week 8-final reflection

The GAME plan has given me a new perspective in learning about technology and incorporating it into the classroom. I have realized that I can take the initiative to expand my professional growth in small steps without being overwhelmed in having to learn it and do it all at once. By doing this, I am allowed the opportunity to self-monitor and evaluate and reflect on the direction I am going to achieve my goals.
By having the opportunity to put into play a GAME plan to implement and learn new technology, I have learned that I can manage the time to learn a new tool and pass it on to my students so they may expand their creativity and desire in being a self-directed learner. I will continue to practice the GAME plan I have started and continue to learn new tools and effective ways to intertwine technology into the content areas I teach. I will also allow students the opportunity to participate in project-based learning activities so they can continue to grow and learn and employ the tools I have shared with them to express their knowledge of the content and their creative abilities.
There is so much out there and when I look at the big picture, I do become a bit intimidated. But, the GAME plan is a great method to accomplish this goal as any others you desire in the various aspects of your life. But more importantly, in the 2nd program of the DVD-Promoting Creative Thinking with Technology, Katherine Cennamo shares that we need innovated thinkers-those that can build upon problem-solving skills. She goes on to say creative thinkers need to be confident, motivated, persistent, and open-minded. Without continuing my professional knowledge and know how and building my own confidence in these skills, I will not be successful in instilling these components to my students.

week 7-standards

I think the best way to use the GAME plan to help students become proficient in the NETS-S standards is to post them, let the students be aware of what we are trying to accomplish in class and then introducing them to new tools and allowing them the opportunity to use them to create a product that relates to the content standards. The GAME plan can help the teacher and student work together in accomplishing these standards. When setting our goals for our GAME plan, I think it would be beneficial to make sure each of the NETS-S standards are intertwined in accomplishing a product. Students can use these standards to monitor and evaluate their project to make sure it involves each standard. Meanwhile, teachers need to be learning the new tools so they can teach them and model them while at the same time modeling and instructing digital ethics and responsibility. Teachers need to continue to learn and grow in this area to help students deepen their understanding of technology and how to use it to create meaningful products. I think the GAME plan I set forth in previous blogs allows for each of us-the students and teacher (me)-to learn and grow together and allow each of us to accomplish both the NETS-T and NETS-S standards. I think as we allow students to use technology to create and produce their own products and as we continue to model ethics and direction, we are automatically implementing these standards for students.

Week 6 evaluation

This week has been fun watching my students create PowerPoints and podcasts on their own. Last week we each student did either a powerpoint or podcast on the story elements of a story we read in class-with a lot of guidance and support. This week, many have wanted to do it again but on a book they read on their own. I have given little help in this and I can't wait to see the final products! As for myself, I have moved on to wikis. I did not set up the wiki for my learning community group-I didn't know how-so now I have been playing around with that so I can set one up for my students to do their next project. I am finding it a little more difficult than I thought it would be but I'll/we'll figure it out. I am pleased with the progress so far-it has been enjoyable except for the fact the students are competing with each other to use the class computers. I definitely am going to have to make a schedule for when we don't get the computer lab-it's hard to fit everyone in when we only have three computers! I must say I have gained more confidence myself in creating a podcast and powerpoint. I'm sure there is more in-depth techniques I can learn with both, but that will come with more practice.

Week 5 Evaluating GAME Plan

For my personal goal of learning one tool a week, I am on track. I have learned more about podcasting and with our upcoming wiki project, I have reviewed tutorials on wikis-next is voicethread. I have shown my students examples of podcasts and powerpoints and how to do them. We watched a video clip on story elements and students filled out their story element sheet on the story they selected to do their PowerPoint or podcast. Now it’s off to the computer lab. Everything went great. There were a few problems with the newer computers-we couldn’t get the jingle part of Garage Band to work. But I was pleased and the student really enjoyed it! I Hope to get everyone finished by Friday.
I have learned that there are many resources to help me reach my instructional goal and many resources available to help students find information and to keep them engaged in the learning process. There are still tools out there that I am not familiar with and tools that I have limited ability in putting into practice. I really want to have confidence in using these tools and be proficient in as many as possible-one tool at a time!