Update on My GAME Plan

I have begun to sort through my resources for students in order to organize them effectively in to a wiki space. I have so many sources that are on paper in the form of worksheets or diagrams and I am working on sorting through those as well and will most likely begin to transfer them to the computer either through scanning them or re-typing them into a more workable format. Through the advice of some of my colleagues, I have begun to use a Delicious.com account, though I am not entirely familiar with it, it seems that it will work for me in helping me keep track of different websites that I encounter. These actions that I have taken towards my GAME plan have been effective in my following through with creating a page for students to go to for extra help or practice. In reviewing these sources, I have been revisiting different ideas and information that I can use in the upcoming school year.

As for my professional development portion of my GAME plan, I have been thinking about whether or not I want to familiarize myself with one particular topic such as technology in the classroom seminars or autism seminars, or if I want to attend different seminars in different areas related to my field. I have not figured out if I want to limit myself to one genre in order to become more knowledgeable in an area and share this information with my colleagues or do I want to attend different seminars to gain some more knowledge in a few different areas. I feel that if I did it this way, I would not retain as much information but I also feel that it would help to make for a better rounded base from which to use in my teaching and help to teach others. As more opportunities arise in the upcoming school year, I guess I will make that determination.

Working on My GAME Plan

I must admit that I have taken some time off from my GAME plan and finding different resources and preparing for the upcoming school year. I have many different resources for the first part of my game plan in many different locations and areas and one of my first steps to be taken would be to compile these sources and information together in one location. In doing this I will be able to organize them and categorize them into a workable format. I have not yet decided how I will organize them (subject, games …) and will have to wait and see when I have all of the sources together. I do think that creating this website will be beneficial to the students that I work with for some I work with for a short time during the school year or over the summer and it will be a good way to stay connected and allow them to continue making progress.

For the second portion of my GAME plan, working on attending more professional development seminars and truly enhancing my knowledge base, I have not made much progress towards this. As the school year begins, more seminars are sent to me and once I have my schedule I can begin to plan on attending more of these. I know that this summer may have been a better time to try and explore these opportunities and work towards attending perhaps one or two, but my schedule did not really allow this. I really think that these presentations and seminars will really be helpful in allowing me to expand my knowledge base and share this information with other teachers so that we can all benefit and establish more productive and exciting classrooms for our students.

Continuing on with my GAME Plan

In order to carry out my GAME plan for strengthening my knowledge and confidence in Model Digital-Age Work and Learning, I have begun to reflect on what I might do to improve my knowledge in this area. Since I do not have my own classroom in which have my own interactive whiteboard or computers for which students can learn from. I also will not know my placements for the upcoming school year until it gets closer to the beginning of the year. However with my teaching situation as a Consultant teacher and Tutor, I am thinking of establishing a blog which will have different resources of review games or information that students can use when they are not directly working with me. Parents can use it as a source for perhaps over the summer for students to refresh their memories of content area material. I have been collecting different sources of information from Jeopardy games and websites from my classes at Walden and from other teachers. As I collect this information, I need to come up with an organizational method for putting them into a blog. When the school year begins, I will take advantage of being in classrooms where teachers integrate technology and take note and learn from this.

For the other part of my GAME plan, Engaging in Profession Growth and Leadership, I have been looking through the different opportunities that are offered in my district through the Board of Cooperative Educational Services (BOCES). I receive many emails have need to figure out which will benefit my teaching situation and convenient times and dates. I will look into this more instead of ignoring the emails as they can truly be very beneficial to teaching as the world of education is constantly evolving.

Developing a Personal GAME Plan

The National Education Technology Standards and Performance Indicators for Teachers allow teachers to reflect on and learn to implement different experiences for students in the classroom. These standards help teachers set goals and benchmarks for learning in the classroom while integrating technology.

The first area of the NETS-T standards that I would like to strength my knowledge and confidence in is Model Digital-Age Work and Learning. Within this standard you are to become fluent in different technology systems so much so that you can easily integrate them into your teaching and into your classroom. I have not worked with many of the different technology systems that are in place in a lot of classrooms today (Smart Boards and other digital learning tools…). I would like to know more about these different technology tools as they can make my teaching more engaging and I could have more knowledge with which to share with other teachers and colleagues. Some of the steps that I would take to achieve this goal of becoming more proficient in this area would be to observe more in classrooms where teachers are using these different tools and taking the time to talk with them and gain ideas of how I can integrate this type of technology within my own teaching. As I have the basic knowledge of communication and am able to communicate regularly via email to parents and other teachers, I would like to extend this knowledge by eventually creating a blog in which students and parents can communicate with me and look to see different websites or other information that I have posted that is useful to my students. I can monitor this by doing a trial and error blog to see if it is as effective as I would hope.

A second area of the NETS-T standards that I would like to become more acquainted with is the area of Engaging in Profession Growth and Leadership. I have begun to subscribe to different educational blogs in my RSS feeder which I can read through at my leisure and they provide me with different experiences and information from teachers all over our nation and the world. There are so many different opportunities that come through my email each day. As these blogs are very beneficial, so would taking the time to discover more about the professional development opportunities in my area. These opportunities can range from leadership conferences, math or reading skill building, autism awareness, technology courses and many more. These courses would be so beneficial to building my knowledge base in many different areas of teaching especially in the areas of technology which not many people may have the knowledge of. In order to achieve this goal of taking on more of a professional growth mindset, I would like to begin attending 1-2 seminars a year. I would apply this new knowledge to my teaching and share this information with other teachers with whom I work. I feel that contributing to my school community in this way is not only beneficial to me as I am growing and learning through these opportunities, but I am sharing the knowledge with others so that everyone has the opportunities to establish a more engaging classroom.