GAME plan reflection

My Game plan from the past semester has allowed me to formulate a plan to help introduce a classroom blog for my history class. The blog would allow us to keep the community and parents up to date on activities and events taking place within our classroom. It will be a fantastic resource for our community as well as our students. The process has been a great learning experience of how to organize information and being able to present it to our administration in a manner that will allow for our blog to be approved and allowed within our district. You need to go out a research the topic and use the product in order to fully understand the uses. The main thing I will take from this course is the impact technology can have on learning. Allowing students to research and use the technology within education will help enhance their learning experience in great ways. Developing a Game plan is a great way to introduce and use new technology on a consistent basis within education. Understanding how to develop my own Game plan will allow me to help students produce their own. The opportunities for students with technology I believe are limitless!

GAME plan update

The Game plan process could help students develop proficiency in NETS-S through many activities and learning opportunities provided by the process of developing a Game plan. Students will have to keep in mind social, ethical, and human issues when trying to implement future Game plans of their own. Being responsible enough to use technology systems and information in a way that not only benefits students yet still protect others’ rights is an important trait gained through this process. Additionally, the process makes students learn and perform certain technological resources that will benefit them as a student and in the future as well. Learning the basic operations and concepts of technology to use as a communication tool, research tool, and problem-solving tool will help students become a more well-rounded and educated student. Providing students with more exposure to technology will only help this process. The Game plan process only increases their exposure thus increasing the benefit students’ gain from technology.

GAME Plan Update

Establishing a productive learning environment that provides students with opportunities to achieve learning goals is beneficial for student progress within my classroom and education as a whole. Students perform better when presented with multiple forms of assessment or with learning strategies that relate to their daily life. Presenting students with opportunities through technology will increase student skills in creative and critical thinking skills. Teaching students how to learn is important, especially once they hit the real world. Technology is ever changing, and students need to learn the skills necessary to succeed in this type of environment.

Continually pushing towards a well-rounded and structured technology based classroom is a goal I will continue pushing toward throughout my teaching career. As education and technology change, we too as teachers need to adapt to these changes. Promoting lifelong learning within my classroom will help students realize that learning does not stop once the bell rings, or you graduate. There are always things, issues or resources that can be learned or taught as we move forward in life.

Promoting creativity and innovation as well as technology operations and concepts are learning goals I would like to continue to learn about and promote within my district. Promoting creativity within my classroom will allow students to gain the skills necessary to be successful in the real world. Technology is constantly changing and staying up to date on the newest technology will allow me to adapt learning environments to promote the most recent technology advances that will beneficial to students. Trying out different resources on a continual basis allows for a better understanding on products and technologies that can be used inside a classroom. Improving the amount of technology I use in a classroom as well as the amount of technology I use on a daily basis will improve my understanding of the benefits and uses of each technology.

GAME Plan Update

Last week I talked about the adjustments needed in order for our superintendent to consider our proposal about a classroom blog. Our superintendent was concerned about how the blog would be maintained and monitored. The adjustments explain the maintenance and how the blog will be monitored. I have an appointment set up with her this Wednesday. At this meeting I hope to get approval and a timeframe of when we can expect to get the blog up and running within our district. So I would say it has been successful in the sense that I have an appointment set up and hopefully can move forward after our meeting.

I think promoting lifelong learning is something I can apply to my instructional practice. Through this process I have been required to research and present benefits about blogs and education. Many of the benefits I have come across and researched, is information I did not know about or have prior knowledge of. Continuing the process and researching different resources has allowed me to present reasons for appropriate blog use in our classrooms and school districts. Demonstrating to students that education and learning does not stop once you leave school is one of the instructional practices I can apply to my classrooms.

Continuing to research the benefits of classroom blogs will promote the use within our school district. Further understanding the uses of blogs will help ensure that if or when we get approved for the blog, we do not have any issues with maintenance or monitoring the blog. For the blog to be successful students will need to buy in 100% and in order for that to happen, I will need to explain and promote the blog so students are eager for the resource. Understanding the uses and benefits will make this process easier and more attainable.

I will make adjustments to my Game Plan after discussing the current blog proposal with our Superintendent this Wednesday. Any adjustments or recommendations will be considered or added to our current proposal. Hopefully we will be able to move forward with the classroom blog and have the resource available to our classroom and community after the holiday break.

Cennamo, K., Ross, J. & Ertmer, P. (2010). Technology integration for meaningful classroom use: A standards-based approach. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning.

Game Plan Update

Information and resources have not been issue to date. Much of the information and resources on developing a classroom blog are available on the Internet or through monthly publications that discuss the positives of blogs and the role they are currently playing in our society. Finding a credible resource that discusses the positives a blog can bring would be a great source of information to show parents and students.

I do need to modify and adjust my proposal to our Superintendent to include a more descriptive explanation of how the blog will be monitored and maintained. There was some concern that I would be screening the content after the posts had already been submitted to the blog for viewing. However, in actuality students will submit the work to me and I will upload the documents to the blog for viewing. Having the students submit the documents to me before uploading it to the blog allows me to monitor and screen the content. Once these modifications are made to the proposal I will resubmit it to our Superintendent.

To my surprise many of my students have prior knowledge of blogs or have a blog the currently frequent or their family is responsible for. Developing my Game Plan I figured most students would have a very limited background of blogs, however many students have family blogs they maintain daily, weekly, or monthly. Also many teachers and administrators in our own district are unfamiliar with blogs and newer technology, making it more difficult to explain the uses and benefits this technology can have in a classroom. There seems to be a belief that a lot of this technology is only used for non -educational purposes. I am wondering if it is more important to educate our students on the importance of technology for the teachers and administrators? The students generally understand the concept, as technology greatly impacts their daily life. They need to be able to grasp the concept of technology use educationally but they have a general understanding of technology. However, some of my co-workers are so far behind the times and unresponsive to technology it often seems like a waste to try and educate them on the positives it may bring, It is like they see technology as being lazy. Whatever it may be, I hope students realize the benefit it can bring to their education and life.

Cennamo, K., Ross, J. & Ertmer, P. (2010). Technology integration for meaningful classroom use: A standards-based approach. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning.

Carrying Out Your GAME Plan!

Facilitating and Inspiring Student Learning and Creativity through technology is the main goal I am trying to attain through my game plan. Through classroom presentations and projects that have a technology basis I feel I have done a better job of incorporating technology into classroom assessments. However, I would like to make a stronger effort to implement something that would allow for even more student creativity and learning. I feel a classroom blog would be a great resource for our classroom, parents and community. A classroom blog would promote flexibility in the methods and settings in which students can communicate with one another, and teachers (Cennamo, Ross, & Ertmer, 2010). For a blog to be successful students will need to understand how to maintain and update the classroom blog. Resources such as classroom documents, student work, school bulletins, and other useful documents will need to be uploaded to the classroom blog.

I will need other resources as well to carry out this game plan for our classroom blog. Parents are going to have give their approval for their child to use a classroom blog and to upload any pictures of students that are taken during school. I will need to get district approval for the classroom blog as well as allowing students to use the blog during school hours to update course or district information. Additionally I will have to take with our technology department and get our blog approved for district use, so students and teachers could access the website without being redirected. I will also need to be able to explain how I will monitor the blog consistently and efficiently so nothing on the blog goes against district policy.

Recently I have proposed the classroom blog to our superintendent and am waiting for a response. This is a step in the right direction, as with our district it often takes multiple meetings and proposals to get things approved. Hopefully in the near future I will have an outline of district expectations for the blog. The classroom blog would a great asset to our classroom and would allow for student creativity and learning through technology. The ability to communicate with parents, students and community members about our classroom and school would increase collaboration and even school support.

Cennamo, K., Ross, J. & Ertmer, P. (2010). Technology integration for meaningful classroom use: A standards-based approach. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning.

Game Plan

Facilitate and Inspire Student Learning and Creativity is a performance indicator I believe I can strengthen throughout the school year and my teaching career. Through social studies I have a great avenue to promote, support, and model creative thinking. Lessons involving historical concepts or events will be a create opportunity to provide students with technological resources that will improve their learning and learning experiences moving forward in the 21^st century. Actions I will take will to strengthen student creativity will be promoting student assessment through tools that allow for student creativity and inspire student learning. Assessment opportunities like projects, presentations, or other forms of assessments that have a focus on technology. I will monitor my progress by the assessment opportunities I provide students that promote student creativity. Evaluating my ability to extend my learning on student creativity will probably be a year end reflection where I look back on the course and with information available on the year decide whether or not I effectively promoted student learning and creativity to level that needs to be expected and needed to be successful.

Engage in Professional Growth and Leadership is the other performance indicator I would like to focus on and improve. A lot of our teachers and myself included, focus on professional development in our curriculum. However, I believe not enough time is spent improving and demonstrating the effectiveness of digital resources in our school district. By incorporating learning opportunities for teachers and then promoting digital resources in our classrooms, we as teachers would be modeling lifelong learning. These learning opportunities will allow for teachers to explore creative and digital learning opportunities that can be incorporated into our classrooms. Not enough teachers within our district use technology enough or at all. I believe by developing teachers’ understanding of technology will promote teachers to use more technology within their individual classrooms. Teacher development will lead to more professional growth and leadership. Looking back at the end of the year we will be able to see if teachers participated in professional development and whether or not it had an impact on their curriculum and technology use within it.