How's my GAME going?

This week has been a challenging week for keeping my GAME plan going. We have been out of school for two and a half days due to the Blizzard in the Northeast. It makes meeting a goal difficult when you cannot actually go into school to get things done. On top of this, there are still two more storms in the forecast for Friday and Monday of this coming week.

Are you finding the information and resources you need? 

I think I am finding everything that I need in order to meet both of my GAME plan goals. As of Friday last week, edmodo was downloaded to the iPads. To get the ball rolling on discussions online, I did have a couple of students post their responses. My students are also working hard on a Language Arts project that asks them to argue who is to blame for the great Chicago fire. One group is creating an iMovie and another group is creating a wiki. I ran into a challenge with getting my students access to wikispaces because they do not have e-mail addresses. I then remembered that you can create a dummy e-mail address through g-mail! For more information on how to do this, click here!

With the blizzard, I was worried about my students not getting a lot of work done, so I actually assigned some homework to them. One activity I assigned was for them to post a response to the newsela article they needed to read and they will need to reply to one-another by Friday. I have noticed that barely half of my students have posted since it was assigned on Monday. I wonder how many of my students actually have been given access by their parents. 

For my second goal, I have added a couple of blogs to follow based on suggestions from my Walden classmates. In addition to these, I put out the question to my edmodo communities and found a couple more. 

Do you need to modify your action plan? 

I do not think I need to modify my action plan at the moment. I think I am progressing fairly well despite the challenges of not being in school. 

What have you learned so far? 

I have learned to develop a lot of patience in order to meet my goal. There has been many instances of technology not working the way we need it to or we get hit by a Blizzard. I have also learned to trust my colleagues in the education world. So many people are knowledgeable in the world of technology and it is great to learn or read about what suggestions they have for lessons to use. 

What new questions have arisen?

Are there other blogs that people read and get good ideas from?

How can I get my students to participate in an online discussion when they do not have computer/ internet access?

I have been focusing a lot on real world experiences with our Language Arts unit, what are some ideas that people have for my upcoming Math unit - Moving from Arithmetic to Algebraic Expressions?

Carrying out my GAME Plan

In my last blog, I mentioned a couple of my technology goals that I am setting for myself. These goals are coming from the National Education Standards for Teachers in Technology. My first goal is to engage students in real world issues and to solve problems through the use of digital tools and resources. My second goal is to participate in learning communities relating to technology. This week, I am focusing on the resources that I need in order to meet my goals and how I am doing with my goals thus far.

Resources/ Information Needed:

Goal #1

In order to meet my first goal, I will need to work closely with the math coach, literacy coach, and technology coach that are in my school. These wonderful colleagues are a wealth of knowledge and will help with providing ideas for lessons that will be real world related and how I can integrate technology into the lesson. In addition, I will need access to the iPads and computer lab every once in a while for my students to participate in these activities. The technology coach is in the process of downloading edmodo as an app on our iPads for my students to have more access to classroom discussion. Finally, I will use articles from Newsela.com to engage my students in current news discussions.

Goal #2

For this goal, I do not feel as though I need much in regards to resources. What I need to do is to do some research and talk with the technology coach about some blogs that he may subscribe to relating to technology. Anyone out there subscribe to a good technology blog to follow? Please, mention it in a comment!

How am I doing?

I would have to say that I am in the beginning stages of meeting my goals. I currently feel somewhat overwhelmed by the demands of being an educator and meeting the needs of my graduate classes. I have not had enough time to really look for any blogs to subscribe to. However, I have discussed some new digital tools with my technology coach that I have started to implement with my students. The first being a digital math textbook and also having edmodo downloaded to the iPads. Once the iPads have edmodo, I would love to start having current event discussions on a weekly basis with my students, as well as book chats.

GAME plan

Everyone in this world shows self-directed learning at some point in their life. "You are self-directed anytime you learn a new skill (for example, how to use a digital video camera) or pursue more information about an intriguing topic, sparked by something you read or heard" (Cennamo, Ross, & Ertmer, 2009, p. 2).  It is most important as educators to show and teach our students about becoming self-directed learners.

In a 21st century learning environment, our classrooms should be "plugged in." We need to work  harder for the attention of our students, especially since they are so used to having technology in their faces constantly. In order to do this, there are two ISTE standards that I would like to set as a goal for myself this year:
1. "Facilitate and inspire student learning and creativity"
2. "Engage in professional growth and leadership"

My goal within the first chosen standard is to "engage students in exploring real-world issues and solving authentic problems using digital tools and resources." I would like my students to be exposed to real world problems that they will need work through while using technology as a tool to support them. Far too often, my classroom is more teacher directed learning and less on my students. It is important to release the cognitive load onto the students and have them lead their learning. In order to reach my goal, I am going to need to give my students many more opportunities to ask questions, work together,  and find their own answers. To monitor my goal, I will be using my weekly lesson plans and reflections that are turned into my administrator. Lastly, to evaluate my goal, I will look back at my reflections to see if my lessons have more of a real-world focus or if my students are still receiving direct instruction about a topic.


My second goal is to "participate in local learning communities to explore creative applications of technology to improve student learning." As someone who wants to learn more about technology and the integration into a classroom, one would think that I would read up on the current blogs. I am planning to find a couple of technology blogs to actually follow each week for new ideas that I can use within my own classroom. I would also like to use the edmodo connection as well, by reaching out to educators across the world. In order to monitor my goal, I would like to start a technology journal where I can write down the ideas that I find. In the end, this journal will show if I have been keeping up with my goal of learning new technology to add to my classroom. I will also be able to see if I have included any of my new findings into my own classroom.

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