GAME plan with my students

Looking at the NETS-T and the NETS-S I can see how they connect with each other. As I develop my own technology skills and meet my standards, it pushes me almost simultaneously to help my students meet some of their standards. They are very inter- related. The teacher standards are about designing and the student standards are about demonstrating concepts that are essentially the same. Knowing that, I can use a GAME plan to meet standards that will help my students become more proficient.

My GAME plan was to use new technology and do a self directed learning activity. In implementing my own GAME plan and becoming proficient in my own standards, I helped my students to meet their standards and become proficient in creativity and innovation and communication and collaboration.

I believe that I will continue to use GAME plan process in this way- create plans for myself and in completing those plans, my students will gain more proficiency. I think my students are too young to get them deeply involved in the process of creating the plan. While we are constantly setting goals for them to reach as far as their own learning, I think the rest of the process is too complex for them to complete. I will get their input on what they would like to learn and then create a GAME plan to help me meet that goal. By continuing on in the process of making GAME plans, both my students and I can continue to grow and gain necessary skills in technology.

Evaluating my GAME plan

This week I am stepping back and examining my GAME plan. Over the past four weeks I believe I have met the goals I set in my original GAME plan. I have a self directed learning project with a new technology ready to go. I am going to implement it in February. As next step for this particular goal, I am going to present my lesson plan to my grade level and try to get my grade level to do the lesson along with me. I think it would be a good push for everyone. Having other teachers at the school implement a lesson with me will also ensure that I follow through and do it like I am planning!

I have been talking about the computer club that I am planning to start in January. Coming up with this project in the middle of my GAME plan has given me the momentum to keep going. Over my vacation I am going to write a GAME plan for the successful beginning of the computer club. I want to lay out a framework of the technologies I plan to introduce to these students and come up with an order of introduction along with a project for each technology. I think part of the success for me in carrying out this plan has been the element of accountability that comes from blogging about it every week. As I move forward I am going to find a way to keep myself accountable. I will either continue to blog or work with a partner that will keep me accountable. Once I start the club I have no doubt the students will keep me accountable as they will be joining for the express purpose of learning more about technology.

Progress Check

Now that I have been implementing my GAME plan for about three weeks I can take a step back and see how I am doing. My first goal was to implement one new web 2.0 technology this year with my class. My second goal is to do a self directed learning activity with my class. I have a lesson plan for a voice thread activity where students learn about a number by creating a representation of how that number is made (for example: 10 and 10 makes 20). I would like to turn this into a voice thread by uploading the student’s picture and having them narrate how to make the number. I looked at my district pacing guide to see when I can teach this lesson. I will not teach numbers 20-30 until about February. This feels like a long time to see my action completely carried out, and yet, with the holidays and benchmark testing coming up it is not realistic to fit in a big project before then. I feel like I am also completing this goal in a new way by beginning an after school computer club with upper grades. I am very excited about the possibilities the computer club holds. And through them I hope to introduce many new Web 2.0 technologies to my school. My hopes are that they go and share what they are learning about with other students and teachers.

Because I have been monitoring my progress every week, I have actually been carrying out my GAME plan. Reflecting back on failed projects of my past, I see that the vital step of monitoring was missing. Having a timeline in place and sticking to it has kept in motion throughout this process. When I first started to write a GAME plan I thought it was silly and did not see how it would fit into my professional practice permanently, but now that I have been going through the process I can see its value and I believe that this is a process I will use again and again to help me create and complete professional goals. Having this plan in place has helped me to follow through and carry out my goals. I would like to learn more about other ways to use a GAME plan, possibly grade level wide, or school wide.

As I have been carrying out my GAME plan I have already made an adjustment (or addition). Right now I see no further need to adjust my GAME plan, but this week I will begin to look at what a next step for my goals might be.

My GAME plan progress

I have made some progress on my GAME plan this week. I have a lesson plan that I would like to do that introduces my students to a new technology- voice thread. My next step is to check and see if I can access my voice thread account at work. The lesson plan not only implements a new technology, but it meets my goal of being activity based. Now I need to figure out when this lesson plan will fit in with my district’s pacing guide. It fits it with curriculum, I just cannot remember what unit.

My GAME plan has also taken an unexpected turn this week. After talking with my principal and a couple colleagues, I have decided to start an after school computer club with older students. None of the teachers at my school site teach their students about new technologies or about how to be responsible on the Internet. While I plan to expose my own students to these concepts, they are still a bit young to fully grasp them. My goal is to start the computer club and give some of the older students (grades 4-6) some of the skills that they are going to need in Jr. High and High School. I have already started a framework for what the club will look like. We will meet after school one day a week. I will start by teaching the kids about blogging and we will design a Computer Club blog page- in part for the students to communicate together outside of the club meetings. My next project will be to teach them how to do research online. Having just learned more about this myself, I have a passion to share what I learned with students. I will teach the students the steps I just learned about creating research- able questions, conducting a search online, evaluating resources, and eventually I will help them synthesize this into a project. Who knows what we will do from there. Since this is a student club I want to give them options and skills and let that design the activities we do together.

I am so excited to start this new project. If I would not have had this GAME plan, this idea would not have happened. It was only when I was researching and looking into ideas for my own class that I got the idea to expand and work with more students across three grade levels. I am learning that setting goals for myself works like oil in an engine. As I strive to achieve my goals, and focus on an area of my teaching new ideas come up and I start thinking about ways to take my goal to the next level. It has been an exciting process!

What do I need to carry out my GAME plan?

The first goal in my GAME plan is to implement one new technology in my classroom this year. The information I will need to carry out this plan is to talk with the technology department in my district and learn exactly what technologies are allowed and which ones are blocked. I already know that we are allowed access to blog sites, but not to wiki sites. I will need to find out about the voice thread site I am registered with along with podcast sites.

The second goal in my GAME plan is to do one self directed learning activity with my students this year and allow their feed back to shape the activity. I have a lesson plan that I created in another class that I want to try to implement. What I need to do now is clear it with my principal and make sure I have the technologies available to me to carry it out.

Completing these steps will put me on my way to meeting my goal.

My G.A.M.E. Plan

When examining the technology National Education Standards for Teachers I certainly see room for improvement. However, there are two areas where I am not as confident in executing as I would like to be. Those two areas are standard 2.a and standard 2.b. Standard 2.a states: teachers design or adapt relevant learning experiences that incorporate digital tools and resources to promote student learning and creativity. Standard 2.b states: teachers develop technology-enriched learning environments that enable all students to pursue their individual curiosities and become active participants in setting their own educational goals, managing their own learning, and assessing their own progress. In order to meet these goals I have set up a plan for myself called a G.A.M.E. plan (Cennamo, Ross, Ertmer, 2009).

The first step in my plan is to set goals (Cennamo, Ross, Ertmer, 2009). I would like to work with my district to find new ways to incorporate more web 2.0 technologies into my classroom. The current thinking in my district is that if you use the SMARTboard you are integrating technology, but I think that technology integration can be much more than that. To be more specific in my goal, I would like to actually implement one new technology probably Web 2.0 in my class this year. Another goal I have is to turn over some of my teaching time to my students where they can participate in a structured, content based self directed learning activity. Again, to be more specific, a realistic goal for me would be to do one self directed learning activity where I also use student input to shape and guide the experience. Knowing if I am successful in my goals is easy- I will either follow through or not.

The next step in the G.A.M.E. plan is to take action (Cennamo, Ross, Ertmer, 2009). To meet my goal I will need to use my curriculum to find a subject area and content standard to focus on. I will also need to research to find which technology best supports the content. To do this I might turn to the internet to research, or look up lesson plans in a teacher café type of website. Once I determine the technology I would like to use, I will have to work with my district to make sure that the technology policy allows me to use my desired technology. Finally, I will have to create lesson plans that help me to meet my goal.

The third step is to monitor my progress (Cennamo, Ross, Ertmer, 2009). I might consider setting timelines for myself for each part of my action process that ultimately leads to my implementation of new technology and incorporation of a self directed learning activity. As each due date in my timeline approaches I can stop and evaluate if I have completed the task or not. If I have not completed the task I will stop and ask myself what is keeping me from completing that task. As I answer that question I can evaluate and change steps in my action plan as needed.

The final step in my plan is to evaluate and extend (Cennamo, Ross, Ertmer, 2009). My goals are to implement a new technology and to incorporate a self directed learning activity. Monitoring these goals is as simple as checking to see if I have done them or not. If I am successful in my goals I will evaluate what a next step might be. A next step could be anything from creating lesson plans to use my newly implemented technology, to designing more self directed learning lessons. I will also be sure to journal some of the struggles I had during the process along with things I can do differently next time to make the process easier. If I am unsuccessful in meeting my goals I will sit down and evaluate what my struggles were that kept me from meeting my goal and create a G.A.M.E. plan to overcome those struggles. I will also consider modifying my goals to make them more attainable.

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

Reflection

The most striking revelation I had this semester about teaching new literacy skills to my students is that learning to read on the web is a complex process and involves several skills that traditional reading does not. I had never really thought about the difference in reading on the web vs. traditional reading, but there is so much more students need to know how to do when reading online. The internet is filled with millions of different web pages, each with their own unique layout and design. Children do not always instinctively know how to scan a web page for information. Web pages are also full of links that take you to other websites or to different parts of the webpage you are on. Children do not always know which links are worth clicking on or how to navigate back to the original web site. Another consideration in reading online is the grammar and syntax of a particular web page. Some web pages are more kid friendly and easy to read and some are more academic and difficult to read. Before this class I had always assumed that if you could read a book you could read online. I now believe differently. I believe that traditional reading skills are the building block for web literacy, but as a teacher I also need to teach my students the specific reading skills that are needed to be literate online.

A large part of the knowledge and experience I gained in this course has to do with conducting what I think of as good solid research online. As a long time fan of Google, I had always taken for granted the information that was presented me in a Google search. After this course I feel as though I am a little more savvy in using different search engines and typing in keywords and phrases that will yield me the most useful results. I have also learned about evaluating a web site for reliability of information. This is a new skill to me. In the past I have read some websites that I have questioned the information, but I never really had a clear process for doing it. Learning the Get REAL strategy of evaluating web pages was very eye opening for me and I believe has made me a better consumer of online information (November, 2008). This knowledge has given me fuel to teach my student to be better at navigating the web when conducting a search, and to be better at questioning and evaluating what they are reading. I have already taken what I have learned and shared it with other teachers. A teacher friend of mine would like to use my screen cast where I walk through the steps of evaluating a web site to teach her high school students this skill. I feel so much more empowered when I am online now and I want to share that feeling with as many students as I can.

Throughout this course I have developed a pretty solid research project to conduct with my class. A goal for me will be to actually do the project with my class. Sometimes I get so caught up in my everyday work that I do not do projects like this that take a lot of preparation. I have also designed smaller lessons that use new technologies such as a screen cast or a voice thread. A goal for me is to get permission through my district to use these technologies and then to not only use them with my own class, but to train other teachers at my school site how to use them as well. The steps I have taken to accomplish this goal is to give myself a timeline on when I want to have accomplished them. By January I want to have permission to do screen cast and voice thread and begin to implement them in my classroom. I would like to start working with other teachers in my school and showing them how to use those technologies by February. By giving myself a timeline and sticking to it I will achieve my goal of implementing these strategies.
References
November, A. (2008). Web literacy for educators. Thousands Oaks: Corwin Press.