Sometimes my mind is my worst enemy, I love to dream big dreams but that’s is usually where my dreams end, because the next step is always the hardest one for me, I don’t always know how to make my dreams come true. So, what’s my dream? I want to have an action research project that shows through media what it’s like to have Asperger’s Syndrome (AS) to really be able to convey what it is like to live and function in an AS world. What an amazing starting point it would be to show the world that an AD child lives in, what a powerful teaching tool this could be, what a connecting point. I hope that this one dream that will come to life.

Somebody once said, “ The more I know the more I realize I don’t know” and so it is with my research on Asperger’s Syndrome (AS). The deeper I dig the more I find, the more I find the deeper I dig. Sometimes oddly enough it is the search itself that changes the course of the project and then when you least expect it, an epiphany strikes you and realize that the information you’ve been looking for is the project. In essence my action research has become the charge to share with my colleagues what AS is and how to communicate with students afflicted the disease. Hopefully, my passions won’t cloud my desire to have other commit to communicating and entering the world of the AS learner. So off I sail, in a new direction, I hope that waters are smooth and the journey is a rich one.

Hopefully my absence on the blog has been missed but since this is only my second posting, I probably overestimate my importance to my own blog, so where have I been? My Father and believe it or not his twin brother both passed away and I was to their memorial service in Montana. Sometimes delays have wonderful unintended side effects and for me the time away allowed me to step back and get a new perspective on my action research project. Often, I can get so near sighted, that I forget that the project is a larger more encompassing endeavor than my gaze allows it to be.

Oddly enough one of the first people that crossed my path was Robert Tadjiki who is a nationally recognized Life Skills teacher. I told Robert of my action research plan and that the object of my research was Life Skills students and their interaction with electronic media. Robert was excited to say the least and wanted to schedule a coffee date and so Friday afternoon Robert and I are sitting down to plot out a strategy.

In the mean time the ADDIE system has really caught my attention and I find myself thinking about this framework of curriculum development and have caused me to really rethink the way I develop lesson plans and scope and sequence. I’m still looking for tutorial software to start my research with and I have also started to look for training software that has a higher level of cognitive challenge.

Over the many years that I have been teaching adolescents, I have constantly been struck with the amount of time and energy I spend trying to connect with students and their culture. The cornerstone of my teaching has been based on the premise that if I can’t speak the language of my students, I can’t teach as effectively as I should and the learning process is hindered. You might even say that connecting or engaging students has always been my greatest passion throughout my teaching career.

As I reach the twilight years of my career I still have another connection to make, one more language to learn and another culture to enter, the culture of the Life Skills or Special Needs learner. Over the years I’ve noticed a unique connection between my Life Skills student and electronic media and so it is to this observation I make my inquiry and start my research. As I launch into this field, I am as anxious as a first grader on his first day school. I am nervous, excited and entering the experience with some trepidation, but in the final result, I love adventure.