Game Plan Reflection

When looking back on the course, Integrating Technology Across the Content Areas, I found myself pushed to try new things. The GAME PLAN template for lesson plans forced me to do something I never had tried before and I really enjoyed it. Trying to turn my classroom into one of student led instruction is very hard for a controlling person but the work we have done in this course helped me tremendously. I look forward to walking through theses steps again.

The biggest change I plan to make in direct reflection of this class is to stop waiting on trying new things. I have always put off trying something new because i might not be great at it yet. This class showed me that in a student led class I do not have to be great just good enough to peek the interest of my students and they will carry the torch from there. This class brought a breath of fresh air to my instructional methods.

NETS-S

When looking at how I want to teach my students about the NETS-S a great idea came to my head. My wife has done this for years in her kindergarten class and for some reason I never applied it to myself until now. Why not just show them the NETS-S. She has posted the state standards on her website for years now and talks about them to the students and to the parents but when we get to high school for some reason we try and act like they are a secret. I want to try and expose my kids to not only the NETS-S but the other standards and goals I am trying to get them to reach. We can then work together in this venture instead of me trying to drag them along.
I also should then have them assist me in writing down our GAME plan. If we are truly going to make my classes student led and not teacher led then let’s get the students in on the ground level of planning how we are going to accomplish these goals together. This seems way to simple but I am excited to try.

Revisiting my goals

My main goal during this class has been to promote Digital citizenship. I beleive that I have struck a chord with my class this last week. I became very blatant in my goal and told the students what I was trying to do. Wow, did this help. I forget that I do not have to be sneeky to get students to learn. I walked right out in front of th class and asked them to list the different groups they are memebers of online. They loved this idea and listed over a bundle. We broke them down and talked about what purposes they serve. Informative, educational, social, professional, etc. Turns out that kids these days do enjoy learning, they just want it to be fun, fast and convienent.

I too feel this same way and I beleive most people feel this way. That is why I am taking my masters online. I am not ready to change goals yet or even move on to the second goal I set. I feel I am just getting my feet wet and i am beginning to get excited about this one.

Update 2

This week was a slow week trying to reach my GAME plan. I felt behind in my class all week. Behind in grading really distracts me as a teacher. I did not spend enough time on this GAME plan to make any significant progress. I did however encounter a problem. Due to the limited availability of the flip cameras it has really challenged me to open up my class and allow for some self discovery. It seems as if I have 10 different assignments going on around me at once and I believe it has added to my distractions in my normal grading habits. I do not want to become a teacher that ends up doing one great assignment and 5 bad ones around it while I catch back up.

GAME plan update

Information/Equipment needed: I have found a lot of information on new technologies and have access to a flip camera. Our school librarian ordered 3 flip cameras for students to check out. I am now in the phase of finding out what to expect from students using this flip camera. I had students check it out and they are preparing a video on how to use one. This will be an aid should I decide to make it and assignment. I guess that is actually taking action at this point. I am hoping that this video lesson will fill the "Information Gap"(Cennamo 2009)and will allow for the students "to interact with one another in varied and flexible ways."

I would never of thought that teaching was me learning to have students teach each other.

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

My goal that I would like to address is the goal to Promote and Model Digital Citizenship and Responsibility.

Resources Needed: I believe the more "toys" I have to interest the students the easier it is to promote digital citizenship. Along with these new and exciting devices for display such as a pocket pc, tablet, net book, etc. I will need a way to demonstrate appropriate use. I just received my new Pocket PC that I can display the screen through my projector in my classroom. I now will be able to show how to access a lot of the features such as rss readers and calendars. Right now most of these devices have been purchased by me personally so I have reservations about loaning them to students. I would love for some class loaners so students can experiment.


Information Needed: I am learning constantly about the new resource available to me through different means. Such as flip cameras are all new to me and I am researching them frantically because some students want to know if they should purchase one for school projects.

I feel that I am achieving this goal everyday, providing appropriate times to use their personal tools they bring to class.

Game Plan

Promote and Model Digital Citizenship and Responsibility- My first goal is to continue to model and promote digital citizenship and responsibility. I believe that we are at the beginning of a new ear in digital assistance. We now have "phones" that can nearly do everything a computer can. It leads to a new world of communication and access to information. To use and teach others to use these tools as tools and not toys is a huge responsibility. These are gaming devices and messaging devices yes but they are also so much more than that. They are organizers and mobile offices. Learning to think this way really changes the way you look at your "phone."

Engage in Professional Growth and Leadership
I already am enrolled in this masters program and plan to take more classes when this is finished. The new world of Internet programs means there is no excuse for teacher not to continue their education and model a love for learning.

EDUC-6712I-6 Reflection

After completing EDUC-6712I-6 Supporting Information Literacy and Online Inquiry in the Classroom it is time for me to reflect on what I learned. The most striking revelation I had about the new literacy skills is that they are considered part of literacy now. For students to be considered ready for the world they must have these skills. What a change a decade has made.

This course has taught me to look for the skills instead of the finished product. The finished product is not nearly as important as the skills used to get there. I think I knew this in the past but may have lost sight of it.

As a personal professional development goal I would like to pursue some computer aided design. CAD is becoming an ever popular class in high school and it would be wonderful if I could add it to my teaching skills. I borrowed Rhino4 from the teacher that teaches it and plan on doing some studying on it through online tutorials.

Reflection

My learning theory has not changed much during this class. If anything this class reinforced my beliefs and helped give me the knowledge and information to backup my beliefs. This class was very useful for that. I also think that I came out with a clearer definition of what I am trying to do with technology in the classroom. Technology is not to make my job easier as a teacher but for the student to gain deeper understanding because of the technology.
The first tool that I will incorporate is the Voice Thread. I feel that it is a great multimedia tool that allows collaboration in ways that traditional classrooms cannot provide. The second tool is the blog. I tried using blogs a few years ago and failed miserably. I saw the potential but had no way of reaching that goal. After using it a few times in a couple of different classes I feel better prepared to try again when school starts up.
My long term goals for my teaching as it relates to technology are to take myself further from the stage and keep infusing student directed learning strategies. I want my class to be fun and innovative, students bring that to the table and I need to just point them in the right direction. I also feel I do not spend enough time reinforcing the basics. Class time is usually spent moving forward but after learning about behaviorists I feel the weekly quiz on basic material has its time and place. I look forward to trying them out next fall.

Collaboration in School

I feel that collaboration is a very neccessary part of schooling that is often over looked. I just attended a high school graduation and every speaker talked about how it was not just the course materials that were learned but life lessons that went along with learning. In "the real world" people are forced to work together and for other people all the time. If we as teachers do not teach these lessons, not to mention the deeper learning of course materials, then we are not doing an adaquate job preparing our students for the future.

Voice Thread

http://voicethread.com/share/531009/

Constructionist Thoery of Learning

I totally agree with this theory. When stduents make thier own personal meaning and connections the learning becomes long term. I also believe that a lot of teachers jump to this thoery to fast and forget to include the building blocks of the behaviorist and coginitve theories. There is a time and place for all theories and I beleive this theory belongs in the advanced classes or as review or final projects. If you give students some guidelines to work with it is up to them to apply what they have learned and take it to the next level.

Cognitive Theory

The cognitive theory is all about taking the new information and creating a relationship with it and something int he students past to make it transfer into long term memory. We as teachers tryto cram learning sown students throats and that is not what lasts long term. In a business communications class I teach we talk about how to make connections to buyers and to the audience during a presentation. We use storytelling to create an emotional connection to audience. These stories make people feel your point instead of just hear a random fact. It places the facts inot a meaningful thought. As a teacher it is my job to sell the information not just present it. We get so caught up in standards and preping for tests that we forget the connections that occur through story telling.

Behaviorist Thoery and Technology

The instructional strategies inthis weeks resources promote my beleifs on behaviorist learning theory. I may have been viewing the resources without an open mind but I do feel that it demonstarted a time and place for behaviorism in the classroom. If we ignore the nuts and bolts in learning and jump right to the final project we lose a lot of the details that make the project great.

Reflection

This course has helped me to develop a few technology skills. The first being hosting my own blog along with understanding why blogs are so being used so much by the consumers of the 21st century. It is a great way to voice your opinions. In an environment of fast paced change in knowledge it allows a person to have a voice and to create their own views. This is where I believe the learner-centered instruction becomes so important. If I as an educator continue to just spill out information to my students most of it will be outdated by the time the student goes to apply it. I have deepened my knowledge of the teaching and learning process by being exposed to an environment where learning is more than just listening but it is also interacting with each other and creating new knowledge. The second way I have expanded is by trying out Podcasts and wikis. I really enjoyed the podcasts and found it very simple to use after I got it all setup. I am looking for ways to incorporate these into my classroom.
The two long-term goals I have set to transform my classroom environment into a learning environment of the 21st century are to take old lessons that I have taught in the past and process them for changes that need to be made. To often teachers don’t evaluate their lessons after the first run through. I plan on looking for ways to force students to use more technology. Second goal is to get my room up to date with the latest technology. I want students to have the option of doing and turning in their assignments from home as well as being able to access their student files they created at school. This is going to take a lot of work to overcome the district technology committee who believe technology just means having a computer for each teacher. I will have to convince it is worth time and money to make our intranet available elsewhere.
We live in an exciting time and we must embrace the changes and realize our students are counting on us to prepare them for their future not what our future looked like.

Profiling the Students of Today
Gabcast! Profiling the Students of Today #1

Partnership for 21st Century Skills.

I found the website Partnership for 21st Century Skills very interesting. I believe that until businesses take control of who they are hiring change will not take place in the educational system. It is definitely a step in the right direction, a group of major players in the business and technology world banning together to create the worker they would like to hire. With that being said the biggest problem is still the lack of monetary resources at the disposal of the educators to create the so called "real world" educational environment. I teach in a computer lab that has not been updated in over 6 years. How real world is that? No new software or hardware for 6 years. If a company dared to save money this way they would be out of business. Just like in politics the place the money comes from has the biggest say and these companies spend billions on buy-outs and mergers every year but the giving to create a stable economic system in the schools is very limited. Almost full power is expected before their business is willing to donate. If they want this change to really take place it will have to be done with money first.

ThankYou

I have checked to see if the blog sites are avialable at school and some are and some are not. I talked with the district technology department to see if they could put one or two on the exception list for me. This should happen next week.

Journals

I have been toying with this idea for a few months now. I teach freshmen level computer applications and at the beginning of the semester we do a quick refresher unit on keyboarding .During The first half of the semester I have the kids write a daily journal that must be typed and about 100 words. This is great practice keyboarding and to get them thinking of different topics. I think next semester I want them to create a blog to journal on. I could subscribe to their blogs and read all of their work in one spot without having to look in multiple computer folders. What a time saver and fun way for students to use blogging.

testing

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