Reflecting on the GAME plan process

In the beginning of this course, I was put to task in designing a GAME plan in which I would set forth a goal to work towards.  That goal that I set was in the area of integrating technology into my classroom in an effort to bolster the learning of my normal content.  The main focus of the goal that I set was to increase the amount of time that my students spend using technology, and specifically, increase their use of my online classroom on MOODLE.  To a lesser extent, I set a goal for myself to attend professional development courses where learning about using technology in the classroom was being taught and discussed. 

For my first goal of using MOODLE more often, I made great strides.  I set myself a personal goal of sitting down with MOODLE for approximately fifteen minutes each day, trying to learn new things about it along the way.  After a few days of this, I was setting up online discussion forums for my students to hold their book discussions, and using the same tool to have discussion questions for the books we were reading.  I dove into the process head-first and found great results in it.  The students took to it almost immediately.

As for attending professional development courses, this goal did not go as well.  I had intended to go to a MOODLE learning course, but unfortunately the one day that the course was offered, we had parent/teacher conferences.  And looking forward on the calendar, there were no more offered.

This process will affect my practice by causing me to be more reflective in my practices, as well as causing me to be more of a goal-setter.  On most days I have a difficult time looking past the end of the day.  This process has caused me to get better at doing that.  Now that I can see the benefits of the process, it will cause me to do this more consistently, as well as use it with my students.  This process works much like the idea of inquiry based learning.  The students need to set a goal, monitor the process, and work towards these goals.

As for adjustments to my classroom practices, I can see this constantly evolving what I do.  If I reflect on the day, see a weakness in my practices, and set a goal of changing it, there is no way it cannot effect me. 

Monitoring the Process

This week in my current course, I am taking a look back at the GAME plan process thus far.  After being a part of it for three week and some change, I can say that I am making some progress in the goals I set for myself.  Specifically, I am showing growth in the area of modeling digital age work with the students.  The other goal I set for myself was to create more digital age learning experiences and assessments.  

The first question posed to me this week asked whether I was finding the information and resources I need to reach my goals.  To that, I say absolutely.  When I chose both of the goals, in the back of my mind I kept the idea of basing both around taking advantage of the learning tool MOODLE.  This has been very successful with this so far.  Last year, I was able to take a quick crash course on the use of the tool, and I got the basics down.  This year, I have re-thrust myself back into learning more about it.  In the past, I have found the best way I learn any new tools or methods is to just jump into them.  Two weeks ago I told my students that I was in the midst of moving more of our classroom online.  Within a few days, we were doing our book discussion wall online in a forum.  We immediately included our reading discussions in the same way.  The students now know that when we have a warm up question that they log in to MOODLE and hit up the discussion board.  A simple search for “MOODLE tips” on Google opens a wealth of information to be used to reach my goals.  The one resource that I wanted to make use of was a course offered by our ISD on MOODLE.  I had signed up for it, not even realizing that it fell on the same day as our parent/teacher conferences.  So that one fell by the wayside, but I am keeping an eye out for it to be offered again.

The second question asked if I needed to modify my action plan.  So far, nothing has come up to throw a major wrench in the process.  I think the one bump in the road was the scheduling mishap for the MOODLE course.  However, like I mentioned, there is a wealth of knowledge available for free online.

So far, I have learned that I am truly enjoying this shift to a more heavy focus on the use of technology.  The students have really taken to the increase in technology, and it is much nicer to walk into a classroom where the students are asking to use new tools and really desire to take part in the learning.  It makes my job more enjoyable.  I am becoming much more proficient in using MOODLE with the students.  Every day I find myself on there, poking around, trying to find new ways to present information to the students, and new tools to help with their learning.  For instance, on the page, as I worked out some things for our upcoming unit, I posted some assignments as well as some youtube videos for enrichment purposes.  This process has been much less painful than I expected, and I think it may be just that I was marginally out of practice with webpage creation technology.  

As far as new questions arising, I think there is only one.  I keep asking myself, how can I make this better?  I want to know how I can continue to model digital age learning and be even more effective.  One thing I am trying to work on is how to present assignment in an online format.  A forum is a great tool, but when it comes to a room full of students, you know you will always have the ones who wait, look at other answers, and then copy.  It is a wonderful tool when opening things up for discussion though. 

Strengthening the GAME plan

This week, my goal is to take a look at my GAME plan, and take an opportunity to add to it and strengthen the overall framework that builds to my goal.  Specifically, answer a few questions about the process that, by answering, will give me a better understanding of what I need to achieve my goal, and where I stand right now.

The first question is “What resources will I need to carry out my plan (video, reading, experts, colleagues, etc)?”  For my goal of becoming more proficient in modeling digital age work and learning, as well as creating digital age learning experiences, I think the backbone of what I need is a group of other teachers to bounce ideas off of.  Luckily enough, I work in a grade level group with two other fifth grade teachers, and they are always plenty of help in helping me shape ideas for things that I want to implement in my classroom.  Also, I plan on attending a class to become more proficient in the use of MOODLE, so the class, as well as the group of other educators in the course will be helpful resources.  The internet itself is usually a valuable resource when looking for useful information on new methods to use in the classroom.  As for specifically working on modeling digital age learning and working, I need to incorporate technology into as much of my daily routine and lessons as possible.  Making further use of available tools like net books, data projectors and cameras, or the computer labs to type up work would be good tools to start with.

The second question was to see what additional information I would need.  I think that some of the best information I could start with would be for me to take a look at my practices, and start to journal on them.  What am I doing that is working towards that goal?  What should I change?  This would give me a base “measurement” of how far I am from achieving the goal, and also give me a good idea of strengths and weaknesses that I should focus on more or less.  As I move through the process, this journal will help me to refocus as I get better in some areas.  Another piece of information I feel would be helpful would be to look at some studies done in scholarly resources on the topic of modeling digital age work in the classroom.  The ideas found in those resources could be useful in the process as I implement new strategies in my own classroom.

The final question asked dealt with the steps I have taken thus far.  So far, I have signed up for my course on how to better use MOODLE, and have begun looking online for some new strategies on bringing technology into my normal classroom tasks.  I plan on first creating a discussion board on MOODLE for the students to discuss books they are reading with others in the class, and they can take suggestions from others on the books they will read next.   

Setting up a GAME plan for a more technology filled classroom.

     This week for my current course on integrating technology to teach content, I was shown the National Educational Technology Standards for Teachers, or the NETS-T.  These offered up a framework for how the classroom should look, and what teachers should be offering, as schools move forward in updating classroom tools and better preparing students for both education and the workforce outside of a k-12 school system.  These included things such as preparing students by showing them proper online etiquette, modeling ethical use of technology and digital information, and using the technology to facilitate creativity.

Goals

 There were some points of the NETS-T where I feel like I could be a better educator and facilitator for my students.  One that initially popped out to me was number three that points out that I should “Model Digital Age Work as well as Learning.”  Now, in my own building, I feel like I do a better job than many of the other educators at this.  This may be because I am one of the youngest teachers in the district and that I am more comfortable with it.  But I know that I could do a better job than I currently am.  I don’t take advantage of the technological resources that we have at our disposal.  The students could be doing more with their everyday tasks on those resources.  Another area where the NETS-T points to where I could do better is where it states that teachers need to “Design and Develop Digital Age Learning Experiences and Assessments.”  Specifically, I’d like to create learning experiences that focus on the content, but also base it around strong use of technology. 

Actions

To make myself become more proficient in these areas, I am going to make sure that I focus some extra time to these areas each week.  At the end of each day and in the mornings before school, I typically find myself with some extra time.  My first action is to set aside about thirty minutes to an hour each week for working on injecting more use of technology into my lesson plans.  I will spend that time working with MOODLE and other online resources and use them to set up a more technology based learning experience. 

Another action I plan on taking towards bettering myself as an educator in the way of technology is that I plan on attending a professional development course on how to make better use of the MOODLE web based learning tool.  I had a brief crash course in the program from our district IT department, but I think with some more learning and with a new group of people, I can get more ideas on how to best use it to optimize student learning.

Monitor

To monitor my progress throughout the process, I will set up checkpoints at the end of each month.  On the last day of each month I will put a star in my plan book so I remember to look back at the prior month’s lesson plans to ask myself if I made progress in my goals.  Have I been injecting more useful technological tools into my lessons?  Have I done all that I can to best teach both the content and foster strong use of tech tools?  Have I used them to develop relevant learning experiences?  Are my students more fluent in their tech usage?  I can ask myself these questions and reflect upon them in my lesson plan books as I move forward.

Evaluate

In the end, I will be able to look back upon my monthly reflections to see if I have achieved my goals of improvement in the NETS-T areas.  Should I not reach those goals, it will give me a good starting point in restructuring those goals in moving forward for the upcoming summer and eventual school year.

NETS-T Standards - http://www.iste.org/Libraries/PDFs/NETS_for_Teachers_2008_EN.sflb.ashx

Mike

Reflection

At the beginning of our course, I was asked to look back on my history as a student and educator, and create my own personal learning theory. In that, I stated that as a student myself, I felt that reading, lecturing, and practice were methods that worked for me. Fortunately, school came easy to me. Of course there were some group projects that I had to do, but they seemed like a smaller part of what I did. Not enough to make a significant impression on my learning theory. Once I got to college and my education program, the instructors preached constantly that all students learned differently and that we had to augment our teaching to try and reach as many of these students as possible. It was safe to say that the things that were easy for me and that I was comfortable with were not going to comprise a large part of how I taught in my own classroom.

Throughout this course we were presented with plenty of strategies and tools to help us vary our instruction style as well as incorporate technology into the lesson. Overall, I would not say that this course drastically changed my views on how students learn. What it did do was go outside of the multiple intelligence argument and offer another viewpoint, a viewpoint that I find no fault in subscribing to. In every classroom there is a place for behaviorism, mainly in the classroom management strategies. In science, the use of discovery learning has a firm hold in constructionism, where students create the meaning. Also, much of what we do in a science classroom involves the use of partners to work on projects and assignments, which is a connectivist theory. All of the theories we encountered had technological strategies as well. Some of them, I have used in my class already, such as posting work online and allowing other students to read and make comments on the work. Others, where the students work together to create a finished product that exists online, I have not done much with yet, but plan to in the future.

In the future, I would like to try and take advantage of virtual field trips for my students. There seems to be plenty of them out there, and easily accessible. Also, I would like to try and incorporate VoiceThread into more of my lessons. I think the first thing I would like to do with it as a test run would be to have students create their vocabulary lists using it. In the future, I would like to bring technology into my lesson plans at least twice as much as I do currently. Another future goal I have is to try and get myself an interactive white board by writing grants and fundraising. They seem like a wonderful tool to have in the classroom.