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.