New and Emerging Technologies

I think so often in the past I have thought of myself as an avid technology user. I use the technology that I am given and I am excited about all of the things that that technology can do. I have often looked at other teachers in the school who are not using technology to enhance instruction, and have wondered how they can allow such amazing opportunities to pass them by. After completing the final assignment, I realize that I have allowed some incredible opportunities to pass me by.

Being a person who understands technology, I have the opportunity seek out new technology and introduce it to my students and my school. In my assignment, I demonstrated how the use of online courses can enhance learning for students in the classroom and help teachers differentiate learning. I also developed a plan for encouraging the adoption of this technology in my school. As a title I school, we are often behind the curve where technology is concerned. Depending on your definition of emerging, it could be said that we rarely see emerging technology at all. I would like to take a more active role in my school as a technology leader and actually do more to work with our technology department to help them identify technologies that would actually help teachers with instruction in the classroom.

Online Course Management Presentation- Claroline

I tried to do a voice recording with Screen Toaster, but was ultimately ineffective. I used the subtitle feature to add my thoughts.

http://www.screentoaster.com/watch/stUEtVRURJRFtYQV9bX1pfU1Nc/claroline_online_course_management_revie

Differentiation and Technology

The course Reaching and Engaging All Learners Through Technology has actually been very helpful to me. This year, I have possibly the most diverse class I have ever taught. In that past, I have thought that differentiation meant I had to change the curriculum or create a new lesson for each child. The resources and discussions in this class have helped me see that differentiation is really about looking at the students instead of the curriculum, and allowing students to access the curriculum differently based on how they learn. Technology, of course, is key to being able to do this. We now have the ability to make text books interactive, add audio/visual aspects to lessons and even increase the size of text using educational technology.

The social networking group that was formed in the class was valuable as well. Sometimes when we are looking through the endless possibilities for technology resources for our classrooms, it can get a bit overwhelming. We all know that we cannot simply click on the first resource that our search engine pulls up and put it into practice with our students. It must first be researched. Having a group of educators with the same goal posting their technology finds has helped me by giving me tried and true resources that I can trust and use in my classroom safely and quickly to differentiate instruction.

The foremost change to my instruction will be a change of perspective about differentiating instruction. Simply having different activities is not enough. I must first survey my students somehow to find out what their needs are. Of course, after most of a year with them, I can tell you their academic short comings; however, I would like to find more out about their interests and engage them on that level. I will also make an attempt to allow students more opportunities to prove their knowledge. I often give them one paper/pencil test and ask them to perform well in order to prove mastery of a skill. I will make more of an effort to offer a wider variety of performance and project-based tasks for students to prove mastery.

Using a GAME plan with my students

When I first began thinking about using the GAME plan, I really only thought about its practical uses for teachers. It really helped me oraganize my thoughts. I have been able to stay focused on my goals and the actions I must take to complete those goals. After thinking about it, I believe it will also be useful to my students.

I think that I can use the GAME plan in different ways to set/achieve long-term and short-term goals with my students. First of all, I teach third graders who have to take our state standardized test for the first time at the end of the year. To them, the MCT is an abstract idea that has very little meaning to them. I think that it would be a good idea for us to create a class GAME plan to help us stay focused on our goals for achievement on that test.

I also would like to use a GAME plan with our upcoming science project. My students have never done science projects to be submitted in our district science fair before. I think it would help them feel less overwhelmed if they created a GAME plan to help the identify the goals and actions that they must take to complete their science fair projects. We could check on our GAME plan every few days to see if we are progressing as we need to.

Overall, I do believe that I will use GAME plans with students especially if I move back to older students who will have to monitor their own progress during class projects.

Final Reflection

When I first began the GAME plan process, I thought of it as one of those things we say we do so that we can get credit in our graduate class. After using the GAME plan throughout this course however, I believe that I will always use it to some degree. I tend to get overwhelmed with the details of large projects. There have been many times that I have scratched a classroom project or lesson because I could not properly manage it. I believe that the GAME plan process will help me avoid that frustration in the future.

I was also able to use my current GAME plan to help me get past a few road blocks that I was facing this year. I had moved to a younger grade in a school with less technology that I had been used to. At the beginning of the year, I didn't quite know how I would be able to incorporate technology into my classroom effectively. Using my game plan actually helped me create a plan of action that I believe will help my science fair project go more smoothly.

I also believe that this process with be very valuable to my students. If I teach them to complete this process in my classroom, they will have a tool that will help them complete assignments and projects throughout their life and education.

Re-evaluation of GAME plan

The truth is, I am still working toward my initial goal, and I think I may have bitten off more than I could chew (so to speak). My teaching partner and I have been very diligently preparing for a science project which will help work toward the NETS goal of incorporating real-world situations into curriculum. We will be working with a local under-graduate education student to help students participate in the science fair in a meaningful way.

I believe that I need to continue to work toward this goal. Next time, I believe I will start a little smaller. I intitially thought that I needed to some type of big project. I think that I overlooked the fact that I can achieve this goal with a simple activity such as class discussion after a video. Students are naturally intrigued about so many topics. I must do a better job looking for those teachable moments instead of waiting for my projects to be ready.

GAME plan Update

I am very excited that my effort to incorporate real-world situations into classroom learning has a new resource. I have been talking to my team about using the science fair to help students explore real-world situations. Now, we have an undergraduate education student who has volunteered to come in and show the students the scientific process. We will choose a few possible investigations and the students will ultimately decide what real-world situations they will work on. Since my students seemed very excited when we studies habitats, I am trying to investigate to find some possible endangered species or ecosystems in our area for the students to research. We are also asking students what other topics they may want to investigate. This way the undergraduate student and I can be ready to begin work on our projects as soon as we come back from Christmas Holiday. I think that my students are going to truly enjoy the science fair more because they will be working on projects that will, hopefully, be meaningful to them.