The
National Educational Technology Standards (NETS) are standards for students,
teachers, and administrators to lead the digital age. Reviewing the 5 technology
standards for teachers was a great refresher as to what we should be focusing
on when incorporating technology into lesson plans. With that being said, I
chose two indicators as a priority for my classroom and students. The first
indicator is 1.b (engage students in
exploring real-world issues and solving authentic problems using digital tools
and resources). As a third grade teacher this year, I am trying to use technology
in the classroom so it has meaning. I feel that focusing on this indictor will allow
me to provide students with authentic learning experiences.
The
second indicator I would like to enhance is indicator 3.b (collaborate with students, peers, parents, and community members using
digital tools and resources to support student success and innovation). In this
standard I would like to focus on the collaboration of students. I think it is so
important to allow students to collaborate with one another. It is a great way
to enhance their learning.
Developing
a GAME plan is an important part of technology integration. Authors Cennamo,
Ross, and Ertmer explain that GAME is an acronym which stands for: goal,
action, monitor, and evaluate (2010).
Here is
my personal GAME plan:
Set Goal: My first goal is to create lessons
that are meaningful for third grade students that integrate real-world issues. Setting this as a goal, it will give me the
opportunity to create more authentic learning experiences for my students. My
second goal is to collaborate with students to enrich learning through various
technology tools.
Take Action: In order to make these goals
come to life, I will have research what other teachers are doing. I plan to do
this by searching blogs, websites, and journals. Doing so will give me a good
idea on how I can achieve my goals.
Monitor
Your Learning:
It will definitely be important for me during this time to track my personal
learning and progress. Doing so will allow me to make improvements for the
future.
Evaluate
and Extend Your Learning: At
the culmination of each project, I will have to take the time to reflect upon
changes that I can make to make the learning experience even better for the
future. Reflecting and finding alternatives will give me a chance to continue
to improve. The continuous reflection will help me to see if I have met my
goals, and what I have to continue to do to meet them.
Resources:
Cennamo, K., Ross, J., & Ertmer, P. (2010). Technology
integration for meaningful classroom use: A standards-based approach.
Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning.
International
Society for Technology in Education. (2008). National education standards for teachers (NETS-T). Retrieved from
http://www.iste.org/Libraries/PDFs/NETS_for_Teachers_2008_EN.sflb.ashx
5 comments:
I like the way you outlined your GAME plan with G-A-M-E it is easy to follow and understand.
Does your school have student email? Could you make a class wiki or blog?
How do you plan to use digital tools to collaborate?
Hi Pru,
Thank you for the comment. Unfortunately our school does not have e-mail for our students. Sometimes I wish that we did! Also, I do plan on making a blog for the classroom. Right now we have a Facebook page for our grade level. But I want to make something that will allow my students to be more involved. I am open to any ideas if anyone has some :)
You selected two great areas to strengthen. I feel that although there are just 5 standards for teachers, some are quite broad and cover a number of skills, which will require quite a bit of time and energy to master.
How do you plan on monitoring your progress? I too am trying to help my students learn by incorporating real-life connections into my math classroom. I have searched blogs, journals, webpages, and more and found that I could spend months sorting out all of the information. I have found it helpful to make a list of topics for each month. For example, in August I searched for ideas that focused on number sense specifically, in June and July I dedicated a significant amount of time to Fraction lessons and how to incorporate real-life tasks. This has helped me to narrow my focus and keywords and it has provided better results.
Now this is a lot of work, and I have found numerous activities, but then I found it was necessary to develop a plan to organize these (I'm still trying to decide which is best....a spreadsheet I save in DropBox so I can access it anywhere, adding favorites to my bookmarks, using social bookmarking, posting these in my blog, etc.)
I also felt that I need a plan of attack. If I try to teach EVERY lesson incorporating these new skills I will quickly become overwhelmed. As a result, I just set a goal of one per semester or quarter and then I plan to increase that throughout my teaching career.
I am currently loving my class Edmodo site. We have a private domain, specific to our school which allows teachers more administrative rights. We have reviewed our expectations with students and as a result, they use this area for math purposes only unless otherwise needed. I have only had to set one student to "Read-Only". The great thing about this is it makes a digital script of what was said, and by who. You can create groups so you can send messages to specific groups of people, and I believe they can then respond to group members without the entire class seeing it. Also, parents can see everything that is posted if they have joined their child's account (I sent the letters describing how to do this in the beginning of the year) so this helps them to stay on task and it also helps me monitor comments for appropriateness. I highly suggest Edmodo for your classroom.
Also, another nice thing about Edmodo is that it is FREE and students don't need email accounts. They can just create their own account with a username and password (I had them use the same one they use for school) and then they enter the class code number and they will be connected to that classroom only. Teachers don't have to set up accounts one by one, but we can access the settings of all of the members of our page.
Melissa,
Your goals are realistic. I taught third grade for a few years and always felt that the curriculum from the county was missing that real-world aspect. Have you tried searching Pinterest.com for classroom ideas and blogs? I have found some great activities to integrate technology and real-world experiences. For reading, there are short videos that the students can use to infer, draw conclusions, identify the problem and so much more. I highly recommend searching for topics on there.
Kate
Melissa-
I have tons of ideas, however, our school doe not allow Facebook, email, blogs, or wikis with students :(
Facebook is a BAD WORD in my district. I have posted about it before in group discussions.
What does your FB page look like? what do you use it for? I am trying to get my school to see the GOOD in FB. Thanks!
Post a Comment