EDUC 6713 Final Reflection

EDUC 6713 Final Reflection Blog Post

At this time, my GAME plan is still in action. By the end of the school year, I began to incorporate more technology within my lessons. Each week we had a grade level meeting, in which we discussed ways as a group that we could begin incorporating more technology. With the help of my colleagues, I hope to continue to find ways to enrich the technology usage within my classroom. After talking with students and parents, my second GAME plan was to incorporate a class website or blog. The majority of parents said they would benefit from the online communication tool, and had access to internet either while at work or from home. I was excited to see some many parents interested in this communication tool. Since I will have a different group of students next school year, I plan on giving them a survey to determine whether or not they feel it would be beneficial. I had also discussed with my grade level about having a grade level website. In the last 2 weeks we have had many changes within the grade level including 2 teachers leaving, and receiving 3 new teachers so I will bring this up again at our first meeting as a new grade level. This may be too much considering all of the changes that are occurring, but if they are interested would like to see how it goes. After creating these GAME plans, I have realized the importance of making goals with actions to help us reach these goals. I plan on using the creation of GAME plans with my students to help them accomplish tasks that may seem hard to them.

After this class, I have learned ways to implement new technologies that I have not used before within my classroom. I thought it would be difficult to create problem-based learning activities that included the content I needed to teach. However, I found as long as students are conducting their own research and am able to guide their learning, and then they are completing a PBL activity. Students enjoy having a problem where they find their own solution, which allows their learning to be more meaningful. As for social networking, this was part of my GAME plan as well. I want my students to use our class website or blog to communicate with others on given problems or topics. This online communication will allow them to post their responses and posts on their own time after they have had time to think about it. The newest piece of technology that I have found to be interesting is digital storytelling. This allows the students to create stories in which they can present a variety of topics. Through these stories, they are able to communicate new thoughts and ideas to their audience and provide opportunities they may have not had before. I look forward to implementing all of these instructional strategies into my teaching. Unfortunately, the school year has come to an end, so all of my goals and ideas will have to wait until next school year. However, this gives me time to make my ideas better and find more ways to incorporate technology through content. I have enjoyed working with all of my Walden colleagues during this class, and look forward to the last 2 classes together.

Happy blogging until next time!

Samantha R.

Monitoring my GAME plan

Monitoring my GAME plan

For my first GAME plan, I have already begun putting it into action. After meeting with my colleagues, we found ways in which we could begin incorporating the technology we have available within our lessons. Right now, since it is the end of the school year, we are trying to prepare our students for fourth grade. We have found many websites and interactive games that introduce the same indicators we are introducing to students at this time. At this time, the interactive games and websites are the only technologies we have implemented in lessons, but we meet again soon to see if we can begin pulling in more throughout our lessons. At this time, I do not need to modify this GAME plan, other than the fact that it will continue into next school year as we continue introducing new technologies. I have learned the importance of working with my colleagues because they all have new and different ideas and knowledge that we are sharing with each other. I have learned about different websites and interactive games that I did not know existed through our conversations. I am continuing this GAME plan, and hope to continue growing as a teacher and a learner myself.

The second GAME plan, I still plan on carrying over into next school year. I have looked into many of the websites offered by my colleagues to try and find what will work best for my students and parents. As a grade level, we are still discussing the idea of having a grade level website with general information for all parents. Before the year is out, I plan on giving my students from this year a survey about their thoughts on this project and whether or not they think it would be beneficial. I am interested in seeing their answers. As of right now, I do not have any questions regarding this GAME plan. I plan on carrying it over into the next school year to use with my new third grade students and parents.

Overall, I feel that having these GAME plans are helping me to stay focused on my technology driven goals for my classroom. I hope after this experience I will be able to share with my fellow teachers the importance of having a goal, with actions and monitoring when trying to implement something new and different in our classrooms.

Carrying out GAME Plan

Carrying out GAME Plan

After creating my GAME plans last week, I was ready to begin finding ways to make them happen. After much discussion, I have realized that with the short amount of time left in the school year, it is even more important that I set the goals for myself and begin carrying out the actions as soon as possible.

For my first GAME plan, which is incorporating the use of more technology into my lessons, it is vital that I have various technology resources available to my students. It is also important that I work with a colleague to be sure that the way in which I am implementing technology is enhancing my lesson and not hindering student learning.  To help achieve this goal, it is also going to be beneficial for me to know what technology tools students have used before, and what tools I may need to teach them how to use before implementing it within a lesson. I want students to feel comfortable using the technology within the lesson so they can concentrate on gaining the content knowledge through the use of technology. I do not want the technology use to be a barrier for their learning.  To begin this GAME plan, I have met with several colleagues to look closely at the lessons we are about to begin teaching, to determine whether or not any form of technology can be implemented. We are still working out ways in which we can do so, so this GAME plan is still in the action stage.

For my second GAME plan, the resources I will need are websites that allow me to create user friendly blogs or websites for communication. Thanks to some colleagues at Walden, I have been introduced to several different websites that are user friendly and will allow for this communication to occur. I plan on creating a survey for my parents and students to determine their interest in using a class website to help them stay informed, but I will probably have to gather this data at the beginning of the next school year as well. With the end of the year quickly approaching, I feel that this GAME plan will be one in which I will need to carry over into the next school year with my new group of students. However, I am still going to determine the interest level from this year’s students to see how parents respond to the idea. After talking with my colleagues about this plan, they too are interested in creating a website for their classroom, and possibly a grade level website where general information can be found.

As I continue to carry out my GAME plans, I am realizing the importance of making sure that I have a goal and actions in which to help me. If I set a goal for myself, I need to have ways in which to achieve that goal, and determine what resources I will need to help me be successful. I am looking forward to continuing both GAME plans, but primarily the first one during the remainder of this school year.

GAME Plans

When looking at the NETS-T standards, I realized that I feel pretty confident in most of them however, I do need to work on my proficiency.  In order to be more proficient in these standards, I will need to be sure to create a GAME plan that I will stick to, including deadlines I set for myself to make sure I accomplish the goals I establish.

The first indicator is:

Indicator 2a: Design or adapt relevant learning experiences that incorporate digital tools and resources to promote student learning and creativity.

G- My Goal:

-My goal for this indicator is to incorporate the use of technology for students into more of my lessons. The incorporation may occur during a mini-lesson or it may occur as the main component in my main lesson.

A- Action:

-The action I am going to take for this goal is to begin analyzing the content I am covering on a deeper level. I will think about the various forms of technology available to my students, and find ways to allow for student use and engagement. The content will be my basis; however the use of technology tools will enrich the lessons.

M-Monitor:

-To help monitor the achievement of this goal, I plan on creating a checklist of technology tools available. As they are incorporated into lessons, I will check them off. I also plan on working with a colleague to help ensure that the technology being used in enriching the lesson and not hindering student learning.

E- Evaluation:

-With the checklist, I plan on documenting a brief reflection of the integration of the various technologies. Hopefully, as result, I will be able to see student growth in technology use as well as content knowledge. I will continue to work with my colleague, and use evaluations from them to determine whether or not my goal was achieved.

The second indicator is:

Indicator 3c: Communicate relevant information and ideas effectively to students, parents, and peers using a variety of digital-safe media and formats.

G- My Goal:

-The goal for this indicator is to create a user friendly website of blog in which I communicate with parents, students, and the community on the exciting things occurring within the classroom.

A-Action:

- To achieve this goal, I would like to discuss with students uses they would like to see happen with a classroom blog or webpage. I would also communicate to my parents my desire for this communication, and hopefully the responses will show that they would be interested in being a vital component of the communication. Since I already have this blog created, it would be easier to incorporate the needs of my classroom into this blog and make parents and students aware of what information they would find by looking at this blog.

M- Monitor:

-To monitor this goal, I would keep track of the number of visitors to the blog or webpage. I would also document the number of comments and posts concerning classroom needs to make sure it is being used as a vital communication tool between school and home.

E-Evaluation:

-At the end of the school year, I would take a survey from parents and students, on how useful they thought the webpage/blog was. If they did not find it useful, I would ask for their opinions how I could change it be more beneficial.