Technology Can Solve Training Problem
By Representative Cam Ward

     Last year I spent a great deal of time touring schools throughout the state as part of my work on the Autism Task Force. One of the biggest issues I discovered was the need for more training to assist teachers in working with children who have special needs. Now this lack of training is not because the teacher does not want to get the training it is just that it can be expensive. Often educators have to travel so far to get the training it is almost impossible and gas prices place an additional strain on their work to get the tools they need.

      As the outlook for Alabama’s education budget continues to darken there is a real fear that many of the services that are needed for children with special needs will be neglected. The next two year promise to be the worst state education budgets in over a decade. A reduction in funding for teacher training is one of biggest areas of concern. So with less money to use on teacher training how do we increase the opportunities for continuing education while not increasing the funding for such programs?

     The answer to this problem is not an easy one so we must be creative in our solutions. Alabama’s ACCESS Distance Learning infrastructure, along with the eLearning for Educators project, offers real possibilities for bringing the training programs to the teachers in their homes. While ACCESS was originally designed to teach kids advanced placement (AP) courses in the classroom, I think it can also be used to provide teachers with access to the best practices in teaching throughout the country. Instead of having to get in your car and pay for a costly trip to a training course in a distant city, imagine if you could turn on a computer in your school and receive the latest training from an expert at the University of Pennsylvania Center for Autism Excellence. The teacher would receive continuing education credits for this training and it would cost little if any money to the school systems that use this service.

     By August of 2009, Alabama is scheduled to have distance learning technology in every school system. With very lean budgets ahead of our state during these tough economic times we need to take advantage of the information technology and use these programs to expand services without the costs typically involved with such efforts. Teachers should be offered every opportunity to have the tools they need to teach our children, why not take advantage of an inexpensive format to do so?