Prezi Poster Presentation

GAME Plan Reflection

Instituting a technology GAME Plan for me to professionally follow has been a great idea to jump-start my thinking and planning of the incorporation of various technology learning tools when appropriate as well as helping me to realize that their are many foundational aspects of using technology that must first be taught - internet etiquette, program training, etc.

Implementing a GAME Plan prompted me to engage students academic interactions via the internet - taking something that they use normally in their personal lives and making it relevant to their learning experiences has worked out great thus far. While explaining to my students that many of our class discussions will be held via blogspot.com, I quickly learned that many of my students already had personal blogs that they used daily to talk about fashion, sports, school gossip, etc. Rather than students sighing and asking "why do we have to do this", they were eager to add an additional blog to their dashboard and begin class discussions via the web. Students who did not already have blogs were eager to start one, as they felt left out of a "cool" loop that their peers were already privy to.

Currently we are still working on one of the GAME Plan goals - digital etiquette. There has been a foundational lesson that addressed the "do's and dont's", as well as the "what if's". However, I really feel that this is an ongoing thing to practice in class, in that sometimes things are said with innocent intentions but have a hurting impact.

This course, I feel, was really optimal for my degree path as it took all the concepts and ideas from previous courses, and really made them relevant to myself as a teacher and also showed me how to incorporate all of these new ideas and tools into my daily lessons.

Helping Thru GAME

Students being aware of the NETS-S and NETS-T standards and being taught how to implement a GAME plan will help them to become more and more technology savvy as well as better builders of the 21st century. Students need to set goals and expectations for their own education as well as the one's preset for them by state and national boards. And surprisingly, they will find that they may already be achieving or may have already met some of the NETS-S standards, which may motivate them to give the other standards an effort.

Students can look to meet one of the standards bi-weekly and update their own personal GAME plan as each standard is met. This can be done simultaneously as the teacher sets, monitors, and evaluates NETS-T standards for the class.

GAME Upate 4

This coming Monday my students will begin utilizing their first technology tool - blogging. I think they are as excited as me! To start our journey in implementing more technology into our classroom setting, students will be given a blog topic to respond to at the beginning of the week, then by Friday they will revisit blogs an the blogs of their peers to add more detail to the topic based upon the week's lectures and activities.
Monday will also mark the day that the students become more web literate in terms of etiquette and cyber bullying - how to handle themselves in the various scenarios they may find themselves in, proper disagreement language, etc. My class will be a motivation and push for the other teachers in my building to incorporate more tech tools in their own classes. I look forward to being the model or "guinea pig" for moving the school forward.

GAME Plan Progress: Project Based

The goal that I feel that I am making the most progress in is to “design/adapt relevant learning experiences that incorporate digital tools and resources”. I have been trying to engulf myself in as many technology tools as possible this past week to try in my ELA class. I want my students to be eager to come to ELA because they know that they will be learning new and innovative ways of doing things that, in the past, were boring and somewhat irrelevant to their lives. Also, I feel that I have been making progress finding tools to assist students that are struggling readers and writers. These two aspects of education can sometimes be overwhelming to a student and could possible “make or break” them. I want to be able to give them the tools to “make” them into budding young adults.

This week’s learning resources have prompted me to think outside of the traditional way of instruction that is very repetitive and boring for most students. I plan to further my GAME Plan by using these tech tools to make class more project based in which students are able to learn and build with one another. I want to work to create open ended essential questions that will serve to guide students studies rather than place strict boundaries and limitations on their interaction with their learning process.

*GAME Plan Update*

Thus far, my GAME Plan has been progressing as fast as time and resources permit. Besides teaching 8^th grade ELA, I must also teach a Computer Lab elective to 7^th graders. In that class, I try to incorporate the goal of designing or adapting relevant learning experiences that incorporate digital tools and resources to promote student learning and creativity. That class has been basically my “guinea pigs” for the new technology that has been presented to me throughout the past couple of months in my course of study. We have been going over internet etiquette, blogging, wikis, and currently we are using Inspiration. The children have been able to work on various projects from other classes and apply the various tech learning tools to enhance their learning quality and assessment.

What I have learned thus far from my GAME Plan is to take things slow with implementing all the technology in class. A majority of my students have very little technology skills. Therefore, I had to learn to slow down, not assume their level of exposure and skill and start from the basics. Also, to treat computer class as I do a core subject class – allow much group/partner work and group students according to ability.

All in all, I feel that my GAME Plan is going well. My only anticipation is to implement more technology and the wait for my middle school students to receive their netbooks so that these tools are used school wide on a regular basis.

GAME Plan Revisited

Thus far my GAME plan has been inactive in regards to implementing it in my classroom. There is little to no technology available in my classroom or available for rotational use within the school. However, next month the entire middle school will be receiving netbooks. The students are really excited to use them in class to enhance their learning. I have discussed with them the endless possibilities of how this can motivate their willingness to learn and apply it to real world scenarios. However, we have also discussed that with this great privilege comes great responsibility. Negative possibilities and consequences have briefly been visited thus far – internet bullying, inappropriate messaging/imaging, credible information, plagiarism, etc. These things must be and will be visited once our highly anticipated and needed netbooks are delivered.

I am looking forward to collaborating with teachers in the other core content areas as well as electives, in an effort to reinforce proper internet usage and possible cross curricular projects. I am currently in search of as much professional development as possible in making the use of our new tools a daily part of the classroom routine.

GAME Plan

During the course of my exploration of implementing technology inside the classroom, there are two major goals I would like to achieve that come directly from the International Society of Technology Education Standards for Teachers:

1. Promote and model digital etiquette and responsible social interactions related to the use of technology and information. This is an ongoing goal that must be continuously practiced throughout the year with students. Students must know the proper way to conduct themselves on the internet. They must also learn “what to do” strategies for dealing with and reporting inappropriate internet activities such as cyber bullying. These things are taught during the initial class internet projects and is an ongoing observation of skills and skill sharpening.

2. Design or adapt relevant learning experiences that incorporate digital tools and resources to promote student learning and creativity. I plan to incorporate digital tools into student centered projects at least once per month to start. I want to introduce students to some new form of digital tool each time so that their catalogue of learning tools increases each time, which will in turn increase the endless possibilities of concept retention and project presentation possibilities. I can achieve this goal by mapping out major components of the various ELA units and brainstorm a list of technology learning tools that I am familiar with, that may correspond with the array of topics. In the classroom, I can display a posted list as well as a snap shot of the covered/implemented tools thus far, serving as a constant reminder of the choices that exist for them that cater to their learning style and preference. This, I feel, will motivate students in becoming more eager and involved in their educational process.

National Education Standards for Teachers (NETS-T) located at http://www.iste.org/Content/NavigationMenu/NETS/ForTeachers/
2008Standards/NETS_T_Standards_Final.pdf