Application 3:GAME Plan in the Works…..

As a part of my GAME plan I have discussed my desire to create a blog with my students and fellow teachers and have explored a few different options. I decided to go with a blogging site that I have used before that is “kid-friendly” and has lots of options for me to monitor its use. However, after gathering ideas from colleagues I have decided to go about using it in a different way than I had before. Last week I had my students try writing a response to a question that I posted. My goal at the moment is to get students familiar with blogging and the appropriate way to use it before I have them create one of their own. After I receive all of the responses from my students I will be able to reassess and decide on what step I will need to take next. I think it is important to be open to trying out such projects and then make necessary adjustments along the way. Of course, if anyone has any advice or experiences that might be insightful as to how they have used blogging, or sites that host blogs in the classroom it would be much appreciated!
I have also made great use of my favorite blog, Free Technology for Teachers, to search for useful sites that I can use with my students!

My GAME Plan

After examining and reflecting on the National Education Standards for Teachers I feel that I have been working towards implementing each of these goals into my classroom on a daily basis. However, there is always room for improvement. Each day I try to incorporate some sort of digital image or information to help solidify lesson objectives because I find that students who can see examples of topics or watch animations are much more able to relate to the information I am presenting. Using technology I incorporate experiences that enable students to be active participants in their own learning. I use our classroom website and various other tools to collaborate with parents and students and share what we have been learning in the classroom. When completing projects that involve gathering information from the Internet, I teach my students the importance of ethical use and am consistently keeping up with new ways to help support the learning of my students.
Even though I feel that I have touched on each of the five NETS-T standards in my teaching, there are things that I still need to improve upon. The following is an outline of my GAME plan, which describes how I plan to improve:

Goals: 1. To promote student reflection using collaborative tools.
2. To Evaluate and reflect on current research and professional practice on a regular basis to make use of emerging tools and resources that support student learning.

Action: 1. I will research different bloging sites that I can use with my students that will allow them to reflect on and share information about what we are learning. I will explore blogs that have been created by teachers to find out how others are using them.
2. I will continue to pursue information about technology tools that will be useful in supporting my students’ learning. I will collaborate with other colleagues to learn about what other teachers are doing in the classroom.

Monitor: 1. I will take note of different blog sites and the different features that they have. I will also make a list of possible problems and things to keep in mind when using a blog with my students.
2. I will make a list technology tools that I learn about and reflect on their effectiveness. I will collaborate with colleagues to discuss different ways to incorporate the tools that I learn about.

Evaluate: 1. I will reflect on what students have posted respond appropriately. I will make notes about what worked and what I would do differently.
2. I will share what I have learned with my colleagues and brainstorm how they can be used in the classroom.

Resources:

ISTE(International Society for Technology in Education), 2008, retrieved from: iste@iste.org, www.iste.org. on March 5, 2011.

Week 8 Reflection: Final Thoughts

Upon reflection on what I have learned throughout this course I think the most striking revelation is that being literate in the 21st Century involves much more than just being able to use a computer. It involves being able to navigate, evaluate, question, communicate, collaborate, and synthesize information that is found using the Internet. In that past I have taken it for granted that students would be able to determine the authenticity of a website and to find relevant information on their own. The thought of embarking on an inquiry project was overwhelming because I was never sure where to start. My eyes have been opened to some important aspects of what I need to do to help my students be literate in the 21st Century.

I think the QUEST model (Eagleton & Dobler, 2007) will help me in future inquiry projects because I now have a much better understanding of how to break it down into pieces that will create learning opportunities for students to not only practice the 21st Century skills, but gather and construct knowledge on topics that are relevant. I have learned the importance of allowing students to create their own questions to be answered. By teaching them how to find the answers to these questions I am instilling some valuable tools that my students will use for the rest of their lives.

My own personal goal includes taking the steps to be involved in creating an Internet usage, plagiarism, and copyright policy for our elementary school. Currently the policy that was adopted by our school board is very generic and outdated. After talking to fellow colleagues I am not the only one that wasn’t aware that there was one. I think there is a strong need to develop a plan that is not only clear, but shared, understood and followed by all the teachers, students, and parents in our school. Using what I have learned from this course I will develop a committee of parents and teachers to develop a plan that will outline what is acceptable Internet usage. We will also develop a plan that outlines the steps and guidelines that teachers and parents should follow to teach students how to be 21st Century literate.


Eagleton, M. B., & Dobler, E. (2007). Reading the web: Strategies for Internet inquiry. New York: The Guilford Press.

How to Evaluate a Website

I explored the website about the Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus. Watch the following Screencast that explains how to determine if a website contains accurate information.

Legit Website

Final Reflection

After completing the readings, discussions, and watching the videos, my beliefs of how students best learn have been verified, but better yet, I have new tools to help me be a more effective teacher. My teaching philosophy centers around the belief that students need to make meaningful connections to what they are learning in order to build upon and retain information. Some of the tools that were introduced in this course will help me translate this philosophy into what I teach. The immediate changes I will make will be the use of technology as a collaborative tool. Students will learn from one another by utilizing tools that allow them to share, build projects, and understanding together.

Voicethread is a tool that I plan to incorporate into many different areas of my curriculum. I can see the value of this tool as a way to get students to be active learners and I am looking forward to using it with my students. Voicethread provides an opportunity for students to learn by using both visual and auditory tools which is key to student learning. The other tool that I plan to use with my students is Webspiration. I like the collaborative nature of this tool and the versatility it will provide for students while learning about and mapping out information for different topics.

One of my long-term goals that I have for my instructional practice is to make more of an effort to use technology as more of a learning tool and less of an instructional tool. Although I can see the value of using it as a learning tool, I can also see that it is even more important to get technology into the hands of students. This leads me to my second long-term goal. I will use technology as a way to incorporate more project-based learning where students are given the tools and freedom to be more active participants. It is important for students to develop an understanding of material through doing and creating and technology is a great way to do this!

Technology Brings us Together

Technology has allowed us to voice our opinions, seek help, research, share and socialize. Does it have a place in the classroom? Of course it does. For me the question is how? I feel pretty lucky to have what I do at the school I teach at. We have some pretty amazing Grant writers that work hard to get some of the latest and greatest technology. The problem with technology is that it is ever-changing, what is great one year, is out-dated the next. This can be very difficult to keep up with when you are working with limited resources.

The other problem that schools face is time, or lack thereof. As an educator I feel like every year there is more and more to do and teach. I enjoy learning about and using technology and I spend a fair amount of time at home doing things on the computer. There is very little time in the classroom to do what we are already doing. How do we add technology to the mix without taking away from other things? Check out my Voicethread to post your thoughts and comments about what life is like in your school or classroom and how you make it all work!

Voicethread Link

Instructional Strategies and Constructivism

Constructivism is a theory built from the Constructivist theories of Jean Piaget, who believed that knowledge is not just transmitted from teacher to student, but actively constructed in the mind of the learner (Orey, 2001).

As a teacher I have found a great amount of truth behind the Constructivist theories and how it pertains to learning. The projects that were described in our reading were excellent examples of how to get students to be active participants in their learning. I have tried similar Project Based Learning activities in my own teaching where students are given an expectation and the tools to achieve it, and have seen positive results....most of the time. There is a lot that can go wrong, but with proper planning these projects can have great results. I find that creating projects where students can't just sit back and daydream makes them be a part of the process. They develop a sense of ownership and make connections to things that I couldn't even begin to convey through directed instruction. Allowing students to creatively develop answers to questions and problems in their own way gets them excited and makes the experience much more meaningful.

Powerpoint, Excel, internet, Kidspiration....there are TONS of different applications available to use, but it doesn't matter what mode of technology is used to create the final artifact. What matters is that students are given the tools and freedom to find their own answers. Allowing students to have freedom to arrive at their own final product can be difficult for a few reasons. As the teacher, I must not only have a clear set of expectations and outcomes, but I must also have thought about all that could go wrong ahead of time. The other limiting factor is the amount of time in the computer lab that is needed to work on such projects. In the end though, the final artifact and the satisfaction that a students feels makes it all worth the extra effort. I've never had a student say they didn't enjoy doing such projects. Most of the time they aren't even aware of all they are learning!

Orey, M.(Ed.). (2001). Emerging perspectives on learning, teaching, and technology. Retrieved from http://projects.coe.uga.edu/epltt/index.php?title=Main_Page