Week 5 GAME Plan Update

There has been little progress in reaching my GAME plan on the school front, however, I have seen some improvements with my students and technology. I have mostly completed research throughout the last week in order to find new approaches/ideas to incorporate technology into my school.  

Students completed their choice Dr. Seuss projects and they will begin presenting them on Friday.  Students were very successful with creating projects in Power Point and were very creative in what they produced.  I had some students create poems, others songs, and still others wrote their own Dr. Seuss story.  One group created a Power Point birthday card for Dr. Seuss including a poem and then added their voices using VoiceThread.  While, I have not been able to convince administration to use more technology, I am trying to introduce many new ideas and strategies to my students in the form of technology.

I have also begun to discuss possible PBL’s to complete at the end of the school year.  The Reading teacher and I have been bouncing ideas off of one another and I believe we have created one great idea for a PBL and an exciting project to use technology with.  Maybe input from you all will lead us in the right direction.  The first incorporates reading, writing, and social studies.  The project will explain that all social studies books have vanished and it is up to the students to create instructional materials for teachers to use to instruct history.  Students will need to choose an event from the 21st century, research the event, create a product, and present it to classmates.  This project will have students practice research, a task we have already done, and then apply that information to a final product.  The second incorporate math, reading, writing, geography, and possibly science.  We will ask students to choose any place in the world to visit.  After researching the place, hotel, flight, geography, climate, etc., students will need to create a brochure persuading students come visit their destination site.

As for the latest update with administration- no such luck.  The G&T teacher and I have sat down to have our initial conversation about making progress in the world of technology.  When I discussed some of the many ideas, materials, programs, etc. I have learned throughout this course, she was just as eager as I am to implement them within our school.  I have started to think of ways to communicate with the community after viewing the video in this week’s resources.  I thoroughly enjoyed hearing about Chan Gray’s third grade class, in which students chose an organization to donate to and then had to retail shop for materials needed.  Each year our school chooses organizations to donate to and we collect materials.  I liked the idea of asking parents to contribute money and then my class can shop online to find the most materials for the least amount of money. The only way in which I can communicate with the community is by sending out a flyer.  As you can imagine, most flyers do not make it into the hands of a guardian once my students receive them.  With an interactive school site, I would be able to relay this information directly to parents, explain what is going on in the classroom, respond to any questions, and visually show parents the work the students are completing.  I plan to use this activity when I approach administration during the summer.

Laureate Education, Inc. (Producer). (2010). Spotlight on technology: problem-based learning [Webcast]. Integrating technology across the content area. Baltimore, MD: Author.

Monitoring My GAME Plan Progress

As is the case with all goals, you must constantly modify, change, correct, etc.  My goal focused on connecting with the outside community, parents, colleagues, and children with the use of technology.  I was able to find numerous sources to use with the assistance of colleagues.  I have also discussed technology use within school with both my mentor and my principal.  From these discussions and research, I have found that I may need to change my expectations or outcomes of this goal.

To begin my students, while they are supposed to be the technological generation, have very limited abilities when it comes to the computer.  For example, this week I assigned a computer based test on dialogue.  I posted the Word document to my subject page on our homework site, homeworknow.com.  I presented the test to students and explained they would have to revise the writing and then submit it via email or print out a hard copy.  I looked out to a room of mouths dropped and eyes bulging.  They had no idea what was being asked of them and instantly hands shot up in the air for directions.  Later that day, I checked emails to find numerous concerns and questions from parents.  In this day and age, not knowing how to save and attach a document is unheard of, yet in my district it still seems foreign to some.

While this is a huge issue, it is not the most severe.  Within my school there are no guidelines for internet and technology use.  Therefore, most teachers avoid implementing technology within their classrooms.  I, however, wanted to create a blog for my students last year.  I had planned to use these blogs with writing assignments.  The major goal was to “support collaboration and help students develop critical communication skills by guiding their responses to classmates’ postings, (Cennamo & Erthmer, 2009, 74). They were extremely excited and couldn’t wait to take part in my maiden voyage through the world of blogs.  My voyage came to a stop when I was approached by my principal stating I could not create a blog through school.  My own personal blog would be acceptable, but attaching myself or my school was not permitted.  I had written consent from each parent, but was still denied.  My students were heart broken and I couldn’t believe in this generation, being denied internet access.  While my school does have a website that supplies parents with information and another site in which parents can check homework, grades, tests, etc., it does not have an interactive webpage in which communication between teacher, parents, and students could be made easier.

After experiencing these two glitches, I now know I need to make some changes to my game plan and implement a new structure.  To begin, any outside information needed, for example, a problem occurring within the area, I along with my students will have to find from researching.  Students can choose real world topics from their own findings as opposed to being given topics from people within the community.  The second change is going to be for our school website.  After discussing with a colleague in another school, I was introduced to a great site, edu.glogster.com.  This site is where the school’s main information can be found, but it also links to individual teachers.  Teachers can post due dates, assignments, tests, etc. on to their individual page.  They also can post discussion questions, which is similar to what I am doing in my masters program, and students can access the page and post a response.  The key element of this program is that the student creates a username, but no one has access to student’s real name besides the teacher.  Privacy and accessibility were the issues that arose with my principal.  I plan to meet with another teacher, who is interested in incorporating more technology school wide, and present these sources to the principal, colleagues, administration.  Why not implement a technology tool that is aligned with 21st century skills?

From this plan, I have realized that I am currently teaching in a school that needs to incorporate much more technology.  Privacy and accessibility issues should not be the reasons our students are not capable of using computers correctly.  I know I cannot approach these issues solo, and have already begun discussing changes with colleagues.  While some are reluctant due to their inabilities with the computer, they realize this generation needs to learn technology skills in order to be successful in the real world.  

References:

Cennamo, K., Ross, J. & Ertmer, P. (2009). Technology Integration for Meaningful Classroom Use: A Standards-Based Approach. (Laureate Education, Inc., Custom ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning.

Resources Needed for My GAME Plan

In my previous post I stated that I wanted to work on the following:

~I would like to “engage students in exploring real-world issues and solving authentic problems using digital tools and resources” (NETS-T 1b) (International Society for Technology in Education, 2008).

~I would like to “collaborate with students, peers, parents and community members using digital tools and resources to support student success and innovation” (NETS-T 3b)(International Society for Technology in Education, 2008).

In order to complete these GAME plans, I need certain resources to assist me in my process. I believe that using a teaching blog, similar to the one I am posting on, parents, students, community members, etc. can contact me and supply me with required information.  Other members on my blog can comment about issues in the community, school, world, etc.  Students will be provided with a list of criteria rules in which they need to follow when blogging.  Parents and students would need to sign a contract stating they will be appropriate when blogging on the site.  The reason for the contract?  On nj.com, our state website, parents from my district write inappropriate statements often including comments about teachers, administrators, sports coaches, etc.  I feel blogging is a great form of communication and inappropriateness takes away from the concept and benefits of blogging.

I also feel that the school should create a website that will be monitored for community patrons to visit.  This way, people of the community can see what is going on in the school.  By doing this, the school, teachers, administration are more open to the public, but more importantly the public can see what their tax dollars are going to.  In my district, we struggle each year to pass the budget and often people in the community claim teachers are “glorified babysitters.”  This will allow for the public to see the hard work the children of the community are completing and how difficult it is to teach them without the supplies needed.

References:

International Society for Technology in Education, Initials. (2008). Nets for teachers 2008. Retrieved from http://www.iste.org/standards/nets-for-teachers/nets-for-teachers-2008.aspx

GAME Plan

Game Plan 1- Real-world issues

Goals:  I would like to “engage students in exploring real-world issues and solving authentic problems using digital tools and resources” (NETS-T 1b) (International Society for Technology in Education, 2008).

Action:  In order to accomplish this goal I need to continue expanding my knowledge about real world issues within my student’s community.  The only way to create projects and assignments that will interest students is to discover some issues they face in and out of school.  I will do this by asking for parent input and also input from community members.  We have local forums for parents and others within the community.  By posting to the blog, community members can send me information about issues within the community or issues that impact our students.

Monitor:  I will make sure I contact as many people as I can.  This will expand my search and offer more real world options for students to choose from.  I will continue to check the blog to see if anyone has offered any real world issues within the community.  

Evaluate:  Evaluation will be using the information within my classroom and observing student’s interest.  A successful assignment or project can only be evaluated after students have worked on it and completed it.  When starting new projects I ask for student input on ways in which we can change, improve, differentiate, etc. the assignment.

Game Plan 2- Communication 

Goals: I would like to collaborate with students, peers, parents and community members using digital tools and resources to support student success and innovation. (NETS-T 3b)(International Society for Technology in Education, 2008) 

Action: I will contact peers, parents, and community members via digital tools and explain that I would like to maintain contact with them throughout the school year.  It is vital for parents and teachers to be on the same page with the way in which their child learns.  I will allow students to visit my webpage which will be updated constantly with assignments, tests, projects, upcoming events, etc.  This will allow students to remain in contact with me at all times.

Monitor: It will be my responsibility to check my email and webpage often to see if any parents, community member, or peer is trying to contact me.  I will also monitor interaction with parents by the way in which the student is doing in my class.  If parents and teachers communicate students will understand that they must work to the best of their ability in school and out.

Evaluate:  Evaluation will be based on student’s success within the classroom.  A child’s passing my course will supply a numerical evaluation for me.  However, success as a student in my class will be assessed with student and parent feedback at the end of the school year.  

References:

International Society for Technology in Education, Initials. (2008). Nets for teachers 2008. Retrieved from http://www.iste.org/standards/nets-for-teachers/nets-for-teachers-2008.aspx