In reviewing my GAME plan, some progress has been made. My first goal is to engage students in real world issues. My plan is to find an on line collaborative project for my students. This week I settled on digital storytelling as part of our folklore unit. I found a great site to get me started (http://digitalstorytelling.coe.uh.edu/index.html) but would still like to find another class that might be interested in participating in a project with us. In the meantime, my class just completed a project based on a real issue in our school. Our school counselor teaches classes and works with individual students on problems such as work habits and friendship issues. Recently there has been a spike in the number of guidance requests due to problems between friends. Third graders recently completed a language arts unit on friendship, so students broke into groups to review the books we read and identify the theme of each. We created a jigsaw lesson on the SMART board to share and record all of the themes. Then students typed letters to the guidance counselor sharing what they learned about making/keeping friends and the books that support their ideas. The counselor has access to each student’s hard drive so she can read the letters in digital form and respond to them in their digital folder. This isn’t exactly the collaborative project I was hoping to start, but it did address a real issue in the life of a third grader and provide students with an authentic audience.
For my second goal, advocating, modeling, and teaching the safe and ethical use of digital information, I have not worked on the actions laid out last week. However, I am meeting with four teachers on Friday who recently had SMART boards installed in their rooms. They have asked me to show them some ways I use that technology with my students. I plan to walk them through my day and share the recent lessons I did with my class on note-taking, evaluating web sites, and concept mapping. Hopefully this discussion will lead to a “technology support group” of sorts.
The plan has had to be revised a little but by reviewing it each week, I stay focused on my goals. I can definitely see the benefit of creating written GAME plans with students but the key is to regularly monitor the plans.
Thursday, January 27, 2011
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
Carrying Out My GAME Plan
My personal game plan focuses on two indicators: 1b) engage students in real-world issues and 4a) ethical use of digital information.
To carry out the first part of this plan, I need to gather information. I plan to investigate collaborative projects on-line using the resources from our last course as a starting point. I also plan to send an email out to district colleagues asking if anyone is/has participated in such projects. The media specialist in my building is very interested in developing technology-rich projects with me. She has many contacts and resources, in addition to a global view of what all the grade levels in our building are working on. Together we can find or develop authentic problems for our students to explore. Working on such a project will require devoted class time and more computer access than the two student computers I currently have in my classroom. Currently I have the lap top cart for two periods a week but there is more room in the schedule to sign it for project use. In addition, we have a mini computer lab in the library. Before I can go forward with the rest of this objective, I need to settle on a project.
As for my second goal, I am already working to model and teach the safe and ethical use of digital of digital information. We are just getting into a new social studies unit so I am showing the students some of the tools we will be using. I have introduced my students to the Get REAL acronym (Almasi, 2009) to evaluate websites and to the two-column journal (Eagleton and Dobler, 2007. p.224). Because we have not gotten into real inquiry phase, I am modeling note taking on the journal with books about agriculture and a couple of websites linked to our school website (the journal page has been scanned into the computer and I model on the SMART Board). I have not yet met with the media specialist or administration about implementing a "SMART" curriculum as found on the CyberSmartCurriculum.org site. However, I still plan to do that as an extension of this goal. I think time to meet and plan is the next step. Developing a unified school-wide approach to digital learning skills and issues may need to be a summer project.
I feel better about my progress on the second goal although this is an on-going goal. How to safely, legally, and ethically use digital information and technology changes with the technology itself.
Almasi, J. (2009). Critical evaluation. Laureate Education, DVD.
Eagleton, M. B., & Dobler, E. (2007). Reading the Web: Strategies for Internet inquiry. New York: The Guilford Press.
To carry out the first part of this plan, I need to gather information. I plan to investigate collaborative projects on-line using the resources from our last course as a starting point. I also plan to send an email out to district colleagues asking if anyone is/has participated in such projects. The media specialist in my building is very interested in developing technology-rich projects with me. She has many contacts and resources, in addition to a global view of what all the grade levels in our building are working on. Together we can find or develop authentic problems for our students to explore. Working on such a project will require devoted class time and more computer access than the two student computers I currently have in my classroom. Currently I have the lap top cart for two periods a week but there is more room in the schedule to sign it for project use. In addition, we have a mini computer lab in the library. Before I can go forward with the rest of this objective, I need to settle on a project.
As for my second goal, I am already working to model and teach the safe and ethical use of digital of digital information. We are just getting into a new social studies unit so I am showing the students some of the tools we will be using. I have introduced my students to the Get REAL acronym (Almasi, 2009) to evaluate websites and to the two-column journal (Eagleton and Dobler, 2007. p.224). Because we have not gotten into real inquiry phase, I am modeling note taking on the journal with books about agriculture and a couple of websites linked to our school website (the journal page has been scanned into the computer and I model on the SMART Board). I have not yet met with the media specialist or administration about implementing a "SMART" curriculum as found on the CyberSmartCurriculum.org site. However, I still plan to do that as an extension of this goal. I think time to meet and plan is the next step. Developing a unified school-wide approach to digital learning skills and issues may need to be a summer project.
I feel better about my progress on the second goal although this is an on-going goal. How to safely, legally, and ethically use digital information and technology changes with the technology itself.
Almasi, J. (2009). Critical evaluation. Laureate Education, DVD.
Eagleton, M. B., & Dobler, E. (2007). Reading the Web: Strategies for Internet inquiry. New York: The Guilford Press.
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
GAME Plan
In reviewing the NETS-T (standards for teachers), there are two areas in which I would like to become more proficient.
The first area is standard 1b-"engage students in exploring real-world issues and solving authentic problems using digital tools and resources." To address this goal, I plan to research collaborative student projects. During the last course I found many great ideas such as epals, digital storytelling, participating in a science data collection project, and a folklore project. These types of projects promote global citizenship and prepare students for real world work experiences. Once I find a project that seems like a good fit for my class I will plan activities to provide prequisite knowledge, establish rules and procedures, and build in regular class time to devote to the project. I will monitor the engagement and progress of my students, and provide support as needed. After the project is completed I will evaluate the effectiveness of the activity and share results with colleagues. My hope is to encourage colleagues to branch out and try collaborative projects as well.
The second area I would like to improve is standard 4a-"advocate, model, and teach safe, legal, and ethical use of digital information and technology, including respect for copyright, intellectual property, and the appropriate documentation of sources." During the last course I realized that there is so much more to using technology with students than introducing them to new programs. As more technology is being used in the classroom, teachers are responsible for teaching a much broader tech curriculum. While carefully citing sources in my own school work, I have not required my students to do this yet. To address this goal I am spending much more time incorporating tools to help students keep track of sites they visit and using a two-column journal adapted from Eagleton and Dobler (Reading the Web, 2007), in which students record sites (or texts) visited, key facts, and their personal response to the facts. By introducing third graders to this type of note taking, I hope to establish the ethical use of resources. To monitor progress in meeting this goal, I plan to have students complete a two-column journal for each unit in social studies this year. To extend this goal I will demonstrate how to properly cite sources used and encourage students to include a reference page with each project. I also hope to work with the media specialist to encourage safe, legal, and ethical use to all staff and students.
Eagleton, M. B., & Dobler, E. (2007). Reading the Web: Strategies for Internet inquiry. New York: The Guilford Press.
International Society for Technology in Education. (2008). National Education Standards for Teachers (NETS-T). Retrieved from http://www.iste.org/Content/NavigationMenu/NETS/ForTeachers/
2008Standards/NETS_T_Standards_Final.pdf
The first area is standard 1b-"engage students in exploring real-world issues and solving authentic problems using digital tools and resources." To address this goal, I plan to research collaborative student projects. During the last course I found many great ideas such as epals, digital storytelling, participating in a science data collection project, and a folklore project. These types of projects promote global citizenship and prepare students for real world work experiences. Once I find a project that seems like a good fit for my class I will plan activities to provide prequisite knowledge, establish rules and procedures, and build in regular class time to devote to the project. I will monitor the engagement and progress of my students, and provide support as needed. After the project is completed I will evaluate the effectiveness of the activity and share results with colleagues. My hope is to encourage colleagues to branch out and try collaborative projects as well.
The second area I would like to improve is standard 4a-"advocate, model, and teach safe, legal, and ethical use of digital information and technology, including respect for copyright, intellectual property, and the appropriate documentation of sources." During the last course I realized that there is so much more to using technology with students than introducing them to new programs. As more technology is being used in the classroom, teachers are responsible for teaching a much broader tech curriculum. While carefully citing sources in my own school work, I have not required my students to do this yet. To address this goal I am spending much more time incorporating tools to help students keep track of sites they visit and using a two-column journal adapted from Eagleton and Dobler (Reading the Web, 2007), in which students record sites (or texts) visited, key facts, and their personal response to the facts. By introducing third graders to this type of note taking, I hope to establish the ethical use of resources. To monitor progress in meeting this goal, I plan to have students complete a two-column journal for each unit in social studies this year. To extend this goal I will demonstrate how to properly cite sources used and encourage students to include a reference page with each project. I also hope to work with the media specialist to encourage safe, legal, and ethical use to all staff and students.
Eagleton, M. B., & Dobler, E. (2007). Reading the Web: Strategies for Internet inquiry. New York: The Guilford Press.
International Society for Technology in Education. (2008). National Education Standards for Teachers (NETS-T). Retrieved from http://www.iste.org/Content/NavigationMenu/NETS/ForTeachers/
2008Standards/NETS_T_Standards_Final.pdf
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