoming an integral part of the education process, I have taken strides to embrace the various functions and applications available to teachers, students and their parents in engaging multiple channels of learning in today’s classroom.  Continuing education courses offered through the Bellevue Public School System have provided a solid understanding of mainstream social media outlets such as Twitter, Edmodo, and Google Docs.  As these outlets become more popular within the school system, they will be incorporated routinely into learning programs with the school system.  In the interim, however, I have used the Internet to augment traditional learning channels such as text books.  The Internet has been useful in providing access to real life examples in the form of pictures and videos that area useful in emphasizing certain concepts. 

My use of technology has been platform agnostic.  I am proficient in the use of both Mac and PC based systems, which is helpful because some of the leading edge technologies such as the iPad are slowly making their way into the classroom, while school systems tend to rely on the PCs for basic communications.

This blog is intended to document my journey as I experiment with various new technologies and social media outlets in a classroom/school environment.  I hope to address both the challenges and the accomplishments associated with that activity, and am particularly interested in how these mediums impact my students and their parents.