Using the GAME Plan Process with Students

My GAME plan progress hasn’t had any real changes this week. I’ve started my classroom wiki and set it up to encourage student, parent, and community member participation. When I am teaching again it will be ready and in place. To keep it active I’m going to need to make sure to use it for assignments and have students post examples of their work on the wiki.

Using the Wiki and the technology associated with it will help students meet National Education Standards for students. I will continue to use the GAME plan lesson structure to create lessons and make sure that they are covering Maine State learning standards as well as NETS-T and NEST-S standards.

Revising My GAME Plan

Revising My GAME Plan

In review of my GAME plan to create a classroom wiki to use to encourage community, parent, and student communication and to create a worldly technology friendly learning environment. Over the past few weeks I’ve learned how to create and administer a wiki. I’ve also gotten feedback on wikis from classroom teachers and fellow classmates that I can directly apply to my classroom wiki. My goal for the future is to involve more students and parents on the classroom blog. I want to start adding educational links, virtual field trips, web quests, and student work to the wiki to give students educational resources to check out and or comment on in or out of the classroom. The next time I create a GAME plan to improve my learning I will go to fellow teachers for advice and suggestions on resources and their thoughts on the topic. Having experienced classroom teachers to use as a resource is an invaluable tool because you can’t learn experience in a book. And they have tried lots of things in the classroom and know what works and what doesn’t work in the classroom. I look forward to continuing to further my education with these masters classes and available resources.

Monitoring my GAME plan part deux.

Monitoring my GAME plan part deux.

I’ve continued to work on my GAME plan of learning and using a classroom wiki to connect community members, parents, and students with each other to create a positive learning environment for students. This past week I met with a 7th grade technology teacher about her use of wikis in the classroom. She has been currently using moodle for her classes and is working on a VoiceThread project. She mostly focuses on moodle and has the students post discussions and homework there. She allows parents access to some of the moodle site. She also uses the wiki for students to show finalized projects that parents and students can view. My meeting with her made me think that I should have some of my wiki such as some classroom discussions only assessable to students. I’ve decided that I want to allow everyone to be able to access the blog but to have limitations for different groups of users. I want the public, which includes parents, community members, and students not in the class to be able to view and comment on a few parts of the wiki. I want to set it up so someone has to approve the comments before they are posted for everyone to see. For classroom students I want them to have more access to the site and have them able to edit and place comments on the wiki instantaneously. I now need to learn more about how to set permissions for a wiki site to be able to accomplish my modified game plan.

Monitoring my GAME Plan Progress

Monitoring my GAME Plan Progress.

Cennamo, Ross, and Ertmer(2009) when referring to student use of wikis state that “If work needs to get done in the evening or on the weekend, wikis allow them to coordinate their efforts much more efficiently than sending a bunch of emails back and fourth. And they don’t have to know web authoring languages or other complicated tools to do so.” This means that wikis allow for a great deal of communication and participation and are easy to use. This is one of the main reasons I want to establish a classroom wiki for my classroom. This will provide an easy to access and use communication tool for students, parents, community members, and educators.

I found a good deal of information from the Technology Integration for Meaningful Classroom Use textbook as well as tips for using educational wikis. I wanted the classroom wiki to be available to everyone and now need to decide who is allowed to post and or edit the wiki. A new question that I found is that I need to set posting expectations letting the students know how much to post and what not to post on the wiki.

John Ross said, “Technology provides these many opportunities that are going to pull people in.” (Laureate Education, Inc, 2009). Wikis are a relatively new invention and studnets and parents will be more excited to use these tools of communication rather than more traditional methods. I’m meeting with a 7th grade technology teacher who uses wikis in her classroom later this week to discuss her and her student’s experiences with wikis.

My research and practice of wikis in the past week made me very comfortable in creating the wiki for our community learning group project. Where as before last week I wouldn’t have felt comfortable in creating it. I very much look forward into gaining more in-depth knowledge on the use of wikis.

Cennamo, K., Ross, J., & Ertmer, P. (2009). Technology integration for meaningful classroom use: A standards-based approach. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning.

Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2009). Assessing Student Learning with Technology. Baltimore: Author.

Carrying out my GAME plan

This week I starting carrying out my GAME plan for is "collaborating with students, peers, parents, and community members using digital tools and resources to support student success and innovation." (National Education Standards for Teachers (NETS-T).

The resources I need to use to implement my GAME plan are a computer with internet access, information on how to create a Wiki, a classroom Wiki, student and community involvement in using the Wiki for learning and communication purposes, and a classroom Moodle account. It will also be important to rely on the advice and experience of IT staff and fellow teachers use of Wiki’s and moodle accounts.

Areas that I need additional information on are how to best utilize a Wiki and moodle site and if the Wiki should be student run or teacher run? I also need to research more information on how to get students and community members involved with the Wiki and moodle account. I also need to know what kind of access students and community members have to the Internet.
In my quest to achieve my GAME plan I’ve created a basic classroom Wiki and included the objectives that I plan to accomplish using the Wiki. My classrooom Wiki can be found at http://mrgrayclassroom.wikispaces.com/.

Cennamo, Ross, and Ertmer (pg 97) stress creating student guidelines for technology-enriched learning environments and how having guidelines benefits students. I’m working on establishing rubics and guidelines for student participation on the classroom Wiki which will have students post comments on virtual field trips, take turns inputting the classroom agenda and homework assignments, and displaying student work.

Cennamo, K., Ross, J., & Ertmer, P. (2009). Technology integration for meaningful classroom use: A standards-based approach. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning.
National Education Standards for Teachers (NETS-T) retrieved from http://www.iste.org/Content/NavigationMenu/NETS/ForTeachers/2008Standards/NETS_T_Standards_Final.pdf on

National Educational Technology Standards

The National Educational Technology Standards and Performance Indicators for Teachers provide direction for how to become a more effective educator. Teaching just like everything else of importance in the world is hard, and takes practice. There are always going to be areas that you can improve upon and it’s important to set teaching goals and create plans to achieve the goal. Technology is a large and growing component in education today. It is important that "Students should see their computer time as essential to their classroom work rather than an add on." (Cennamo, K., Ross, J., & Ertmer, p 102) To help show students technology is an educational tool I have made two National Education Technology Standard goals.
The first standard that I developed a GAME plan for is "collaborating with students, peers, parents, and community members using digital tools and resources to support student success and innovation." (National Education Standards for Teachers (NETS-T). Collaborating with students, peers, parents, and community members helps establish a stronger rapport with the student and the student’s education support team. This team comprised of parents and community members can be combined with the teacher to create an educational alliance. To get students, peers, parents, and community members onboard with the student’s education plan good communication is vital. I plan to give parents access to our classroom moodle site to see what we are doing in class, view a homework assignment list, and be able to send comments or questions to the teacher. Being able to see what we are doing in class could result in having a parent or community member coming into the class to be the expert on a topic we are covering. Having an expert on the topic and educational support team member would make the learning more relevant to the students. I will monitor the amount of views from the moodle site and email contacts to assess the progress of the goal.
Another standard that I developed a GAME plan for is to "Model collaborative knowledge construction by engaging in learning with students, colleagues, and others in face-to-face and virtual environments." (National Education Standards for Teachers (NETS-T). To accomplish this goal I plan to use interactive virtual field trips, have students use the VoiceThread application for a project, and have the students test out Second Life a virtual environment. Using an online moodle survey the students will be assessed to their thoughts on these types of educational experiences versus the traditional educational ways.
Cennamo, K., Ross, J., & Ertmer, P. (2009). Technology integration for meaningful classroom use: A standards-based approach. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning.
National Education Standards for Teachers (NETS-T) retrieved from http://www.iste.org/Content/NavigationMenu/NETS/ForTeachers/2008Standards/NETS_T_Standards_Final.pdf on

Reflection

Supporting Information Literacy and Online Inquiry in the Classroom has been a enlightening class that has brought ideas and procedures that are necessary but not something that I would immediately plan on devoting time too. The most striking revelation I learned from the class is the importance of teaching students how to check the validity of a website. I had taken for granted the ability of students being able to assess the validity of a website and it was good to have resources on how to teach it. Using a mixture of reviewing the primary and secondary sources, the web address, links, and information on the website are all great ways to check a website for validity.
Creating a lesson focusing on the use of technology was a good experience into planning out an entire lesson. Planning out all the details such as the introductions, time commitments, and resources needed related well to actually lesson planning. I enjoyed finding all the inconsistencies in the Save the Rennet website and I can use some of my methods to teach students how to find inconsistencies. Going forward I plan to set aside some classroom time on a regular basis to institute technology integration by teaching and using new technology. I plan to accomplish this goal by staying up to date with information literacy and technology skills. I can do this by checking online for new technologies and by checking in with the school’s IT director on a monthly basis.

My personal theory of learning of providing students a variety of instructional methods that encompasses many different learning styles to meet the needs of all students. I believe that if students are interested in the skill or knowledge than they are much more likely to master it. What this course has done is introduce me to several technology tools that will help me incorporate my personal theory of learning to my students. Technologies such as graphic organizers, VoiceThread, Wiki’s, and virtual field trips will help provide students with hands on learning experiences and motivate them to succeed.
I plan to use as many of these technologies as I can in my classroom. For our classes county project I plan to have students to create Wiki’s about their countries. The Wiki’s will contain basic information about their country such as foods, traditions, culture, landmarks, famous people, government, currency, etc. Having the project completed on Wiki’s will allow for students to work on the project at home as well as in the classroom. It will also make it a lot easier to be able to follow students’ progress because I can go to their site and see where they are at and who is doing what. I also plan to create and provide graphic organizers to help students enhance their note taking experience. They will point students in the right direction and help them focus on areas of importance. Having more in depth notes will help them understand the material more and earn better grades.
Two long-term goals I have for technology integration in my classroom is to try to stay abreast with upcoming technology that could be integrated into the classroom with positive results. To do this I will take technology classes where possible and stay in contact with the IT director of my school. I will advocate to fellow teachers and administration for new technologies to be used in the classroom. My other goal is to integrate at least one technology tool into my classroom each year. This will help me integrate technology into the classroom. I need to make sure that the technology is for hands on student learning instead of instructional technology.

Voice Thread link

http://voicethread.com/#u397728.b529014.i2837623

Connectivism and Social Learning in Practice

The rabbinical saying "Don't limit a child to your own learning, for he was born in another time." Sums up today’s education system more so than any other generations. With the advent on the computer, cell phones, the Internet, and etc students today grew up in a much different technological world. If you have a question you can google it or text someone to find out. We as teachers need to use technology which our students relate to so well and use it in the classroom as a motivational tool. Our students already are using social learning technology (Facebook, Myspace, Blogs, etc) and need to be actively engaged to learn best. Social learning is great because it has students learn and interact with each other gathering social skills, technology skills, and content knowledge. Some social learning practices I found interesting in the learning resources are Moodle, website creation, and web-enabled multiplier simulation games.

Moodle is freeware online classroom much like Backboard. I create a moodle classroom site for all of my classes because it is a great program. It is especially helpful in a journalism class I taught. It made it so we had an online classroom where students could post their ideas and stories. Then our copy editors proof read the articles and reposted them in their final draft. Then the layout editor could take the articles, pictures, and games off the moodle site and put them in the layout of the paper. Using moodle made for a great experience because we could all see what everyone else was doing, give suggestions, and work together. Moodle is also a great application for tests, quizes, polls, discussions, glossaries, etc.

Having students in small groups create websites or Wiki’s about a topic provides a deeper understanding of the subject than writing a 5 page double spaced typed paper about it. The example in Mrs. Cox’s classroom where students researched a city, created a tourism website for that city, and than contacted that city’s Chamber of Commerce to ask for feedback. ( Marzano, Pickering, & Pollock, 2001). This project sounds like it would be a great way for students to work together on a meaningful project that has a real world application feel to it because you are interacting with the real city.

Web-enabled multiplier simulation games I had never truly had put them together in my head in an educational setting. They do provide for an excellent social interaction experience. I actually found it quite interesting because I’ve been playing Civilization III off and on this week and in the reading it’s mentioned as a great web-enabled multiplier simulation game. It is and teaches history, famous people, alliances, and diplomacy, trade, and working with others. Games like this that encourage working together and learning should be used more in the classroom.

Marzano, R.J., Pickering, D. J., & Pollock, J. E. (2001). Classroom instruction that works: Research-based strategies for increasing student achievement. Alexandria, VA: Assocciation of Supervision and Curriculum Development.

Constructivism in Practice

Motivation and learning go hand and hand. Without motivation the information isn’t going to stick. The information might be coerced long enough for the test but then it will be completely forgotten. That is why we as teachers need to help motivate our students by connecting learning with real life situations and having project-based lessons.

Projects like the interactive savings and investment lesson that used spreadsheet software is a great example of motivated students with real life applications. Through the use of the spreadsheet software it eliminates the repetitive and tedious information gathering stage of the activity and lets you focus on interpreting the data. Students can manipulate the data easily to test out their hypotheses while getting immediate results. The hand on manipulation of data activity aligns with constructivist and constructionist learning theories because the students are learning from discovery. It has real life application because you can see if you put X amount in the bank this is how much I’ll have in 30 years. This activity would interest students and get them thinking about saving for retirement or how much a car loan is going to cost.

“Project learning is filled with active and engaged learning, it inspires students to obtain a deeper knowledge of the subjects they're studying. Research also indicates that students are more likely to retain the knowledge gained through this approach far more readily than through traditional textbook-centered learning.”(Why Teach, 2008) Projects allow for more use of technology, options for assessments methods, and they are student driven. Being able to choose what you are interested in learning and or something that effects your community gets students increases motivation. It makes you feel like you have a say in your learning experience and lets you tackle real world situations. Designing the perfect school for 2050 or figuring out what type of bridge should be built in your town are great examples of project-based learning. It incorporates a variety of learning areas such as research skills, technology skills, math, history, reasoning skills, social skills, and etc.

Marzano, R.J., Pickering, D. J., & Pollock, J. E. (2001). Classroom instruction that works: Research-based strategies for increasing student achievement. Alexandria, VA: Assocciation of Supervision and Curriculum Development.

“Why Teach With Project Learning?: Providing Students With a Well-Rounded Classroom Experience.” 2008. Edutopia. 5/26/09. http://www.edutopia.org/project-learning-introduction

Cognitivism in Practice

Creating organizers/presentations that include what we are going to learn today, visuals, and essential questions is a great way to get the students in right frame of mind for what we are going to cover that day in class. I like the use of computers to make advanced organizers to help students take and retain their notes. Creating these organizers that connect ideas and visuals is a different way to write notes that will interest the students. If not enough computers are available then the teacher could create the organizer and print it off and have the students fill it out and add it to their notes. Having organizers presents the information in a way that is easily assessable for the student to go back and retrieve information.

Being able to summarize and take notes are important skills that many students have trouble with. Taking notes verbatim isn’t a very effective way to take notes because it’s hard to figure out what items are supposed to be important and need notes taken on. I cue my students and left them when they should be taking notes. They know that if I write it on the white board or I am showing a PowerPoint presentation then they should be writing that information down. I make sure to summarize my points and include relevant visuals, which creates concept mapping. Using concept mapping and virtual field trips is a great way to use visuals, sounds, and information to make learning more engaging and a memorable experience. Connecting these visuals, sounds, and text together will make it easier for this information to be stored in long term memory. Using note-taking templates and outlines is a great way to help guide students in the right direction and is a great resource. The use of Wiki’s and blogs to create online glossaries and post information is a great way for students to combine their knowledge and ideas for the benefit of the rest of the class.

Reinforcing Effort and Homework Practice

Reinforcing effort and Homework practice go hand in hand with behaviorist learning. “Typically, students need about 24 practice sessions with a skill in order to achieve a 80-percent competency.” (Marzano et al., 2001, p.67). This means that practicing a skill repeatedly is way to learn a skill effectively. These skills can and should be learned using several strategies that make the material more interesting to the learner. Practicing a skill 24+ times if done in the same manor can be tedious and discourage some students. With the use of technology applications that have you learn the material in different and increasing difficulty ways it makes the repetition of the skill more meaningful and less like work. The learning resources examples in reinforcing effort helps show students through effort/achievement spread sheets that they have made that effort is important and helps increase their learning and grades. Knowing this some students will work harder and study more to get better grades instead of just trying to slide by doing the minimal amount of work required.
Homework practice is a way to reinforce classroom learning so the student becomes competint at the task. With homework I agree that it’s important to have assignments that have a clear purpose and outcome and that they receive varied feedback on their work. This feedback should be specific intermittent praise which from a behaviorist perspective reinforce learning. This specific praise will help incourage positive behaviors and discourage negative ones. Technology programs such as Flashcard exchange which allows students to create and share flashcard notes is a way to practice vocabulary and information. The research tool in Msword sounds like a great program for students to gather a more in-depth understanding of a word without having to go online and sort through information. Strategies such as Co-teaching units like the example of the Football coach and Math teacher working together to get students to create graphs of the amount of weight lifted, reps, and heart rate help teach a skill because it remediates the skill and shows that the skill has a real life application.

Marzano, R.J., Pickering, D. J., & Pollock, J. E. (2001). Classroom instruction that works: Research-based strategies for increasing student achievement. Alexandria, VA: Assocciation of Supervision and Curriculum Development.

Reflection + Technology Goals

The class understanding the impact of technology on education, work, and society (EDUC - 6710I – 1) has helped me move forward with my technology skills. It has helped me modify my goals regarding integrating technology into my classroom. Throughout this course I have gotten to learn new technologies like wiki’s, podcasts, and blogs. I had not had the opportunity to use them before and now I feel that they can be used as great tools in the classroom. They will help keep my students interested as well as up to date with current technologies.
I have come to realize that I need to focus on becoming a more learner centered teacher and to act as the guide for my students. I originally thought using PowerPoint presentations, and using document cameras, projectors, etc was a good effort of integrating technology into the classroom. Those technologies are focused on the teacher as the instructor. My experience in this class has deepened my knowledge of the teaching and learning process. Students need to learn/ teach themselves and others how to use these technologies and Wiki’s, Podcasts, and blogs. This will get students more involved and interested in their learning.
There are a few ways I plan to try to stay up to date on new technologies that can be used in the classroom. I plan to keep in contact with the technology director who is always brimming with new integrating technology into the classroom ideas. I plan to check educational blogs and to have my students keep me informed of any new technologies they are interested in.
My goals going forward are to set up a classroom blog that contains notes, homework assignments, resources, etc. I plan to have the students be a part of the classroom blog by updating classroom notes, student examples, and discussions. I want it to be a place students can be involved in learning outside of the classroom. Another goal I have is to create Wiki’s for my classes and have the student use them for projects and for creating glossaries of the terms we are going over in class.
I have very much enjoyed this class and how it has brought me closer to the teacher I want and know I can be. I look forward to learning and working with technologies that can be used in the classroom.

Technology Survey link

Technology Survey link.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UVm_kCMCH1k

Partnership for 21st Century Skills

Looking at the Partnership for 21st Century Skills website http://www.21stcenturyskills.org/ I found some interesting things. I think that it is great that there a program like this that is bringing together groups such as Apple, Dell, Microsoft, National Education Association, AOL Time Warner, Cable in the Classroom, and Cisco Systems to help focus on America’s most important asset its future/youth. These companies know that the world is going to be technology driven in the future and they want to help make sure USA doesn’t fall behind. To be an effective citizen in the 21st century I agree that workers must be able to skills in information literacy, media literacy, and ICT(Information, Communications and Technology) literacy. I am in agreement with Century 21st that a way to assess technology literacy is needed so to I was glad to see my home state of Maine on the list of states working in this program. This is a good site because I can go on here and find resources and ideas to help shape my ever changing teaching pedagogy. It’s good to know that the NEA and a lot of other people are thinking to the future and focusing on ways to incorporate technology into the classroom so we as a country can try to stay in the game.

Why Blogs are a great tool in the classroom.

I'm a former and future high school History teacher and I think that Blogs can be a great tool in the classroom. The main purposes to promote student involvement I foresee with using a blog in the classroom is a place to display homework assignments, notes, PowerPoint slides, links, activities, videos, student work, and provide a place for students to communicate with each other and myself. Putting homework assignments and the agenda for each class will provide a place for students to go to check to see what is for homework if they forgot. Having notes and PowerPoint slides can be a resource for students to use to review the material or to go over to stay up to date if they missed a class. Having a blog that contains links, activities, videos, and a way to communicate to fellow classmates and the teacher enhances the lesson by making it so students can learn on their own time whether at school or at home. Blogs can also be a place where student work is displayed and can receive comments.