Using the GAME Plan Process with Students

I do think that the GAME Plan process could be a great learning tool for students to really make a plan to learn more about technology and what is available to them as students. I also think that it could be a great tool to help students follow through on their goals. I think that it could be implemented in the classroom in much the same way that it was implemented during this course. I feel that students could look over the standards and choose one that they feel a little uncomfortable with. I could help them to write their goals and come up with a plan to meet those goals.

I do have one concern for my classroom specifically. Right now in my district, technology is becoming a bigger deal. Every classroom in the district has a promethean or smart board. We have added computer labs to each school as well. They do support us using technology in our classrooms and even expect us to use it. However, we also have an even bigger push for teaching the content standards to students, and it can be difficult in a math class to have the time to teach every standard. There has not been a push to teach students the technology standards in NET-S. Therefore, using the GAME Plan to help my students learn the NET-S standards does not seem feasible right now. However, I could see myself implementing it to help students meet some sort or math goals that they set for themselves. We could even include the use of technology to help students meet their goals.

Revising your GAME Plan

What have you learned so far that you can apply in your instructional practice? What goals are you still working toward?

I feel that throughout this master's program, I have learned so many new thing that I can apply to my teaching practice. Right now I am seriously considering using a social networking site to have my students submit assignments to on a regular basis. I cannot remember the name of one that my cousin is using in her classroom, but she said that it is set up much like facebook, but is a safe site that students can only use after being given a password from the teacher. This could be used in so many ways in the classroom. I am looking forward to implementing it into my classrooms second semester! I still have so many goals to work towards meeting. I want to be a teacher who truly puts to practice this new knowledge that I am gaining in my master's courses, so I have a lot of work to do to make my instruction the best that it can be!

Based on the NETS-T, what new learning goals will you set for yourself?

Since I feel that I still have not truly met the goals that I set for myself in the first place, I am not ready to set new goals for myself.

If you are not ready to set new learning goals, how will you extend what you have learned so far?

Again, I hope to begin using the social networking site in my classroom. I also hope to implement new technology-based activities into my classroom each 9 weeks.

What learning approaches will you try next time to improve your learning?

To improve my learning, I think I need to spend more time really learning about different web sites that are available for me to use in my classroom and I also need to spend a significant amount of time determining exactly how I want to implement them into my classroom, making sure that everything I do in the classroom is intentional, and nothing is just "fluff." I want to have a yearlong plan that outlines how I will use technology specifically in each class to teach the standards and keep students engaged and interested in the learning process at the same time. I am excited about all of the possibilities that these new technologies bring!

Evaluating my GAME Plan Progress

I feel that this week I am very much in the same place that I was in last week as far as the implementation of my GAME Plan. Since I have decided to implement my GAME Plan for next semester in my Geometry classes, I have not yet decided on specific projects to use. I think my next step needs to be to decide exactly which two units (one first 9 weeks and one second 9 weeks) I would like to create my technology activities for. I would like the two activities to be somewhat spread out so that they fall at least 6 weeks apart. Once I decide on specific units to use for my activities I can really begin to plan specific activities for my students. I want to make sure that the activities are truly engaging and I want to make sure that they are standards-based since I only have so much time to teach all of the standards that they students are required to learn! I also want to make sure that they students will truly learn the standards on their own without too much additional instruction from me (other than a discussion and some modeling afterwards to make sure all students understand). I am excited about my GAME Plan and getting it under way next semester!

Monitoring my GAME Plan Progress

In monitoring my progress on my GAME Plan, I do feel that I need to modify it slightly to make it feel more manageable. My current GAME Plan is set up so that I will create on new technology activity per unit. Although this is still my ultimate goal, I think for now I would just like to focus on creating one very meaningful activity per 9 weeks. I would also like to add that since I am getting ready to start a new semester with new students in January, I would really like to focus on starting my GAME Plan next semester. I have already begun to brainstorm some ideas that I can possibly use for my projects. However, I have not come to the point where I have surely decided on what projects to implement. I will be implementing these into CP Geometry classes, so I think it will be easy to do, but I really want to make sure I plan meaningful activities that my students will get excited about and have the opportunity to show off what they have learned in a creative way. There are still so many things that I need to do to get this GAME Plan going, but I feel that now that I have changed it to just two activities, I can really focus on making two GREAT activities. If anyone has any ideas or suggestions, I would love to hear them. Have you done similar activites in your own classrooms that I could benefit from? Thanks for the input! I look forward to hearing from you!

Carrying Out My GAME Plan

In order to carry out my GAME plan, there are some things that I will need. As far as resources go, I will first of all need support. I will seek support as needed from the technology specialist at my school. I will also need support from my administration and the math department at my school when I plan for and attend technology conferences. Another resources that I will need is time. Creating these activities will require much time and effort if the activities are going to be good activities. Furthermore, I will need creativity and confidence when creating new activities for my classroom. Finally, I will need technology resources and information on that technology. I will also need the knowledge to use and teach the technology that my students will be using. So far I have not had the opportunity to take steps to start to create these lessons. However, I hope to start soon. I plan to start implementing these activies at the beginning of second semester in January, so I will begin planning these activites within the next few weeks!

My GAME Plan

I have chosen to create a GAME plan for strengthening my confidence in two of the NETS - T standards.

The first standard that I would like to strengthen my confidence in is the first standard: Facilitate and Inspire Student Learning and Creativity. My goal will be to create more engaging and authentic lessons that use technology. The action that I will take to help myself achieve this goal will be to make an effort to include at least one activity that uses technology in every unit of study. I think by starting with this small step, I will not feel too overwhelmed at first. I will also be able to create better activities since I am just focused on creating one for each unit instead of one for each individual lesson to begin with. I will monitor my progress by making sure I include one well-planned engaging and authentic lesson that uses technology in every unit of study. I will evaluate my learning by reviewing the effectiveness of each new lesson after it is taught. I will make sure that the lessons are intentional and are effective at reaching the goal.

The second standard that I would like to strengthen my confidence in is the fifth standard: Engage in Professional Growth and Leadership. My goals will be to take part in some type of technology training each school year and to share my learning with my department at my school. The actions that I will take will be to actively search for, sign up for, and attend some sort of technology conference or training during each school year. I will also prepare a presentation and/or training for my department when I return from the training so that they can become more technology proficient as well. I will monitor my progress by making a point to do some type of technology training every school year. I will also ask my department head to make sure I share something with the department at least once a year. Finally, I will evaluate my learning by taking the time to reflect on what I learned at the training that I attended and share that information with my colleagues.

Reflection

After taking this course, I think the most striking revelation that I had about the teaching of new literacy skills to my students is that these skills really do need to be taught. When I was a student, which was really not that long ago, I was not taught all of these skills. However, I did manage to pick them up along the way. I think that I just assumed that these are skills that students, by the time they get to high school, just know. I was wrong. Each of these skills need to be taught to students, and they need a chance to practice using the skills as well.

What I have learned in this course will impact my teaching practices greatly. After taking this course, I plan to spend time every semester on a project-based unit in which students are taught not only the mathematics concepts from the standards that I am expected to cover, but also the new literacy skills that they need to know to thrive in this ever-changing world. I would actually like to implement the unit plan that I created throughout this course. I want my students to learn these new skills, but I also want them to realize that they can do research on mathematics topics as well as the topics that they choose for other classes like English and Social Studies.

I think I would like to help implement a program at my school that requires that all students are trained yearly on Internet ethics before being allowed to access the Internet at school. It is so important that students are actually taught these ethics, as suggested by Dr. Warlick in the class learning resources. We have a program at our school called "Eagle Time," which is much like homeroom. We meet every two weeks with our "Eagle Time" classes, and I think that this would be the perfect opportunity to train our students on Internet ethics. In fact, they could be trained on the first day of school in "Eagle Time." After they view the training PowerPoint, I would like for students to be required to complete a short quiz answering questions about what they were trained on. After passing the quiz and getting parent permission, students would then be given Internet privileges at school.