Final Reflections

The Game Plan that I have developed is one that will continue to need revision.  One of the concerns that I continue to have is the issue of keeping the students focused on what they need to do and get completed.  This is an issue that I’ve had to combat already.  Only through active monitoring, can I make sure that students are working on what they need to, not what they want to.  One of the steps that I’ve taken is making sure to check the task bar for minimized programs as well as having other teachers come and help me monitor the classroom.  My district is currently looking into purchasing a program where all student computers are linked to the teacher’s computer, where we can monitor in real time what the students are doing.  Yet, until that happens, eternal vigilance is the key word in my class.

How I can integrate technology in my content learning is by seeking out ways to add technology into my lessons.  I need to remember not to make the lesson fit the technology, but to fit the technology into my lesson.  My failure in the past was trying to find technology that taught the lesson in a “fun” way.  I now understand that technology should facilitate the lesson, not be the goal of the lesson.  This is not to say that I will avoid using technology in my lessons, it’s just that the technology will not be the goal.

Using a GAME plan helps me to plan how to integrate the technology into the lesson.  The G helps me to focus on what the goal of the lesson is – teaching the U.S. history concepts for the unit not the technology.  A helps me with how I am going to teach the concept, the action that I am going to be using.  This is where the technology comes in.  I need to fit the technology that will assist the learning.  I think the A in GAME should also be assist as well as action.  The monitoring is the area where I really need some work.  It is often difficult to monitor my students using technology in my room.  Part of the problem is how it is set up.  I have started moving my desks on the days the students are using the laptops, iPods and other technology individually so that I can quickly look at their screens.  I also have other teachers come in and help me monitor.  I really like the E part.  Usually I have them turn in something on paper, like printing the screen or the document.  I always have the students do a reflection on the daily lesson as their “ticket out” of my class.  I just need to remember it is also extend, where I take the lesson to the next level.

Immediate adjustments to my instructional practice are going to have to wait until January, since we are at the end of our semester.  Yet, I am excited to begin using more technology to support not drive my teaching.  Using problem-based learning in my course is easy.  History is based on problems that people in the past had to face and overcome.  What I need to do, is find current events or ways to hook the history to what the students have to face today.  Lately I’ve been using current news events to help generate interest and show the students how history is repeating.  Social networking/online collaboration is difficult to tackle since I have to convince my district to allow it.  They fear that the students will be exposed to dangers on line if I use social networking.  By showing them how it could be beneficial to chat with historians and archeologists, or even students in other parts of the world, perhaps I can get my district to change.  Digital storytelling is the technology from this course that I am really excited to try.  As Dr. Abrams said, I could have students do a historical “who am I?” to help my students review key people and by having them do digital stories about events from the perspective of historical figures, my students will be developing a understanding of social studies concepts which will help them to make sense of the world they find themselves in today and in the future.

GAME plan progress -- Week 4

This week we were asked to reflect on our progress on our GAME plan on addressing two of the NETS-T proficiency standards and any changes we feel that we need to make.  The steps that I have taken toward meeting my GAME plan goals are as follows:

  2a - Design/adapt relevant learning experiences incorporating digital tools.

  I have found this one of the NETS-T easiest to find information for since my district has a very good ITD department that helps out anyway that they can. One of the members came out to my building and helped me with the problem I was having with creating questions and adding them into Active Inspire.  The issue was that I had a newer version of the software that did not fit with the directions that I had to work with.  We created and tested four questions with the students in order to test the software.  I still have not had a chance to check out the resource given to me by my school librarian, but am planning to do so during the holiday.

  I do not feel that I will not need to change my GAME plan on this performance indicator, since I still have many other sites to check out when finding resources to use with my Promethean Board, and now that the issue of creating questions has been resolved, I am looking forward to using this to create new learning activities for my students.

  Questions that I still have fall mainly in the area of how to use technology to further learning experiences in my classroom.  What I mean is, what other resources are out there?  How will these resources improve student engagement and results on assessments?

  After reading this weeks course literature, I am very interested in trying to use more technology in how I assess the students, especially with trying to make sure I am using the techniques that lend themselves to higher level thinking questions like open-based questions and some forced-option questions (written at a higher cognitive level) on a web based platform, might make student engagement and assessment more meaningful for my subject.

  5c - Evaluate and reflect on current research and professional practice

  By the very nature of this blog, I am finding myself reflecting on how I am trying to increase my technology use in my classroom.  I have been talking with members of my ITD department on where technology is heading in my district.  We are currently working toward each classroom having a Promethean Board with a class set of 32 Active Remotes.  The reason why we are taking these steps is in order for the students to be used to using interactive technologies in the future.  I also rely on the optional readings for this course to help monitor technology in the classroom, and am finding myself questioning whether the mandatory use of technology in the classroom is not leaving behind groups of students, who may not be in homes with internet access, or schools that do not have the funds or support for technology the same as mine.

  I do not feel that I need to change my GAME plan on this indicator, either.  What I do need to do is take more active steps in locating information such as searching the Walden Library and subscribing to more technology in education blogs.

  The new learning that I have made is predominately in how to use e-portfolios and how they can be used to to drive assessment and student learning.  I am familiar with paper portfolios, having to keep one when I was taking my education courses for my certification.  I also watched them being used by the science department in my school, until they were banned due to how they were being used, which was not as a forum for the students to showcase their best work, instead as a major assignment that students had to do or fail the course.  I am intrigued with the portfolio as an example of their learning and reflections.  

  So far, there are not really any new questions that I have.  Obviously this may change once I have found some new sources of information and have been able to look it over.  One thing that I am very interested in finding more information on is how the use of social networking can be used in the classroom.  The concern that I have is that most social networking sites lead to the students having no set guidelines to what they post and how they post, which could make it very difficult to translate into a classroom where there are clearly delineated goals and guidelines that we have to set up as part of the lesson.

Carrying out my GAME plan -- Week 3

In last week's blog posting, we were to develop a personal GAME plan by setting goals for strengthening my confidence in two indicators of the NETS-T. The two that I chose were 2a and 5c.  The reasons for this were I can see these as being the ones that I struggle with and can see a way to correct this.

For this week, we are to reflect on what steps we are taking to help us fulfill our goals to become a much better teacher and a more valuable asset in leading my students to a life in the 21st century.  What follows are my current attempts to improve myself.

2a "Design or adapt relevant learning experiences that incorporate digital tools and resources to promote student learning and creativity.
How I have worked to carry out this part of the plan was using a resource that my school librarian passed on to me via e-mail as a resource for my Promethean Board which can be found at http://livebinders.com/play/play_or_edit?id=51119.  I have begun to analyze the site for lessons that I can use with my students.  I also have contacted one of the members of our ITD about how to add questions to an Active Inspire flip chart so that I can create quizzes for my students to answer using the Active Remotes.  She has passed on to me the steps, and I am currently working on a set of quizzes to use during our study of the Constitution.  I am looking forward to some advance Active Inspire training that is being offered the first week of December.


5c "Evaluate and reflect on current research and professional practice on a regular basis to make effective use of existing and emerging digital tools and resources in support of student learning."
How I plan to carry out this phase of my GAME plan is through being a follower of the Edublogs feed of "If Technology Motivates Students, Use It".  I get any postings to this sent to my Walden e-mail account, as well as my Google Reader account.  I have been finding it very interesting reading about our perspectives on how technology is effecting our classrooms.

I also have been finding the coursework readings for some of my Walden courses to be of great value in finding new ideas to use technology in my classroom and also as a way to find out about digital tools and resources.  How I plan to continue to work on growing in this indicator is by continuing to find and subscribe to other blogs and by talking with friends in the ITD department of my school district as well as the technology teachers at my school.

Obviously, growing in my GAME plan is going to be a continuing journey that will have to be actively pursued as I continue to work toward the goal of my Master's degree and being a teacher that needs to make sure that my students are prepared for a world full of technology.

Personal GAME Plan

Sorry about taking so long on this, I've been down with the flu for the last week.

As an educator and leader in helping get our students ready in a technology based world, I realize that it is part of my job to be willing to analyze my own strengths and weaknesses and be prepared to implement a plan to correct them, and the most effective means is through a personal GAME plan as described in "Technology Integration for Meaningful Classroom Use" (Cennamo, Ross & Ertmer, 2009).

That being said, I find myself analyzing where my biggest weaknesses lie according to the NETS-T indicators.  I think that one of the areas that I should improve is in NETS 2a: "design or adapt relevant learning experiences that incorporate digital tools and resources to promote student learning and creativity".  How I plan to work on this is by taking steps to find ways to add technology to my lessons, rather than what I've been trying to do which is find lessons that fit the technology that I have.  Tim Best, in the video "Enriching Content Learning Experiences with Technology, Part 1" (Laureate, 2010) emphasized that teachers should use the content first (after all, that is what we have to teach) and then find technology which assists in teaching it better.

I need to find technology to better support my lessons, not supplant my lesson which is my first goal, the G in my GAME plan.  How I plan to take Action is by talking with other teachers in my district and seeing how they are using technology to help their lessons and/or taking a good look at my standards for the lesson and thinking how technology can be best used to support the content.  The next step would be Monitoring the effectiveness and that will be through watching how my students interact with the lesson and the Evaluation would be their success on our daily quizzes and questioning for understanding.

The second area of NETS-T that I think I need to set as a goal for development is 5c: "evaluate and reflect on current research and professional practice on a regular basis to make effective use of existing and emerging digital tools and resources in support of student learning".  This one dovetails into NETS 2a.  Since I, as stated earlier, tend to try to force the technology to fit the lesson, I will need to become more active with keeping up with the research and new technologies that can help me support my lessons with technology.  I have already started taking steps in this direction through enrolling in courses, such as this one at Walden U, and taking part in a technology grant that was offered in my district.  The goal of which was to implement technology in the classroom.  I am making steps to take new training offered by my district and regional education service center, as well as subscribing to blogs such as "If technology moves us, let's use it!" on Edublogs.  How I will monitor myself is through using more technology in my classroom to help facilitate the acquisition of knowledge and I will be evaluating the effectiveness through the learning of my students as reflected through their grades and engagement in my class.

Cennamo, K., Ross, J., & Ertmer, P.  (2009).  Technology integration for meaningful classroom use: A standards-based approach.  (Laureate Education, Inc. custom ed.).  Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning.

Laureate Education Inc.  (Producer).  (2010).  Program #3:  Integrating Technology Across the Content Areas  Enriching content learning experiences with technology: Part 1.  Baltimore, MD: Author.

Welcome Fellow EDUC 6713 Blog Group 2 Members!

Hello.

If you are reading this information, you have successfully found me.  : )

I wanted to say how much I will enjoy reading your posts and look forward to meeting and working with each and every one of you.

For this first week, it is my understanding that we simply must set up the blog site and the aggregator account to follow each of us and, if this is like other Walden courses, we will be posting our thoughts on the topics and responding to each other.

So, once again, thank you for finding me, and let's get blogging.