Reflection

Throughout this course I created and followed a GAME plan. My GAME plan was to introduce a new Web 2.0 technology to my students and to design a content based self directed learning activity. While my initial thoughts were that the GAME plan idea was a waste of time, but as I worked my way through my GAME plan each week, my opinion changed. The GAME plan pushed me to actually design a self directed learning activity that uses a new technology. I am not at the point in my curriculum where I will implement the lesson plan yet, but I have plans to implement it some time in February.

Creating a GAME plan is a simple and easy way to set yourself up for success. I cannot count the number of times I have wanted to start something with my students but then never got around to doing it. Involving myself in this process actually caused me to successfully see an idea through. I have written about this before, but I think the thing that really helped me to be successful was monitoring my progress on a weekly basis through this blog. I have learned that for me to really follow through with an idea I need to have some sort of accountability in place, and I need to constantly monitor my progress in a timeline for completion. Doing this gives me the momentum I needed to follow through.

This class really opened my eyes to the difference in project and problem based learning. As most of the focus in this class revolved around problem based learning I feel I now have a good grasp on how to create a problem based learning unit. The problem I encountered in this class is that I felt it is very difficult to create a problem based learning activity with the content that I teach. My content is very fundamental and basic such as learning the letters and letter sounds. I really struggled with finding ways to create a good problem based lesson. I did design a problem based unit for math that I feel very proud of and will implement soon when I come to addition and subtraction in my curriculum. My hope is that after I carry out this lesson, the experience will give me more ideas for creating new problem based learning activities.

The one thing from this class that find easy to implement is digital storytelling. In fact, in my last discussion post I immediately thought of several ideas and ways to implement this technology. I cannot wait to start using this technology with my class. I plan to use it for math with learning shapes, in telling addition and subtraction stories, and to show sequencing, in story telling as a shared or interactive writing, and to retell events that the class participated in, in social studies to add to the curriculum, and as a way to introduce myself to the class and to highlight a student of the week. Really the possibilities are as endless as skills the students can gain from creating a digital story.

After this class I think that some adjustments I will make in my instructional practice regarding technology integration are: to consistently use the GAME plan process to push myself into learning more about technology and finding ways to implement it, to use the experience I will gain from implementing my problem based learning unit to design more of these types of units, and finally, to implement digital storytelling in all of the ways I listed above.