Using the GAME Plan Process with My Students

Throughout my course at Walden, I learned about different ways to integrate technology into my teaching. As a part of this we worked with NETS-S standards and established a GAME plan to take this process step by step. As a part of my GAME plan, I wanted to begin to familiarize myself with the technology tools that are available within some of the schools that I work in as well as future schools that I will be placed in. As a part of my GAME plan, I plan to observe teachers and do some research online trying out different technology tools and instruments. I have already obtained a lot of knowledge from my course and have explore using some of these tools so I will know how to use them with my own students and teaching. As the school year approaches, I plan to find different teachers who are experienced with different technology tools and have really tried to incorporate as much technology as they can into their classrooms. I think that by learning from them, I can also share my knowledge with others. The second portion of my GAME plan, I plan to attend some professional development courses to enhance my knowledge in different aspects of teaching. I plan to make time for these seminars in order to help my students as well as other teachers that I work with.

In using a GAME plan approach to the NETS-S standards, it will help my students become better acquainted with the different types of technology in classrooms. Helping students learn to become 21st Century literate and learn to communicate are some of the major parts of the NETS-S standards. I hope that by take a GAME plan approach to becoming more proficient in these standards, it will in turn help my students learn as well. Using the GAME plan approach would also be helpful for students to accomplish their own goals in and easy to follow step by step way. It will help to make tasks seem less daunting as they focus on one step at a time. This can be used in many different areas of teaching. I hope to use the GAME plan approach with the students that I work with this upcoming fall. Using these standards and the GAME plan approach will help my students become more proficient and be better prepared for the 21st century teaching and learning.

GAME Plan Progress

Reading back through my blog posts, I realized that I have been slowly moving towards my goals. In the beginning of developing my GAME plan, I discussed using a blog to host different activities and websites for practice with different topics for my students. I wanted to better acquaint myself with different technological tools even if I am not using them on a daily basis (such as an interactive whiteboard, Elmo…). The second part of my game plan was geared more towards professional development and working towards fitting more of this into my schedule. I have been looking for different opportunities to take on when the school year starts. I want to be able to share my knowledge that I gain from these opportunities with my fellow teachers. As the school year approaches, I will most likely revise my GAME plan slightly depending on the amount of students I am able to take on for this may impact the time and dedication I have to finishing these goals.

As I am not quite ready to set any new goals, taking this GAME plan approach will help me in the future with other endeavors I may take on. This approach to setting goals and taking them step by step in order to achieve them is a very logical method. I will most likely be using this method when I would like to accomplish a task as the idea of goal setting helps you to feel more accomplished and is an easy way to actually do the tasks you only talk about. There is so much that I am learning about through these courses, I feel that I am already on my way to helping others make changes and enhancements in their classrooms.

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.

Reflection: Supporting Information Literacy and Online Inquiry in the Classroom

Throughout the course, Supporting Information Literacy and Online Inquiry in the Classroom, I gained knowledge and information of new literacy skills that are necessary for students and classrooms to succeed within the 21st Century. One of the most striking revelations that I had dealt with the new literacy skills of reading, writing, and communicating. These new literacy skills are “concerned with understanding and teaching the new reading, writing, and communication strategies required for student to maximize the potential of information and communication technologies (ICTs) such as the Internet” (Eagleton & Dobler, 2007, pg. 44). In the past most forms of communication has been written by hand or typed on a typewriter and information was communicated in this fashion. With today’s technology when new information is researched and studied, it can be communicated in many different forms from email, to blogs, to online, articles and publications. As this class was centered around student inquiries and learning how to use the internet for searching and researching, I learned new ideas and information about how to teach students how to use the internet effectively to do their research projects. I also learned new ways for students to communicate this knowledge to their classmates and teachers aside from essay writing form. Students are able to establish a blog or a wiki, create presentations using Power Point or Voice Thread technology. These are just some of the many ways for students to become more interactive with their studies. As a part of the 21st century skills that students are using now, fostering a collaborative working environment in which students work together to solve a problem or create a project is extremely important to continuing the growth and success of students outside of the classroom.

Within this class I gained much knowledge and experiences about inquiry in the classroom that will definitely influence my future teaching. I have learned how easily different forms of technology can be integrated into the classroom whether it is through projects in a collaborative work environment or in daily class work that allows students to practice these learned skills. Since making a Holocaust Inquiry Unit Plan, my knowledge and experience with integrating different forms of technology to units and lessons has greatly increased. I have learned that what may come naturally to some students may be more difficult and challenging to others. It is important to teach the basic skills to students, such as how to appropriately use search engines when researching, as a part of allowing students to begin to explore on their own and create their own work. I also learned that it is important for students to have a part in their learning as the effects of what they study can have a longer retention as well as a more profound effect on the students. “The most compelling inquiries are student-generated…student choice is critical for sustaining interest in long term inquiry projects” (Eagleton & Dobler, 2007, p. 82). Allowing students to create and generate their own topics and questions (within reason) for projects with ultimately allow students to become more engaged and excited with what they are to create.

With the world of technology constantly changing and advancing, it is important to stay abreast of the new technologies that are useful in the classroom. As a part of building on my preexisting skills and the new skills learned in this course, I would like to take advantage of the professional development opportunities that are available within my district. There are a variety of courses that are offered in many different areas of technology and different ways to make learning more interesting for students and this would definitely be to my advantage. I would also like to continue to use this learned knowledge gained within course at Walden within my teaching as a way to become more proficient in integrating technology and being able to share this knowledge and information with other with whom I work. By taking small steps and incorporating one or two technology resources that I have learned about, this information will become more natural and common within my own teaching.

This course has also allowed me to create a working unit plan in which students will learn to effectively develop questions and research this information and chose different ways to communicate their findings with an audience. Asking important questions leads to comprehension of the material as well as the ability to synthesize new information with previously learned skills. As a part of New Literacy Standards outlined by Dr. Douglas Hartman, “knowing how to question, developing good questions, and staying focused on questions” (Laureate, 2009) as strategies that 21st Century learners should have. This course has taught me different ways to support inquiry in my teaching and has helped to teach me different ways to allow students to become more comfortable with researching and communicating this information.