Reflecting upon my GAME Plan

During my eighth course of my master’s program at Walden University I incorporated a GAME Plan to improve my instructional practice.  This involved setting Goals, taking Action, Monitoring progress, and then Evaluating the success or failure of my strategy. For my personal GAME Plan I chose to look at two standards from the National Education Technology Standards for Teachers (NETS*T) guidelines:  Increasing student use of technology in my classroom and becoming a technology leader in my community.   This course directly impacted both of those goals.

The great thing about the GAME Plan is that it forces a teacher to look critically at what they are doing in the classroom to determine whether or not it is effective practice.  The best teachers have a strategy to make themselves better, they do not simply try new approaches just to see what happens.  Constant monitoring and evaluating are keys to building a great curriculum.  Teachers should strive to make students lifelong learners who are self-directed – and that is what the GAME Plan forces teachers to become themselves.  Students need to think both critically and creatively so as to incorporate the new content into their schema, and technology offers great opportunities to do just that.  Further, it is easy to adapt technology to meet the instructional needs of diverse learners by using Universal Design for Learning, or UDL.  When students are thinking for a solution to a real world problem, they are not just thinking about the content, they are using the content.

These new skills and idea will easily make my second goal, that of becoming a building leader in the use of technology a reality.  Digital storytelling, for example, is an easy sell to other teachers.  It does not require too much tech experience and the potential benefits are enormous.  

A few adjustments I will be making to my instructional practice regarding technology in my Civics classroom will be the incorporation of digital storytelling and problem based learning activities (PBL).  As a teacher it always frustrates me when my lessons do not go according to plan, but when students are using the content in a PBL or telling a story – they are using in the content.  Oftentimes, they are doing so while working collaboratively with their peers in some form of social/educational networking.  They may not be using exact wording that the state test will be incorporating, but their learning is deeper into their personal schema and so will require less review later in the year.  My hope for this coming year is to integrate one new technology program with every unit I teach.  In this manner I can choose the strategy that works best for that particular content.   I can already foresee a digital story project during my study of the Judicial Branch – students will be following themselves through the criminal justice system.  Our study of the local government will not be complete without some type of problem based learning experience that makes the students look at their community with a critical eye.

The GAME Plan Continues

This week in my Walden classes I am looking into assessments of the GAME plan and how that affects my overall strategy.  As I am hoping to incorporate more student uses of technology I feel as though I need to look specifically at assessing students while they are using technology.
The first thought that comes to mind is having students take a formal, forced-choice test online.  I have seen a couple on online websites that do something on those lines (surveymonkey being a free site that I have used for informal surveys in the past).  I also have a set of Renaissance Responders that I use sparingly - they are a little cumbersome to input questions and then exporting them is not easy.  My school uses ROSworks for its testing documents (scan-trons and test review qualities).
I would like to implement more technology for assessing performances and project-based learning as I know that those are highly effective ways of achieving student learning.  If I am truly going to digitize my student's experience in my classroom, I have to implement more projects and performances that are real-world applicable.   I have to get a little out of my comfort zone to find additional formative assessments.  As Cennamo, Ross, and Ertmer (2009) state: "Formative assessments can include video-taped performances, electronic journals, checklists and rubrics, as well as many other formats."  This is where I am going to have to look into getting more information and ideas to expand my proverbial bag of tricks.  As I am the senior member of my district in the areas that I teach, I am going to search the web for other teacher's sites and ideas.
This is not really a modification to my GAME plan, more of an incorporation.  In order to be a leader of technology in my building and provide a tech-based learning environment for my students I need to expand what I have learned in the past.  I will be incorporating these new ideas and modifying to fit my specific classroom.  "There are a variety of methods for incorporating project-based assessments in a classroom, as well as many different tools to support them" (Cennamo, 2009).  I am positive I can find several authentic assessments, simulations, portfolios, and problem based learning ideas to benefit my classroom goals.
My GAME plan is right on track.  As the school year begins I will be sharing with other teachers many of the new technologies that I have learned during my studies at Walden University.  My classroom website has begun construction and will continue to get worked on before school starts.  I think it is important that if I am to take this activity I must go all in.  If I were only to implement a couple of my ideas I would not be able to assess whether or not my plan was effective or was it simply the group of students and colleagues I had.
Resources
Cennamo, K., Ross, J. & Ertmer, P. (2009). Technology integration for meaningful classroom use: A standards-based approach. (Laureate Education, Inc., Custom ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning.

Updating My GAME Plan

Last week I stated I would like to increase my student’s use of technology for learning and creativity as well as be a tech leader in my building, both NETS*T standards.  In my GAME plan, that is my “Goal”, and this week I would like to look at some "Actions" I can take to make my goal a reality.  As stated by Dr. Ertmer in this week's videos, the four requirements for integrating technology effectively involves: "knowledge of technology, confidence that it works, beliefs in problem based learning, and supportive culture."

Carrying out my plan to increase my classroom's digital environment will require some new resources and information from myself and others at the school.  I will be creating a FaceBook page for my professional endeavors before school starts.  I have not run my own website in a while, so I will need to work with our building's technology person to properly upload my site.  On "Back to School" night I will have my FaceBook and website published and handed out to students and parents.  As the year gets moving I will need to record my lectures onto a data file and then upload them to a podcasting site.  I have done this before with student projects.  During the course of the year my lessons will be, "inclusive of all students in the learning environment... and clearly support all students, regardless of special needs" (Cennamo, 2010).

I do have a few question marks I have coming into next year.  One involves my school getting new laptops for each teacher.  The old ones had certain programs build in, but I am apprehensive about their being included again.  I was told that the school is purchasing software that will easily enable all teachers to get their own websites up and running.  I had planned on working on mine over the summer but will now wait until the teacher work days to see if the program works better than others I have used. 

In order to become a tech leader in my building I have sought out my principal's assistance.  Myself and another teacher are to operate an adhoc committee of volunteers that will ostensibly be for the avowed purpose of adding technology projects to teacher's classrooms.  As my principal is sometimes big on ideas but not on follow-up, I plan on seeking out individuals whom I think would be receptive to a few new projects for their classroom.

References

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

Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2010).  Program six. Meeting Students’ Needs    with Technology: Part 1. [Webcast]. Integrating Technology Across the Content Areas.           Baltimore, MD: Author.

Technology & Education: Confidence in NETST

Making oneself better in anything, being it a sport or a profession involves looking in the mirror critically and being able to assess strengths and weaknesses.  Strengths are to be built upon, weaknesses are to be improved.  As I have learned from my Walden University resources in the past months, improvement involves a GAME plan.  But, in this case, GAME stands for Goals, Actions, Monitoring, and Evaluating (Cennamo, Ross & Ertmer, 2009).
One of my goals for the coming year is make my classroom more digital.  In the National Education Technology Standards for Teachers (NETS*T), this fulfills standard one, "Facilitate and Inspire Student Learning and Creativity".  I will be creating a Facebook page for my class with status updates that will remind students of tests as well as offer links to enrichment opportunities.  I plan to blog weekly to include thoughts and extensions that I cannot get to in class, as well as posting homework assignments and hints.  I hope to podcast all of my lectures (using podbean) so that the students may still listen to the important information even if they missed a day (as well as reviewing for a test).  This will promote student use of technology as a learning tool when students are not in the classroom (as Facebook and most blogs are blocked by the school servers).
A second goal I have for myself is to become a better professional by contributing to my school community as a technology leader.  This past spring my principal asked me to take a few other teacher's under my wing to promote greater technology use in my building.  Every classroom has a SmartBoard, but in most cases it is only the teacher's that use them.  I hope to make our building more student centered.  This falls under the purview of NETS*T standard five, "engaging in professional growth and leadership".  Prenski states that, "once we let students (particularly in groups) take the lead on technology projects, teachers tend to see more engagement and better results."  If I start by getting students more digitally involved in my classroom then other teachers will see their results and desire to try similar projects.
The actions I will take to achieve these goals are pretty straight forward.  I will get my students to log onto my blog and podcast site early in the year so that they are familiar with it when they go home.  (They will have to find me on Facebook on their own, even I cannot get around the school server's in that case.)    Following up on my principal's plan I will be working to infuse greater student-centered technology projects in classrooms other than my own.  At the end of the year I completed a couple of activities using classroom sets of IPods, that will be my first area of focus in regards to my fellow teachers.
I believe that monitoring this process will be a monthly endeavor.  A month into school I should have started my digital classroom rolling and will be able to tell how effective it has been.  I may switch my  blog to a website if things are not going well at that time - my district just bought a new website program that I have been encouraged to try out.  I hopefully, by the second month of the school year, will have helped institute a couple of changes with my colleagues as well, if not I will strive to work with a couple of them on my own.
Evaluating the success of my goals will be the final step in the process.  Greater technology use by students, both in and out of the classroom should be evident during the course of the school year.  If I find that my digital classroom has been more analog than I would like I will step back and evaluate the reasons why.  While my lessons in past years have worked at acceptable levels, I believe that incorporating more technology will improve my students learning over the long run.

References
Cennamo, K., Ross, J. & Ertmer, P. (2009). Technology integration for meaningful classroom        use: A standards-based approach. (Laureate Education, Inc., Custom ed.). 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
Prensky, M. (2008). Turning on the lights. Educational Leadership, 65(6), 40–45.

One Small Step for Mankind...

My personal theory of learning has not undergone drastic changes since beginning this course, although I have definitely tweaked it some.  I still maintain that students need to find the content relevant before they will commit it to long term memory.  Further, I continue to believe that students need to experience the real life aspect of content, especially in my field, social studies.  I believe that technology can be a great aid in making that leap from words on a page to relevant information much easier.  As a part of that, students need to be active learners whenever possible.  Information that they need to retain should be manipulated by them, whether created, presented, or debated.  Technology makes getting students active in their learning easier in a way that little else can.  One of the great benefits of technology is that it is easy for teachers to identify the work of each individual student.

A change I think I can implement as a result of this course is to begin to implement a few of the technologies immediately.  I have already used the website VoiceThread with my Gifted and Talented class and they really enjoyed using it.  I can foresee a couple of uses for this program before the current school year is completed.  Although we did not necessarily use Wikis in this course but as a result of discussions I think I can successfully implement a wiki assignment as a review before the state test this spring.

Something that this course has significantly altered my teaching practice is that I would like to raise the level of technology interaction my students have with the material. This course has made me more determined and focused to make my students use technology themselves in a way that reinforces learning in my classroom.  I must find ways to make not just having technology, but using technology, to better stimulate my student’s learning.

One long term goal I would like to initiate is to make my instructional practice more technologically intensive for my students.  What I have learned during this course is that students need to be active users of information and that technology is a great way to get students to use content.  I will strive to find new and innovative ways to get my students to use the content that they have learned in my class.  Specifically I would like to try to implement one new tech strategy every month.  This may include online games, presentations, and/or research using internet sites.  I must always try to find ways of making my instruction better – just because it may have worked in years past does not mean I need to keep doing it the same way.

Another idea I have is to continue to experiment myself with blogging and using new online tools.  Long term I would like to see my classroom have a blog and podcast site that my students can go to for reflections and study aids.  I think I need to continue to hone my craft for a time before I go public with this strategy.  If I continue to explore my uses of it by next school year I hope to be ready to take it live.

Voice Thread

I have recently used a program called Voice Thread and would like everyone to listen in!  Let me know what you think!

http://voicethread.com/share/1709388/

Thanks!
Michael

Social Learning and Connectivism

Social learning occurs when students have to interact with each other to produce a finished product that exemplifies their learning.  Think of last week's lessons on connectivism but with a group consciousness.   Personally, it reminds me of the Borg from Star Trek  (Oh, if only my students could work in concert like those trying to assimilate the human race.)
The theory gets its roots from the ideology that in order to work collaboratively students must understand both the big picture and small picture details.  Assuming all students buy into the group accountability aspect of learning (which means they would likely have to know that they will be assessed individually for doing their part as well as have an incentive to see the whole group do well).  There are numerous ways to easily and effectively add to the group consciousness:  del.icio.us is a great way of sharing bookmarks and pages of interest with others; google calendar is a fun little tech fix for those that like to see their schedules written out to make sharing easier;  there are dozens of different ways to hone the craft of group thought - webquests, moodle, blackboard, and a myriad of various interactive online games that allow students to build their social learning abilibities.VoiceThread is a neat way of having a presentation that can benefit from group contributions.

The strength of social learning is that it most closely resembles a real life activity.  In most professions people work along side others and must come to a consensus as to how the work will be done and who will do each part.  Thus, it is easy to design a real-life scenario that would use social learning techniques. 
Social learning is extremely beneficial because of the way it occurs.  A student who is presenting information to a group that must then use that information as a part of their project must be very knowledgeable about the information they have researched.  They have to be prepared for the "what ifs..." and the "why nots..."  In this manner, they develop an individual confidence that will translate to a group confidence later.  Learning is not static, it is dynamic, it changes.  During group work students develop a higher level of understanding that transfers short term knowledge into long term memory.

Instruction Thru Constrution

     One of the first lessons I received as a teacher from my mentor during student teaching was that "you never know what you have learned until you have to teach it."  My mentor teacher was reminding me that I may have to go back and re-learn a thing or two before giving a lesson while simultaneously suggesting that when students present information to the class they have to learn it on a far deeper level then when they simply answer questions from the teacher.
     This week we read about a series of websites and ideas for using technology to achieve learning through a constructivists theory.  In essence, when students learn they have to either incorporate the new material into their world view or alter their world view to fit this new concept.  A number of the ideas appear to be have great possibilities for learning when applied to this method of thought.
     While reading the course text I could not stop myself from going to several of the websites to find out more about them than provided in the book, many for my personal entertainment more than professional gain.  (Unfortunately, as an 8th grade Civics teacher, there were not really any websites named that screamed, "You can use me next week!" in the text.)  www.history-making.com was one of those, I got sucked into the download and lost almost an hour of my life moving troops around France.  www.ciconline.org/windward and meted.ucar.edu/hurrican/strike/index.htm were two others that caught my eye, as a junior meteorologist, if only in my head.  All three of these websites allow for students to interact with the world in a realistic way.  They appear to be fun and educational at the same time.  By using strategies such as these we can "trick" students into learning and liking it.  The spreadsheet software applications discussed in the chapter also have great ways of allowing students to test out what they think they have learned to find out whether or not they have got it correctly.
     The basic ideas behind it are sound - if students can interact with the content and apply the content, they will have developed a better understanding of the material.  Constructing a PowerPoint is another example of this line of thought.  Students have to take the information they have learned, or find new information on a topic, and assimilate it into a presentation format.  It adds in pictures and potentially sound so add layers to the learning (going back to cognitive learning theory as well).

Concerning Cognitive Learning

     Simply put, cognitive learning is a theory that learning occurs when connections are made in the mind of a learner.  One remembers things by remembering and making these connections.  We may retain a lot of information, but we need to be able to make connections to that information for it to be used.  This reminds me of the commercials for a search engine on TV right now (I believe its for bing.com) where people start saying random phrases that have one thing that makes them tangentially related to what someone else said.
     All this makes sense when you think back to a time when you knew you knew something but could not quite come up with the answer until a hint was given - POW! instant reconnection of a memory. 
     I was intrigued by the part of this weeks video that talked about how an extra sense adds to the layer of connectivity such as smell.  There are certain smells (like dirty gasoline) that will always transport me back to another moment in time (to my grandfather's tractor shed).  This is cognitive learning.
     The technology resources we began to use last week have some interesting applications for the cognitive learning theorist.  bubbl.us and webspiration are similar methods for displaying graphically a map of connections.  A few months back I was introduced to www.prezi.com and have been enthralled with it ever since (now if I could just get a few hours to complete the two projects I began).  Virtual field trips like the one I am working on to the US Supreme Court at www.oyez.org/ further student understanding by adding a episodic memory contingency.
     Our previous discussion about learning have involved the theory that students need to see new material in multiple ways for it to make it into their long term memory.  Cognitive learning falls right in line with this - the more ways one sees something the more connections one makes, making it easier to remember.

To (Behavior) Mod or not to Mod, that is the Question

Teachers naturally modify behaviors on a constant level, anytime we tell a student to quiet down or tell a student good job on a test, we are modifying their behavior.  Just to what extent we are doing so is a question up for debate.
I believe there is a time and a place for behaviorism in today's classrooms. I think it is important that punishments be used only when necessary as they do tend to have a negative relationship towards learning. Rewards should be used to instill the desired behaviors.
My school has a monthly rewards program for our eighth graders. If I see a student doing something really nice, or going outside of his or her comfort zone for the benefit of someone else, I can recognize them with an award. At the end of the month, the students that have received awards get pizzas for lunch as opposed to the school cafeteria food. Some students will beg and plead to receive one, but I only will give one out if the student is not overtly aware that their actions could involve a reward. I feel rewards should be more instantaneous, but the program has seemed to work effectively thus far.
In the spring I coach Tennis. The basic methodology of coaching is as follows: 1) introduce a new skill 2) practice the skill 3) simulate the skill in a game like situation. I think this general idea works in the classroom as well as on the tennis court. Students need to practice a real life use of the new skill or content that is learned. I believe that with technology in particular, this is an effective strategy. Technology can make it easy to tailor-make learning at a student's difficulty level.
I think a blending of behavior modification with other strategies is important.  Kids will not respond the same way every time a reward/punishment is offered.  If done properly, a well-managed classroom incorporates behavior modification seamlessly and without being overtly noticeable.