Time to Reflect!

 

It is hard to believe another course is wrapping up.  Eight courses down and two to go! I think this course challenged me the most so far.  It required me to step out of my comfort zone such as establishing a GAME plan and trying new things that will benefit my students.

 

Step 1: Reflect on the GAME plan you developed and followed throughout the course. Summarize any new learning that resulted from following your GAME plan, and explain what impact your new learning will have on your instructional practice. Describe how you might revise your plan based on your progress. Also, share your thoughts and ideas about how you might modify and use the GAME plan process with your students.

Tab Back in Week One, I was not so sure about writing a GAME Plan.  However, as time when on and I continued on my GAME plan journey, I started to see the value in creating a GAME plan. I see now that just because I make a plan it does not mean I cannot go back and add information or revise my plan.  My learning is continually in progress.  That by establishing a GAME plan it helps me adjust and make changes.  I just feel as though after setting my goals that I had to take action monitor and evaluate fast. I will continue to work on my professional development and enhance my relationships with my colleagues.  I will also continue to work on my leadership skills. I know it is just an eight week course, however, I felt that I need a little more time to make everything really work.  I think by establishing my GAME plan, I was able to keep track of my goals and it was easier to accomplish the goals I set. It also allows me to evaluate the work and make adjustments where necessary.  I truly believe that it allows me to meet my professional goals, such as enhancing my professional development and leadership skills, as well as the educational goals with my students.  The GAME plan can help students organize their own learning and keep track of their own goals within that lesson.  This will push my students towards the self-directed learning process.

 
Step 2: Describe any immediate adjustments you will make to your instructional practice regarding technology integration in your content area(s) as a result of your learning from this course. How might you integrate technology as well as problem-based learning, social networking/online collaboration, and digital storytelling into your instruction?

As a result of this course, I have had many ideas running through my head that I could now try with my students or use in the future. I have been exposed to several technology concepts that will be implemented in my classroom.  For example, problem-based learning (PBL) is still pretty new to me.  I just recently created the Planning Your Summer Vacation PBL.  I will continue to create PBL’s.  They engaged and motivated my students.  Social networking was not new to me but I worked on some assessment pieces for online collaboration. 

Digital storytelling in my instruction was a lot of fun to use.  I would like my students to use more digital stories.  They do take a lot of planning but students were intrigued in using them.  I would like to try new digital story tools that I have not tried to implement yet.  I need to work on my creativity on coming up on unique ideas that will intrigue my students.

I have a lot of ideas running though my head.  I cannot wait to integrate the new technologies that I have learned into my instruction.

Monitoring GAME Plan Progress!

These past few weeks have been a hectic one with the end of the year quickly winding down.  I believe I have been able to find most of the information I need to take action on my GAME plan.  What I quickly learned is that it is easy to get bogged down in idea so it is important to closely monitor the time spent analyzing the data and work on the more essential task, which is designing the plan to respond to the collected data.

Image found at: Google Image

After reviewing my compiled list of webinars and conferences to work on the goal of improving my professional development and leadership, I selected those webinars and conferences that I felt would help prepare me in becoming a better educator so I can add more strategies and tools to my bag so I can engage my students and help them understand and become life-long learners.  I have also signed up to take a webinar about Edmodo, which is important that I learn more on this social networking site, seeing I will be teaching this to all my colleagues.  We also have three days of professional development, which is county wide- June 16th, 17th, and 18^th to make up the snow days. One day is devoted to different technology tools that we can implement into our instruction, and some meetings on assessments.

My other goal is to work on my assessments.  I have been researching different assessments that educators can use in their classroom to monitor and evaluate student learning.  That being said, I am part of an Assessment Learning Community, which is where I discovered AIMSweb, which is a monitoring tool.

Image found at: Google Image

After speaking to my technology adviser, she agreed getting trained in AIMSweb this progress monitoring tool would help me pinpoint student weaknesses in the content standards.  I plan to use this tool after the course in hopes that it will help me see improvement as students work toward the learning goals I established.  In addition to the AIMSweb, I discovered several free websites in which I can create rubrics for assessments.

Another form of assessments are online rubrics.  Rubistar is a popular online rubric generator, which allows an educator to quickly create, customize and save a rubric (Cennamo, Ross & Ertmer, 2009, p.157). 

Image found from: Google Image

By using Rubistar or a similar multimedia rubric I can create descriptors for each level of my rubric.  I think I will modify my game plan to look into this popular website.   I will also need to meet with my Technology adviser and other tech lab teachers to seek advice, and ideas as I create assessments that tie in the content standards.  If we work jointly on this project then our assessments and rubrics will have validity.  I will also be working on creating more short quizzes on the Edmodo social networking website, which is form of a forced-choice assessment (Cennamo et al., 2009).  By creating and placing these quizzes on Edmodo, this will give me immediate feedback and allow me to check for student comprehension.  I will also use open-ended response formats so students demonstrate creative and original thoughts on their blog post to the class.  I think these will be a beneficial assessments.

This far along, I feel I am making good progress with my action plan.  Throughout the summer, I will be spending time taking webinars, and appropriate assessment tools.  I am still searching different assessment tools, so I may modify what I have.  The opportunity is approaching and soon I will get a chance to apply/share this information with students and colleagues!

As I reflect, I think the biggest thing I learned thus far is that there is a vast amount of resources for educators to utilize.  It is not just the internet articles but teachers as well willing to share their prior knowledge and their ideas.

Finally, it is important to think of questions… One question that I have for myself is what other online sessions can I sign up for to help me find more information on assessment tools, or broaden my knowledge the information I have learned about a technology tool. 

I want to hear your thoughts on a practice you have implemented in your classroom that you would like to share or any resources you think may help me as I carry out my GAME plan that I could research more into.

References:

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.

 

Revising my GAME Plan!

Image from: Google Images

 

After reviewing my previous post about my GAME plan, I have begun to put my plan in motion.  In order to be effective, I need to rely on resources and information. That being said, to gain confidence and professionally grow, I set up a meeting with my Technology Coordinator and my Principal. 

First, my Technology Coordinator is helping me find professional development and training courses that I can take to learn new technology tools or to strengthen what I already know.  She is also helping me in the search of finding technology-based assessment tools. We are currently working on an assessment tool together. I also have been exploring the online resources that are at my finger tips to try to find assessment tools.  By having the internet for my research, and planning, it saves me time and energy (Cennamo, Ross & Ertmer, 2009).

Image from: www.tangischools.org

 

Furthermore, I am also in the planning process with my principal for setting up a couple training sessions, where I will be teaching my colleagues how to use Edmodo, which will help build my confidence in leadership.  All the teachers in the building will be joining our own teaching community, which allow us to collaborate as a school. The first session, teachers will set up the account and become familiar with using Edmodo with other teachers.  This will allow us to pose questions and help one another outside school hours.  They will also be setting up their own classroom group in the next training session. In addition, my principal would also like me to do another training session on using Google Docs.  My Technology Coordinator would like me to train other technology managers how to use the different computer programs. We have set dates for this to happen.

Overall, I am thrilled to begin my GAME plan journey.  By having my resources ready and available then I my goals I set will be easy to carry out.

Reference:

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.

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UDL At A Glance

 

Found this on YouTube tonight.  Thought I would share seeing our Discussion piece focused on UDL and how we would use technology.

Developing My Personal GAME Plan!

 

Technology is constantly changing our world, and teachers must be equipped with teaching practices to prepare students for their features. As educators, we have the responsibility not only to teach content knowledge but also to implement technology that will solidify the content and engage our students.  The International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) provides five National Education Standards for Teachers (NETS-T):

1. Facilitate and Inspire Student Learning and Creativity
2. Design and Develop Digital Age Learning Experiences and Assessments
3. Model Digital Age Work and Learning
4. Promote and Model Digital Citizenship and Responsibility
5. Engage in Professional Growth and Leadership

Deep down, I know that I could better serve my students if I were to provide more authentic learning opportunities where students have a choice in their processes and products. By doing this, I need to be more confident in designing and developing digital age learning experiences and assessments (NETS-T, 2008). Educators are constantly preparing new instructional strategies and finding ways to effectively integrate them into the content.  I also would like to gain more confidence in engaging in professional growth and leadership (NETS-T, 2008).

That being stated, Dr. Katherine Cennamo recommends making a GAME plan to to use a guide through the process (Laureate Education Inc, 2009). My professional GAME plan is as follows:

G: Set Goals-

·         Design and develop digital age learning experiences and assessments

·         Engage in Professional Growth and Leadership

                         

A: Take Action-

I will begin with blogs, which will provide the opportunity to strengthen my professional growth and leadership.   I have already taken the step in the right direction of improving by professional growth by subscribing to different educational blogs in my RSS feeder.  Cennamo, Ross, & Ertmer (2009) discuss different types of communication that can be done through blogs.  By having this blog your reading now and an account with Edmodo, which Edmodo allows me to be part of different teaching communities that relate to my topics of interest.  For example, I am part of a technology community, which allows me to read different informational blogs to expand my knowledge.  By adding different educational blogs to my feeder, it provides a beneficial experience. These blogging experiences provide me the opportunity to be exposed on different information from teachers all over the world, and the opportunities can range from leadership conferences, reading skill building, technology courses and several others.  Having a blog, such as Edmodo also provides professional development classes in which I can sign up for online and earn a certificate.   I would also like to sign up for 1-2 seminars on training on a few different technology tools.  By reading different blogs and taking seminars I will become more proficient in the digital age and assessments and be more confident in designing and developing experiences and assessments that implement technology.  The leadership area is where I feel I could build more confidence in myself.  The knowledge that I am learning, I would like to share with my other colleagues.  I feel that by contributing what I am learning with my school, not only will I benefit by my colleagues as well, which will guide them and hopefully help them find ways to develop a more engaging classroom.  I would also like to invite my colleagues to my room, so I can demonstrate how I maintain and use the Edmodo classroom blog with my students for collaboration, reflection, and for my own professional growth, so I can help other teachers integrate this into their classroom.

M: Monitor Progress-

          I will monitor progress though contributions of blogs.  I will keep a reflection journal to monitor what I have learned from different readings and what reflect on the experiences from teaching colleagues to use EDMODO.  What I learn about technology tools, I will try to design a creative lesson and assessment and implement it with my students.  I feel this will help me build my confidence.  My reflection blog will allow me to note what is working, what is not working, and make revisions if needed.  I will monitor myself and pose questions, such as what technology do I need to work on now, and set times during the week to check blogs, pose questions and comments to enhance my learning.

E: Evaluation Actions and Process-

          I will evaluate my progress routinely by looking at the blogs effectiveness, and the seminars that I take.  I will evaluate what was successful and what I feel could change so I can become more proficient in designing lessons and assessments for my students.

Overall, the GAME process allowed me to tackle the steps on how I can strengthen my goals that I feel weak in, so I can build my confidence and integrate new technology into content areas that will benefit student learning, and my colleges.  I have already begun my GAME plan.

 References

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.

International Society for Technology in Education. (2008). National education standards for teachers (NETS-T). Retrieved from: http://www.iste.org/standards/nets-for-teachers

Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2009).Enriching Content Area Learning.  Experiences with Technology. Baltimore, MD: Author.