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In the United States, 17.3 million people of all ages with have asthma, according to estimates by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. One child in 13 (about 5 million) has been diagnosed with asthma, making it the most common chronic illness of childhood (Adams & Marano, 1994). Adams, P.F. & Marano, M.A. (1994). Current estimates from the National Health Interview Survey. Vital Health Statistics 1995, 10(193), 1094.
In the school district where I work Asthma is taken very seriously. Our goal is to have a plan for each child with Asthma, and for the students to have access to their medications as well as a Registered Nurse available to assess their condition. The School Nurses work very hard to educate teachers, staff, administrators, and parents on how to help students manage their Asthma in the school setting.
This school year I noticed a gap in the education we provide. I found students that students were coming to the Health Office with breathing problems, and they were unable to describe their symptoms, and some were even unaware that they had Asthma. It was time to educate students themselves on Asthma management.
I did not find Asthma education materials on the Internet that I thought would be appropriate for my students, so I made my own. It was made with software called ezedia, and requires the ezedia player. We decided to keep track of the students’ peak flow measurements, so important because the students could not always tell us if they were in distress. The Cornell University has a great website with medical calculators, and we used their online peak flow calculator. You have to know the student’s height, and the calculator will tell you what the expected normal peak flow should be. If you also input their current peak flow, it will tell what percentage of normal the meqasurement was. That number should be more than 80%. Since internet access is not always possible, I added formulas to a spreadsheet I found.
Lulu just before the dog agility exhibition. She owns ten dogs, four of them are certified therapy dogs.
Last year some of our school administrators came up with the idea to have a program where a dog comes to school to help struggling students to read. Supposedly it is research-based, and I did find an article in National Geographic about it. A Librarian I know said she knew of another situation where children read to pigs. The thinking is that the animals will not judge a child’s reading ability. I found out about the program when I saw this little white ball of fluff prancing through our carpeted library leaving a trail of dander behind it. About two years ago a parent in another school insisted on bringing her family dog into a classroom to help her disabled son socialize. In both of these situations nobody thought to take into account the numerous children in our schools with asthma and allergies. In the second situation there were two children exposed to the dog who became so ill that they were in the Emergency Room that evening. When I mentioned this to my administrators, I was verbally attacked, “Whenever I try to do something good, there is somebody to ruin it”.
Our school has over 200 asthmatic children, and several others with severe dog allergies. I tried to suggest a process where this could be set up, such as screening the participants. I was met with resistance and labeled a dog hater.
I was able to work with my Medical Director, and she contacted my principal to come up with a plan. First the School Nurse examined the list of participants to see if they had medical conditions that would be a problem if they were near a dog. Students that were medically cleared had to have parental permission, and the parents had to state that their children did not have a problem being exposed to dogs. Then administrators chose a somewhat segretated area of the school where the dogs and children could meet. That area could not have a rug or cloth surfaces where dog hair and dander could linger. The custodians were in on the plan as well. They agreed to clean the reading area after the dog left.
When it came time to start the reading, things went off without incident. I am not sure how much it helped the students, from what I understand they still have difficulty reading. I am still trying to shake my reputation as a dog hater. I have nothing against our canine friends, but we have to care about the humans as well.
Filed under: Technology is Your Friend | Tags: Health, Obesity, School Health Resources, School Nurse
A 2004 health survey of New York third-graders found that 21 percent were obese. Starting this school year, New York state is going to track obesity in schools outside NYC. I think it is great, School Nurse have been taking heights and weights on all our students for years. We use this information to counsel individual parents if their child has growth/weight issues or an eating disorder. Now there is an opportunity to use the information we collect and make a difference in the health of our entire population. I am hoping that we will be able to get funding for wellness programs and Health teachers at the elementary level.
In New Rochelle have database software called eschool plus that at this point is used mostly for managing demographic and attendance information on our students. There seems to be potential for using eschool for managing medical information, but at this point its usefulness is limited as far as the Nurses are concerned. My boss’s secretary, Ginny, is a genius, she figured out a way to use eschool to gather heights and weights for this mandate. The program automatically calculates BMIs, and can export them in Excel. Our department can meet the state requirements with some extra training and effort.
Some of the Nurses in our district got together today to firm up how we are going to gather, save, and submit the BMI information. Ginny whipped up a training program “BMIs in eschool for Dummies” that was great. she showed us how to do searches, and input growth information on individual students. I figured out how to enter growth information on an entire class on one screen, saving time. Ginny and I are going to post directions in a day or two.
The School Nurses have a staff meeting every September where the Director of Health Services, Dr. Adrienne Weiss, goes over changes in policy and department goals for the year. In her Powerpoint presentation, she stated one of her objectives was for the Nurses to become more comfortable using technology to make our administrative work more efficient and to collaborate. She offered to send us to classes or get individual instruction from the Technology dept. It is understood that I will be available to my colleagues for tutoring and troubleshooting. As the department’s geek I am always helping my fellow Nurses how to make life easier through the use of the computer.
When I first started working for Health Services in New Rochelle, our records and letters were hand written. Even our forms were filled out by hand. I am basically a lazy person, and I could not see wasting my time by writing the same 3 sentences on the charts of 300 new students each year. I figured out a way to get Word to print those 3 sentences exactly on the pre-printed lines of our medical records cards. I then got software from Caere called Omniform. It lets you create or just fill in forms on the computer. I am fortunate that my boss is supportive of my efforts.
In her department orientation presentation this year, my boss showed clip art of a computer that she customized with text of my motto, “Technology is Your Friend”. The other Nurses in my office have decided to embrace that idea. Instead of having me do all the streamlining on the computer, they want to learn how I use data bases, spreadsheets, and mail merging to make our work more efficient. After showing my co-worker how to filter information on our kindergarten students out of the schools database, it was very gratifying to hear her say, “Technology really is your friend”.
My school was unexpectedly closed for the entire Summer due to construction issues. That left me with no time to get my allergy/asthma/medical alert lists together for distribution the first week of school. In order to keep track of health problems, I use Microsoft Access. It was hard to learn, but worth the effort. I tried Excel, but when other people went to filter and sort information, the columns became misaligned. It took me weeks to redo. I find that the information in Access is harder to accidentally screw up or delete. I took a course at BOCES that was helpful in learning both of these programs. Because I keep my database updated and accurate, I was able to quickly update the grades of the children in the medical alert table in access, and distribute the information to administrators and staff. In this case technology was not just a friend but a lifesaver.
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I am a worry wort, but that is my job. As a School Nurse for 850 children I have to plan for asthma attacks that may never occur, bees that may never sting and peanuts hidden deep in the list of food ingredients. My motto is, “not on my watch”.
I went on a field trip with 135 first-graders to the Bronx Zoo last week. I actually volunteered for trip duty this time; I do not mind all the walking, seeing the elephants for the umpteenth time, or the smell of zoo-doo. Many of the teachers I went with are seasoned professionals, and have done the Bronx Zoo trip numerous times. The trip was not on Wednesday, where the admission fee is optional, and the crowds are huge. The whole event seemed well planned.
The decision to have a School Nurse go on a trip is complicated. It depends on the medical needs of the children, where the class is going, how long they will be gone, and which parents are going. If my students go on a bus trip to the High School Planetarium on the other side of town, a Nurse may not go since the School Nurses there can handle anything that comes up. This time it was clear-cut, there is a first grader with a seizure disorder who requires immediate instillation of valium into her rectum if she has a seizure. Her parents could not go on the trip, and I could not delegate this task to a teacher or a chaperone. There was also a child on the trip with cerebral palsy. He can only walk short distances, so I reserved a wheelchair for him. I was told it would be left at the bus entrance with his name on it.
The Zoo is less than 20 minutes away from school, but it took us over a hour and a half to get there. Much of the time we spent in traffic one block away from the zoo waiting to get into the parking lot. When we finally got to the zoo entrance, we were turned away because it was full. We showed the parking permit we had purchased, but this did not matter. We had to park on the streets of the Bronx, wherever we could find spots for 4 buses. Our group became split up into 4 groups, as we had to just get off wherever we could park. Even though we had cell phone contact with each other, the crowds made it impossible to join each other. There were hundreds of other schoolchildren crowding the streets and zoo entrance. I aged 10 years getting the children through the entry gate. The zoo overbooked. I have never seen it so crowded, and there did not seem to be many zoo employees around to help.
My first graders did not have a good time. Because of the delay getting into the zoo and the huge number children we did not get to see many exhibits. They were irritable from waiting so long, and did not seem to enjoy the trip as much as they could have. Just waiting on line for the bathrooms became an ordeal. I resorted to commandeering the men’s room for the girls in my group that were waiting on a ladies room line over 20 minutes. We had to eat lunch in a rush while sitting on a wall. I was separated from my child with cerebral palsy, and later discovered that he had to struggle to walk the long distance from the bus to the zoo entrance. I arranged for him to have a wheelchair at the zoo, but it was waiting for him at the parking lot that we were not allowed to enter. I am grateful that none of the children were lost ot injured, something that could have easily happened given the situation.
I began to think of the whole point of field trips. Many of the trips I see are of questionable educational value, and not worth the time away from instruction, the expense, or the risk to student safety. Some trips are part of a school’s tradition, and nobody stops to think about what the students are supposed to gain from the trip. For some families in my school, eleven dollars is a big deal. I think the 1st graders could have had a better time, with less expense, if some animal educator came to school with a few portable creatures. With the internet, a smartboard, and good planning you can have a lovely virtual field trip. I emailed the principal and all staff with my suggestions, and this has triggered much discussion. The principal agrees that the annual 1st grade Bronx Zoo trip needs to be evaluated. Some teachers are upset with me, saying that the children would not otherwise be able to visit a world class zoo, and that I worry too much. Others are relieved that they may not have to maintain the zoo ritual. No matter how the matter ends up, at least we are all thinking about trips. There is a teacher’s guide for planning a good virtual field trip, thinkport guide that I am thinking about passing along when the dust settles. As a result of all this, I found these zoo cams, and I love checking in on the pandas from the comfort and safety of my school. pandacam ferrett cam monteray multicreature webcams
I see Kindergarten registration as an opportunity to get to know my incoming students and their families, and use the interview as a “teachable moment”. For some students, it will be the only time I will ever meet with their parents. I am frustrated by the limited amount of time I am able to spend with each family. I give each family a written packet of information including forms for a check-up, forms for a dental exam, Health Office policy, and community health resources. I have most of my paperwork translated into Spanish so I can better communicate with the large Hispanic population here.
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Just before school closed for vacation the school secretary caught me getting my inter-office mail and told me that she tried to send me an email and it would not go through. Apparently my e-mailbox was full. I had been feeling like I has a bad case of information overload, and now I had proof. I was ready for vacation. My boyfriend and I had a trip to Arizona planned for February break. We both lead very hectic lives, and I wanted us to get away to find some peace and quiet. On the technology packing list were my blackberry, Sony PSP, travel speakers for when I play music on the PSP, digital camera, and laptop. I planned on checking on the family business by email, working like crazy online to finish my assignments for school, testing out the new camera, and maybe using the PSP to entertain myself on the plane. I had a minor meltdown when my boyfriend suggest I leave the laptop home when suitcases started getting too full. After take off I could not wait for the flight crew to announce ” and you may now use approved electronic devices “.
Arizona was very relaxing, I had more down time than I am used to having. I got to thinking about how part of personal growth comes from taking time to reflect on life, evaluating, and thinking of ways to improve. I came to the conclusion that instead of working harder to keep on top of my messages, work responsibilities, and school work, I had to get further away from it. I did not fax or check my voicemail, and email while I was away. I did not go to my wiki, blog, or Google docs to work on any my projects for school. I did no school work at all, and decided that business affairs and messages would all be there when I got back. Did I go technology cold turkey? No, I employed it but sparingly. I used the computer for a total of 20 minutes to find fun activities when plans changed, the PSP to play relaxing music, and the camera to preserve wonderful memories. I am not sure if I will be more productive when I get back to life because I took time out for myself. Sometimes my computer works better when I turn it off for a little while and let it reset. Maybe I will also.
Photo by pxlpusher
Yesterday was a day of frustration for me, I was trying to get technology to work for me, and it was not cooperating. Some folks had the same frustration with their presentations. Sometimes life feels like we are swimming upstream, which brings me to Task Stream. I got on to the Task Stream site and have been working on finding my way around. I made some mistakes, and I thought that maybe I could be of help to my fellow classmates. Task Stream looks looks a powerful tool, but I found it intimidating. There are some tutorial manuals, but I could not find them readily. The site uses frames, and there is no option to remove frames, so I cannot even give you specific sites to go to for help.
I had already signed up for Task Stream and paid for three years, and you have to start by doing that. When I log in I am on a page called Programs and Folios. Make sure you go to “self enroll” and put in that number that was given to us. This is where I wasted time. You have the ability to see course resources and send assignments, but you cannot see these unless you enroll. On the Programs and Folios page you will see, My Programs/DRF and below it you will see M. S. in Instructional Technology Overview and Resources: View. That takes you to a page where there are tutorials on using Task Stream. I built my web page, and moved everything from my wiki or blog as best as I could. Be mindful that Task Stream has a limit of 900 characters per page. A space counts as a character, so if you single space, you can get more on a page. I had to split some of my wiki pages into two Task Stream pages. I put some assignments on my web page, but the exemplar is considered a keystone assignment, so it has to be submitted via the called “Directed Response Folios” or as it is seen around the site DRF. The area called “Directed Response Folios” has a blank outline of all the keystone assignments we will submit over the months to come for all courses. I submitted my exemplar, but be warned. Once you hit “submit” the work is locked, you cannot take it back. I found out the hard way when I went to tweak my exemplar. I clicked on it to open it about 20 times, and realized that there was a little tiny picture of a small padlock next to my file for a reason. I have been relaxed about tweaking assignments on my wiki and blog, fixing typos, adding sentences, and rephrasing things. You cannot do that here.
Here is a link to a tutorial on Task Stream Beginner’s Guide for Students and this is the form we need filled out for our field experience Field Experience Documentation Form. Student Guide to Submitting Work is the tutorial I wished that I had found before submitting my work into Pete. Any tips for using Task Stream you all want to share with me please do so by comments or email. We are all swimming in this together, sometimes I feel like there is so much information that I am going to drown, lets help each other get to shore.
I thought I was the only one frustrated by the internet filter at school. Talking to several teachers I found that was not the case. Some teachers said that they do not bother trying to get sites unblocked, they just find other sites to use. I spoke with the computer lab teacher’s assistant, and he said that there is an override code that can be used. He has the code and has used it, but then he gets an email from the head of technology questioning his use of the site. He also said that it was going to become a union issue, as teachers on the secondary level find that they are particularly hampered with new sites being blocked every day. I plan on contacting the union to see if we can form a committee to discuss this further, and come up with a workable solution. I also need to find out exactly how sites get blocked in the first place, and the procedure for a staff member to request that a site get unblocked. I want to support the Weight Watchers group in my building, and I need to come up with a good argument for getting access to the WW site, especially since it is not strictlty related to student education.
If I want to see things change, I will have to look at sort of like going on a diet. Things did not get this way overnight, and they will not change dramatically in a day. I will educate myself on the right things to do, translate that into little things I can do regularly, get together with like-minded people who are also trying to improve the state of things and watch progress take place.
Since I started taking EDIT 603 I found numerous resources on the internet that have endless possibilities for stimulate learning and improve productivity. I am beginning to think of ways to use them today. I thought that the School Nurses could use a wiki to collaborate on revising department policy manuals without having meetings, share websites via delicious, and use a blog to give tips on dealing with day to day issues. Last week at lunchtime I went on my computer at work to update my delicious account, wiki and blog. I found that the school’s filter blocked these sites. I knew that I would not get into my flickr account since recently the district blocked all Yahoo sites. There is an automatic message to contact the head of tech for access to these sites. I know better than to try.
Last year a staff member told me that she had tried to access the Weight Watchers website from school and it was blocked. She emailed the IT dept to say she had just formed a WW group at school, and needed access to the site for information and inspiration. The head of tech emailed her back a picture of a seagull and said to use that for inspiration instead because the WW site was not going to be unblocked. When I heard this story, I thought there was a misunderstanding. I emailed the head of tech and explained that in accordance with the district’s wellness policy, we were starting a WW group at my school, and would like access to the WW site. She emailed me back to say that the site was going to remain blocked. Period. Apparently the district’s policy is to block any site that had a bulletin board, chat, forum or ability to email.
I know we need to keep the district’s network secure, and students and staff safe while on the internet. Isn’t this an overreaction? How are teachers supposed to incorporate Web 2.0 applications in the classroom if so many if them are blocked and censored? Getting sites unblocked is literally fighting City Hall.
There will be some teachers who will be able to have specific sites unblocked, however the majority of teachers will still be unable to access many of the sites they want. It is easier just to keep sites heavily filtered and blocked. The district policy of blindly blocking any interactive site is going to hamper innovation. For web 2.0 to succeed in our district internet policy needs to be re-evaluated.
