REFLECTION TIME

Ironically one thing I learned this semester is how important it is to reflect. Reflection time is the moment a student can think back to what was learned and what he or she will grasp onto for their educational journey. I have learned so much and will use almost everything I learned in my career as an educator. 

The GAME plan for example helped me discover my personal goals as well as showed me how vital it is to introduce a GAME plan to my students. I learned that as an educator I need to integrate myself better into the Digital world. After knowing this, I was able to set myself up with an action plan that will guide me to monitor and evaluate my goal. Now I am ready and excited to begin a new year with programs that will create a Digital world for my students as well as myself. I have found websites with programs for every subject! Last year I only used technology programs for math and reading but this year I can target all the subjects I teach! In addition, I will begin the year by modeling my GAME plan and helping my students map out their own GAME plan! It will be great! I have the resources and ideas needed to succeed because of what I learned the past seven weeks!

In addition to jump starting the year with a GAME plan, I will model and assign students project based assignments. This means, I will first model to students the programs I am now aware of ( wikis, digital stories, blogs, etc) , then have them create a project using one of these technologies to describe themselves! It will be a simple objective but it is meant to expose them to the ways in which we can use tools/programs on the web! 

I am very lucky to have taken this course during the summer because I am now ready to start off the year with a whole new world of technology!

Veronica

"GAME" PLAN FOR STUDENTS

Technology Standards for students and for teachers inter-relate with one another. The major standards that apply for teachers, also apply for students. For example, social, ethical, and human issues is important for students to understand the responsibilities and respect that comes with using technology and for teachers is is our job to promote this respect and model the responsibilities. In addition, another standard that demonstrates how the standards inter-relate is the communication standard. Students are expected to "collaborate and interact with experts and other audiences" while teachers are asked to "use technology to communicate and collaborate with peers, parents, and the larger community in order to nurture student learning". This again shows how the NETS-S and NETS-T inter-relate in order to model and guide the students into the right direction with technology. 

The best way for teachers to teach these NETS-S standards to students is by modeling a GAME plan. I will model to my students how I choose a goal from the standards and reflected upon that goal for several weeks. Then I will ask students to do the same. Each student will choose a goal from the NETS-S. After they have chosen their goal I plan on putting students in groups of 2 with a classmate that shares the same goal. These partnerships will be responsible to work on their goal and reflect on their goal by asking themselves; What am I doing? How can I improve? What have I accomplished thus far? These partnerships will be monitored by asking to reflect upon these three questions at the end of every week for 8 weeks. Hopefully, at the end of 8 weeks, they will have accomplished their goal and can choose a new one. By the end of the year, I expect to see progress in each student within the NETS-S standards.

"GAME"-PLAN REFLECTION

• What have you learned so far that you can apply in your instructional practice? 

Thus far I have learned about the sites that I have posted in the past posts that I will be using with my students to stay afloat with "digital learning."

• What goals are you still working toward? 

I am still working on what skills to apply to students in order to make the "digital learning" experience diverse. However, I cannot accomplish this until I know who my students will be come fall. 

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

A new goal I would like to focus on is one that I can begin now without my students. The goal is communication and collaboration. Within this goal I want to specifically focus on how to:

"communicate information and ideas effectively to multiple audiences using a variety of media and formats."

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

Next time I will begin to focus on my new goal by signing up for educational blogs and connecting an RSS reader to the blogs in order to stay up to date with the newest ideas. 

"GAME" plan continues

How effective were your actions in helping you meet your goals?

Thus far, I was able to follow the first few steps. I have not been able to do the last steps which is to analyze student data and create goals alongside with students because of the time of year, however I feel ready since I have the sites set up.
https://nyc-acuity.mcgraw-hill.com/index.jsp (English Language Arts and Math)
http://165.155.107.202/lms (Math)
http://4kids.org/games/ (Math and Language Arts)
http://www.mrnussbaum.com/ (Science, Social Studies, Math, and English Language Arts)

What have you learned so far that you can apply in your instructional practice?

I have learned that designing lessons for our digital native students is easier than I thought. There are so many resources available online that can assist any teacher with any lesson or any students with any skill with the use of the Internet.

What do you still have to learn? What new questions have arisen?

I have to learn how to make time into the class schedule for using websites to reinforce skills. My questions are:
How often should I allow time for students to visit these sites in the classroom?
How often should I assign homework using these sites?

How will you adjust your plan to fit your current needs?

At this point in my plan I do not need to adjust anything. However, once schools begins I think I will make adjustments on the when to create goals with students based on their data.

"GAME" plan on the move!

"GAME" plan on the move!

1. Are you finding the information and resources you need?

The information and resources needed for my game plan is being found with the help of resources. These resources come from my prior experience (school software programs) and from websites suggested from classmates (thank you).

2. Do you need to modify your action plan?

Thus far, I do not need to modify my action plan. My action plan was to have interactive websites for each subject and I was able to target the sites to my student´s needs. The only problem is I cannot set up the questions or lessons my students need since I do have students at the moment. Come september, I can match my students to certain skills using the websites I have found for each subject.

3. What have you learned so far?

I have learned, by interacting with teachers from around the country, that every school has their own perfered software program. In addtion, I have learned that everything we need is on the web. For example, before this GAME plan I had no idea that there was softwares to target skills in science.

4. What new questions have arisen?

My only questions now are, can I use software programs that my school does not use? Also, how can I convince the administration in my school to buy more software programs.

Veronica

A for action!

The GAME plan I am focusing on is how to "Design and Develop a Digital Age Learning Experiences and Assessments."

The ACTION plan has begun:

The following are the resources I will be using:

https://nyc-acuity.mcgraw-hill.com/index.jsp   (English Language Arts and Math)

http://165.155.107.202/lms  (Math)

http://4kids.org/games/  (Math and Language Arts)

http://www.mrnussbaum.com/  (Science, Social Studies, Math, and English Language Arts)

The steps that I have taken are:

1st: I gathered the websites that will be used by my students to assess their own progress in each subject

2nd: I analyzed the students data to see what skills they need to focus on with the use of these websites

3rd: The student and I will create goals based on the data shown 

4th: The students will assess their own progress with use of the websites and their knowledge of their goals

I am always on the look out for new websites so please feel free to share, thank you.

Veronica

"GAME"-PLAN

Teachers of the 21st century have to know the Technology Standards (NETS-T)and feel confident teaching while integrating the standards. To be honest, less than two years ago I would have felt uncomfortable within all the technology standards but now I feel confident with most and still need to improve in some. For example, I feel confident that I have what it takes to "inspire student learning by using tools such as voice threads and blogs" because my students ended this past school year using blogs and voice threads to communicate or even reflect on what they were learning at school and at home. In addition, I feel comfortable "modeling digital age work and learning" because I love to communicate ideas and work collaborately with my students and parents with the use of technology therefore my students are expose to that form of modeling digital age working and learning.

The standards I have to work on are "Design and Develop Digital Age Learning Experiences and Assessments" and "Engage in Professional Growth and Leadership." These two areas goes beyond teaching with tools, it digs deeper into becoming life long learners within technology by using sophisticated assessments and always finding new ways forever. 

Standard:"Design and Develop Digital Age Learning Experiences and Assessments"

Sub-standard: Getting students to assess progress on their individual goals

Goal: My goal is to model and guide students to assess their progress by showing them how to do so with the use of technology. 

Action: Find a internet program for each subject that can help students follow their progress and work on areas of need. For example, there is a program called Acuity that helps students increase their reading and writing skills based on an assessment taken online. This program shows students how they performed and assigns them activities to work on to improve. I need to find programs such as these for other subject areas

Monitor: I will check progress my going onto the program's page for teachers to manage. In addition, I will conference with students on what they are working on and why.

Evaluate and Extend: I would evaluate their progress by giving them an additional assessment in class and have students respond to their growth by using the class' blog page. 

Standard: "Engage in Professional Growth and Leadership"

Sub-Standard: Participating in local and global learning communities

Goal: Become a life-long learner by using the internet to participate in local and global communities in order to remain aware of issues and ideas around the world

Action: First, receive permission from guardians that students are allowed to communicate on the wide world web for educational purposes only. Then, find websites that are directed to students and teachers from around the community or world and learn from one another. Finally, use these websites to become involved in participating ideas and more with people from outside of school to gain many perspectives. 

Monitor: I will check progress by having students and myself write a reflection each month about something we learned from somewhere outside of our classroom with the use of technology.

Evaluate and Extend: I will evaluate our progress by allowing my students to make any suggestions on how we can become more involved with the outside world of our classroom. 

Hopefully this will improve my skills as a teacher overall. 

Veronica