During the last eight weeks of learning experiences in the EDUC 6713: Integrating Technology across the Content Areas course, I have gained a wealth of new knowledge that I am confident will enhance my strengths as a classroom teacher, while also benefiting my students as content learners and technology users. At the beginning of the course, I established goals I wanted to focus on to increase the integration of technology in my instruction. To provide structure in my quest to achieve these goals, I created a GAME plan (Cennamo, Ross, & Ertmer, 2009) in which I articulated my goals, developed an action plan for achieving them, and then monitored and evaluated my progress. My goals, which were to implement technology-based assessments and to establish a collaborative relationship with another classroom to foster my students’ cultural and global awareness (National Education Standards for Teachers, 2008), were powerful enough that I know they would make a difference for my students, but also focused enough through the development of my GAME plan that I knew they would be approachable. By setting a strong action plan, engaging in learning during the course, and using the information I obtained to revise my plan as needed, I am confident that the GAME plan I developed and followed throughout this class will having a transforming impact on my classes once the new school year begins.
By following my GAME plan (Cennamo et al., 2009) during the last eight weeks, I learned many things. Not only have I become aware of the technology knowledge, skills, and attitudes I should possess as a twenty-first century teacher, but I have also learned how to successfully chart a course for myself so that I can successfully become more proficient in these areas. As I have stated previously in my blog posts, perhaps the most powerful concept I will be taking away from the GAME plan process is that integrating technology in my classroom to the maximum extent possible does not happen overnight. I have learned that I am a person who gets incredibly enthused about the new things I learn, but then when trying to implement them all at once, I become overwhelmed and go back to my traditional methods. The GAME plan process has taught me to start small with one or two goals at a time and follow them through completely. My students will benefit from the successful implementation of technology through my achievement with those goals, and then with time more goals can established. Therefore, as the new school year approaches my mindset regarding technology use in my instructional practice will be to remember that quality is more important than quantity. By setting one or two goals for myself, even if I implement them during each nine week period, I can achieve up to eight new goals by the end of the school year. I cannot help but be excited by those possibilities!
Focusing on the immediate future in my classroom, the work I have put in to my GAME plan (Cennamo et al., 2009) will definitely pay off once the school year begins. I have already been using some of my down time this summer to work on taking the assessments I already have and devising ways that I can integrate technology into them for the benefit of my students. Furthermore, I am moving along in the process with a fellow reading/language arts teacher to develop our collaborative blog. We will be studying the novel The Giver at the same time in our classes, and we are currently developing interactive activities that our classes can do together on the blog. I have a strong feeling that this is going to be an amazing journey for myself and for my students. I know that there will be obstacles to overcome and revisions to be made, but that is part of the beauty of the monitoring and evaluation steps of the GAME plan process.
I am grateful that I have had the opportunity to learn so much during my time in this course. Even more so, I am excited to see the positive impacts this knowledge will have on my students during the upcoming year!
Amanda Bryant
8th grade reading/language arts
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.
National Education Standards for Teachers (NETS-T) located at http://www.iste.org/Content/NavigationMenu/NETS/ForTeachers/
2008Standards/NETS_T_Standards_Final.pdf
Saturday, June 19, 2010
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
Using the GAME Plan Process with Students
During the past six weeks in my current course at Walden University, I have used the GAME plan (Cennamo, Ross, & Ertmer, 2009) process to examine how I could work toward more effectively integrating technology in my classroom. To start this process, I set goals by looking at the website for the International Society for Technology in Education to analyze the NETS-T, which include facilitating and inspiring student learning and creativity, designing and developing digital-age learning experiences and assessments, modeling digital-age work and learning, promoting and modeling digital citizenship and responsibility, and engaging in professional growth and leadership (National Education Standards for Teachers, 2008). Throughout the last six weeks, I have established my GAME plan by selecting two of these standards to work toward as my goals, developing an action plan for achieving those goals, and monitoring and evaluating my progress.
Just as there are standards for teachers, there are also technology standards for students that can be applied in my reading/language arts classroom. These NETS-S (Cennamo et al., 2009) include creativity and innovation, communication and collaboration, research and information fluency, critical thinking, problem solving, and decision making, digital citizenship, and technology operations and concepts.
Obviously the standards for teachers and the standards for students are different, but that does not mean that they are exclusive of one another; rather, they are quite inter-related and that is how they should be approached in the classroom. I strongly believe I could apply the GAME plan (Cennamo et al., 2009) process toward helping my students develop their own technology proficiency skills. One thing I would like to start off doing is to examine the NETS-S with my students. I think it would be wonderful to take these standards and re-word them so that they are student-friendly and more approachable for my eighth graders. I would like to post these standards in my classroom so that we can reference them often in class. Next, just as we have worked gradually through the GAME plan process, I would like to work with my students to identify one or two specific standards toward which they would like to work. I would help them establish their GAME plans as a class, and we could consistently monitor and evaluate their progress toward the goals. As the students become more comfortable with the standards and how to utilize the GAME plan process, I would encourage them to begin branching out and identifying NETS-S that they are interested in pursuing on their own to enhance their technology proficiency skills. By starting with just one or two goals and working toward them as a class, I could model how to approach the GAME plan process so that the students would likely be successful when making their own GAME plans. Just as I have learned with my own GAME plan, it is critical to take just one or two goals at a time and follow them through to the end before attempting to move forward. Slowly but surely, the standards will be addressed and met, thus ensuring quality of learning rather than mere quantity. As I strive to help my students take action on their GAME plans and as I incorporate digital and assistive technologies into my instruction and assessments, not only will my students become more technology literate, but I will be meeting the NETS-T as well. As I mentioned earlier, striving toward one most often leads to accomplishing the other at the same time.
I am pleased that the timing of my courses at Walden allowed for me to take this class now. Although I have not been able to apply my learning with my students yet because of our summer vacation, I believe that by establishing this GAME plan now, I will be on the right track toward having a classroom that embraces technology as a tool that enriches content area learning by the time my students come back in August!
Amanda Bryant
8th grade reading/language arts
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.
National Education Standards for Teachers (NETS-T) located at http://www.iste.org/Content/NavigationMenu/NETS/ForTeachers/
2008Standards/NETS_T_Standards_Final.pdf
Just as there are standards for teachers, there are also technology standards for students that can be applied in my reading/language arts classroom. These NETS-S (Cennamo et al., 2009) include creativity and innovation, communication and collaboration, research and information fluency, critical thinking, problem solving, and decision making, digital citizenship, and technology operations and concepts.
Obviously the standards for teachers and the standards for students are different, but that does not mean that they are exclusive of one another; rather, they are quite inter-related and that is how they should be approached in the classroom. I strongly believe I could apply the GAME plan (Cennamo et al., 2009) process toward helping my students develop their own technology proficiency skills. One thing I would like to start off doing is to examine the NETS-S with my students. I think it would be wonderful to take these standards and re-word them so that they are student-friendly and more approachable for my eighth graders. I would like to post these standards in my classroom so that we can reference them often in class. Next, just as we have worked gradually through the GAME plan process, I would like to work with my students to identify one or two specific standards toward which they would like to work. I would help them establish their GAME plans as a class, and we could consistently monitor and evaluate their progress toward the goals. As the students become more comfortable with the standards and how to utilize the GAME plan process, I would encourage them to begin branching out and identifying NETS-S that they are interested in pursuing on their own to enhance their technology proficiency skills. By starting with just one or two goals and working toward them as a class, I could model how to approach the GAME plan process so that the students would likely be successful when making their own GAME plans. Just as I have learned with my own GAME plan, it is critical to take just one or two goals at a time and follow them through to the end before attempting to move forward. Slowly but surely, the standards will be addressed and met, thus ensuring quality of learning rather than mere quantity. As I strive to help my students take action on their GAME plans and as I incorporate digital and assistive technologies into my instruction and assessments, not only will my students become more technology literate, but I will be meeting the NETS-T as well. As I mentioned earlier, striving toward one most often leads to accomplishing the other at the same time.
I am pleased that the timing of my courses at Walden allowed for me to take this class now. Although I have not been able to apply my learning with my students yet because of our summer vacation, I believe that by establishing this GAME plan now, I will be on the right track toward having a classroom that embraces technology as a tool that enriches content area learning by the time my students come back in August!
Amanda Bryant
8th grade reading/language arts
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.
National Education Standards for Teachers (NETS-T) located at http://www.iste.org/Content/NavigationMenu/NETS/ForTeachers/
2008Standards/NETS_T_Standards_Final.pdf
Wednesday, June 9, 2010
Slow and Steady Wins the Race
As I continue to dig into my GAME plan (Cennamo, Ross, & Ertmer, 2009) and as I work my way through my current course at Walden, I am constantly learning new information to help me work toward my goals. Like I have stated previously, one of my main goals is to implement collaborative blogging between my students and a class from another state or country to help my students enhance their cultural and global awareness. Well, this week I learned about a variety of tools that could help me do just that and more. In my current class, we are focusing on social networking and online collaboration this week. This coincides to my goals perfectly! This week I have discovered so many other ways my students could collaborate with other students outside of our area that I had never before considered. These include Wiggio, micro-blogging tools such as Twitter, Ning, and ePals (Laureate Education, Inc., 2009). In reviewing the NETS-T (National Education Standards for Teachers, 2008), I see that there are numerous other learning goals I would eventually like to set for myself so that I can become a better instructor and so that I can better prepare my students for the twenty-first century workplace. However, in light of the new information I seem to be constantly learning in this class, I do not think it is fair to either myself or my students to start working on new goals at this time. Rather, I want to explore these new tools, which I have not had a chance to do yet, so that I can extend the knowledge I have already gained as I have worked my way through my GAME plan (Cennamo et al., 2009). By thoroughly focusing on just a few of these tools and considering how I can successfully implement them in my classroom, I believe I will do better justice to my students rather than I would if I went ahead and skipped ahead to make new goals when I haven’t truly learned all I want to know so that I can reach my original goals with my students.
That is one of the most pivotal things I have learned throughout this process--not to overwhelm myself or my students by trying too much too soon. I am guilty sometimes of being overly ambitious; I see new and exciting technologies and want to figure out ways I can integrate them all at once into my classroom. When that becomes too challenging though, I seem to burn out and go back to my traditional ways of instruction. That is something I want to keep in mind as I strive to improve my learning. You do not finish a race in one leap; instead, you just keep putting one foot forward. Rather than focusing on quantity, I want to strive instead to focus on quality. I want to remember that it is okay to start with just two goals and to stick with those for a while. Once those have been achieved and are moving along, at that point it is important to consider moving forward with new goals. However, not everything happens overnight, and it is important for me to remember that as I continue my learning.
As I work this week to revise my GAME plan (Cennamo et al., 2009), I have learned that my GAME plan is a good one and that I want to continue focusing on the goals I have set for myself before I try to “burden“ myself with more goals simply for the sake of saying I have them. By continuing to seek information and to test out new tools related to my current goals, I can confidently and successfully implement these technologies in my classroom for my students’ benefit before moving on to new and exciting goals in the future!
Amanda Bryant
8th grade reading/language arts
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.
Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2009). Spotlight on Technology: Social Networking and Online Collaboration, Part 1. Baltimore: Author.
National Education Standards for Teachers (NETS-T) located at http://www.iste.org/Content/NavigationMenu/NETS/ForTeachers/
2008Standards/NETS_T_Standards_Final.pdf
That is one of the most pivotal things I have learned throughout this process--not to overwhelm myself or my students by trying too much too soon. I am guilty sometimes of being overly ambitious; I see new and exciting technologies and want to figure out ways I can integrate them all at once into my classroom. When that becomes too challenging though, I seem to burn out and go back to my traditional ways of instruction. That is something I want to keep in mind as I strive to improve my learning. You do not finish a race in one leap; instead, you just keep putting one foot forward. Rather than focusing on quantity, I want to strive instead to focus on quality. I want to remember that it is okay to start with just two goals and to stick with those for a while. Once those have been achieved and are moving along, at that point it is important to consider moving forward with new goals. However, not everything happens overnight, and it is important for me to remember that as I continue my learning.
As I work this week to revise my GAME plan (Cennamo et al., 2009), I have learned that my GAME plan is a good one and that I want to continue focusing on the goals I have set for myself before I try to “burden“ myself with more goals simply for the sake of saying I have them. By continuing to seek information and to test out new tools related to my current goals, I can confidently and successfully implement these technologies in my classroom for my students’ benefit before moving on to new and exciting goals in the future!
Amanda Bryant
8th grade reading/language arts
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.
Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2009). Spotlight on Technology: Social Networking and Online Collaboration, Part 1. Baltimore: Author.
National Education Standards for Teachers (NETS-T) located at http://www.iste.org/Content/NavigationMenu/NETS/ForTeachers/
2008Standards/NETS_T_Standards_Final.pdf
Wednesday, June 2, 2010
And the GAME Continues...
Although my school year is over, my GAME plan (Cennmao, Ross, & Ertmer, 2009) definitely is not. I may not be able to truly evaluate how effective my plan has been in helping me to achieve my goals since I no longer have my students and will not implement the true efforts of my GAME plan until school starts again in August, but I can still evaluate how I have progressed so far.
During this week alone, I have been able to take steps toward reaching both my goal of establishing a collaborative blog with another classroom to help my students develop cultural awareness and my goal of integrating technology into my assessments. One of my major concerns last week was simply finding a teacher who taught the same grade/subject matter as me and who had a similar interest in establishing a collaborative blogging effort between our classrooms. Based on the feedback from my peers in my blog last week, I have determined that since this is my first attempt at such a collaboration, it will probably be in my best interest to connect with one teacher and establish a year-long blogging relationship between our classes. Therefore, this week I made it my mission to work on finding such a teacher with whom I could connect.
When conducting my research, I came upon a website that listed several examples of classroom blogs from around the country and even the world. Many of these blogs were already well-established and gave me a lot of good ideas. As I perused these sites, I came across one that stood out to me. It is a middle school reading/language arts blog--which is right up my alley! I decided to e-mail the teacher to see how using a blog in her classroom has benefited her students and to see if she knew anything about online collaboration between classrooms so that I could use her expert advice in achieving this goal. To make a long story short, although she has never engaged in a collaborative blogging effort with another class, she is excited about having the opportunity to do so and offered to take on the effort with me. What is even more amazing is that we both do units on the same novel, although I typically teach my unit during the second half of the year and she teaches hers during the first part. However, the novel (The Giver) fits in nicely at any point in my curriculum and one of my colleague’s and I had discussed moving the unit to the beginning of the year, so it actually works out quite well. At this point, she and I are both e-mailing one another back and forth to determine how we want to approach working through the novel study together. She is also providing me with advice about how she has utilized blogging in her classroom, so it is nice to gain insights from someone who has experience with using this technology.
As for my second goal, my progress has been a little less obvious, but still worthy of mentioning. For my goal of integrating technology into my assessments, I think it is important to remember that I do not have to re-create the wheel. Instead, I can take my current units and revise them so that my assessments are technology-friendly. Therefore, I went and spent half a day in my classroom yesterday at school to work on organizing myself for taking action on this goal over the summer. I studied my curriculum guide and picked out two beginning of the year units that I would like to work on revising during the summer. I gathered those unit notebooks and other resources that I believe will be helpful as I work on revising the assessments and brought them home with me. I believe that by setting my goal to work on these two units this summer, I will go into the new school year having a good head start and then can gradually work on revising my other units as the year moves forward. It feels good to know that I have decided on which units I want to work on and that I have the materials with which to work during the next couple of months.
Each week of this course, I continue to learn new, refreshing ideas about how technology can be used to enhance my instructional methods. As I continue to work on my GAME plan (Cennamo et al., 2009), I look forward to implementing more of these approaches for the benefits of my students. At this time, I do not have any major questions and do not feel the need to make any major changes in my goals or my action plan. My main concern is just remembering that even though it is summer and I do not have my students, that does not mean my plan of action has to stall out. By gradually working on my goals now, I will be able to walk into the new year with a head start.
Although I feel like things are moving along nicely at this point, I still welcome any feedback/advice from all of you. Thanks!
Amanda Bryant
8th grade reading/language arts
Reference:
Cennamo, K., Ross, J., & Ertmer, P. (2009).Technology integration for meaningful classroom use. A standards-based approach. Mason, OH: Cengage Learning.
During this week alone, I have been able to take steps toward reaching both my goal of establishing a collaborative blog with another classroom to help my students develop cultural awareness and my goal of integrating technology into my assessments. One of my major concerns last week was simply finding a teacher who taught the same grade/subject matter as me and who had a similar interest in establishing a collaborative blogging effort between our classrooms. Based on the feedback from my peers in my blog last week, I have determined that since this is my first attempt at such a collaboration, it will probably be in my best interest to connect with one teacher and establish a year-long blogging relationship between our classes. Therefore, this week I made it my mission to work on finding such a teacher with whom I could connect.
When conducting my research, I came upon a website that listed several examples of classroom blogs from around the country and even the world. Many of these blogs were already well-established and gave me a lot of good ideas. As I perused these sites, I came across one that stood out to me. It is a middle school reading/language arts blog--which is right up my alley! I decided to e-mail the teacher to see how using a blog in her classroom has benefited her students and to see if she knew anything about online collaboration between classrooms so that I could use her expert advice in achieving this goal. To make a long story short, although she has never engaged in a collaborative blogging effort with another class, she is excited about having the opportunity to do so and offered to take on the effort with me. What is even more amazing is that we both do units on the same novel, although I typically teach my unit during the second half of the year and she teaches hers during the first part. However, the novel (The Giver) fits in nicely at any point in my curriculum and one of my colleague’s and I had discussed moving the unit to the beginning of the year, so it actually works out quite well. At this point, she and I are both e-mailing one another back and forth to determine how we want to approach working through the novel study together. She is also providing me with advice about how she has utilized blogging in her classroom, so it is nice to gain insights from someone who has experience with using this technology.
As for my second goal, my progress has been a little less obvious, but still worthy of mentioning. For my goal of integrating technology into my assessments, I think it is important to remember that I do not have to re-create the wheel. Instead, I can take my current units and revise them so that my assessments are technology-friendly. Therefore, I went and spent half a day in my classroom yesterday at school to work on organizing myself for taking action on this goal over the summer. I studied my curriculum guide and picked out two beginning of the year units that I would like to work on revising during the summer. I gathered those unit notebooks and other resources that I believe will be helpful as I work on revising the assessments and brought them home with me. I believe that by setting my goal to work on these two units this summer, I will go into the new school year having a good head start and then can gradually work on revising my other units as the year moves forward. It feels good to know that I have decided on which units I want to work on and that I have the materials with which to work during the next couple of months.
Each week of this course, I continue to learn new, refreshing ideas about how technology can be used to enhance my instructional methods. As I continue to work on my GAME plan (Cennamo et al., 2009), I look forward to implementing more of these approaches for the benefits of my students. At this time, I do not have any major questions and do not feel the need to make any major changes in my goals or my action plan. My main concern is just remembering that even though it is summer and I do not have my students, that does not mean my plan of action has to stall out. By gradually working on my goals now, I will be able to walk into the new year with a head start.
Although I feel like things are moving along nicely at this point, I still welcome any feedback/advice from all of you. Thanks!
Amanda Bryant
8th grade reading/language arts
Reference:
Cennamo, K., Ross, J., & Ertmer, P. (2009).Technology integration for meaningful classroom use. A standards-based approach. Mason, OH: Cengage Learning.
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