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