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.