Students have 24/7 access to online learning with Iowa AEA Online.
Students in Deb Henry’s class at Iowa Valley Elementary have been supporting their learning using the resources of Iowa AEA Online.
Iowa AEA Online is funded and supported by Iowa’s Area Education Agencies and is a virtual library provided that provides no-cost access to 12 high-quality, web-based resources for accredited public and non-public PreK-12 schools. Students and staff have access at school and at home.
Henry explained that students are extending their learning in multiple ways. “This year, I am taking a 21st century technology course and have begun implementing the resources I have learned into my classroom along with the Iowa AEA Online resources,” Henry said. “My students are currently working on a state research project. In years past, it has been a paper/ pencil project where students looked up information on the Internet and made a file folder research project.”
“This year, I used the PhotoPeach website for the final product. The students looked up the information on Culture Grams, which is a new Iowa AEA Online resource. Students are learning how to save pictures found in Culture Grams and Google images onto their jump drives that correlated to the information (state symbols, capital, economy, famous people, etc). They then downloaded their pictures onto PhotoPeach and wrote a sentence under each picture to tell the importance of that picture.”
“When we first started, it took 45 minutes to save one picture to the zip drive. Just today students downloaded 15 – 20 pictures with ease onto PhotoPeach. They are now able to look up information, save items to a zip drive, and download information from one place to another with ease. I am amazed at how quick my third graders were able to pick up and navigate through the websites and save information directly related to their content. The students seem to enjoy the digital approach to completing the project.”
Kathleen Goslinga, Grant Wood AEA media assistant, said, “The Iowa AEA Online resources provided students with a safe and reliable area to complete research at an age appropriate level. Students seem enthusiastic with the content and the visuals that support what they are learning.”
AEAs Impacting Lives 