How effective were your actions in helping you meet your goals?
Overall I think my actions have been leading me in the right direction to accomplish my goal for collaboration among teachers in order to share lessons that incorporate technology. I have received positive feedback from teachers who want to take part in sharing lessons. Originally I thought getting teachers on board might be a challenge but thus far, it’s been a success. A few teachers and I are getting together the morning of spring break to share some lessons and create a powerpoint for the in-service at the end of the year. I have taken the advice from a fellow classmate to build a team to present to the rest of the teachers.
What have you learned so far that you can apply in your instructional practice?
We recently received a discovery cart for my physical education classes and I have already collaborated with a teacher in my school to create lessons that incorporate video of basketball skills and today I created a powerpoint with video for demonstrating the correct way to drive, smash, and clear a birdie in badminton. Students have been very receptive to this new technology and it has made teaching much more enjoyable as well.
What do you still have to learn? What new questions have arisen?
My second goal is lagging a bit. This is partially due to the lack of resources I have for ensuring that students are responsible on the internet. I have honestly been extremely busy these past two weeks and while our administration is interviewing for next year, I haven’t had time to discuss this issue. I did happen to walk in our media center on Monday and overhead a lesson taking place by our media specialist. He was instructing students on how to navigate a website in order to decide if it is a valid site. I am wondering now if I should have him share the same lesson with my health classes. I still have to learn how to activate security settings for certain programs so that this limits students from going to the wrong places when researching on the internet.
How will you adjust your plan to fit your current needs?
At the present time, I do not feel that I need to make adjustments for my first goal. However, I do still need to find time to get my second goal put into action. I plan to wait until the second week in April, when interviews subside a bit, so that I can discuss consequences for inappropriate internet usage. I am also planning on sitting down with our IT tech next week so that he can show me how to activate security settings.
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
Monitoring My GAME Plan
In terms of my first area of focus that involves collaboration with fellow health and physical educators in the sharing of technology-based lessons, I have received the support of our supervisors to bring up this idea at our next in-service. The main problem with this is that we will not be meeting with all of the county teachers until the end of the school year. I may have to send out an email prior to this meeting to get the wheels turning so that a meeting can take place early in the summer while lessons are still fresh in our heads. One major resource that our PE department was able to receive was a portable discovery cart. This will allow the opportunity to incorporate technology in physical education on a daily basis. I have already begun to record students demonstrating basketball skills in order to put these demonstrations in a powerpoint to model the appropriate skill. The problem is that I can’t get the videos to actually play. I have a meeting tomorrow with our IT support person to help trouble-shoot this issue. I figured that I would create present my lesson at the in-service to show that I have something to bring to the table and hopefully they will see this as a positive step towards getting our classes more interactive.
On the other hand, my second goal is not going as well. I have received a very vague outline of the consequences of improper use of technology from our administration and have found through survey results within our school that there are many teachers in our school that do not put a lot of emphasis on taking the time to demonstrate correct and incorrect usage. I was hoping to gather ideas from my colleagues and thus far have been unsuccessful. At the present time, I am still contemplating ways to modify this action plan. One suggestion would be sit down with our ILT team and try to put together a powerpoint modeling responsible use of technology. I personally need to learn more about security settings in order to prevent students from entering dangerous territory on the internet. This is definitely still a work in progress.
On the other hand, my second goal is not going as well. I have received a very vague outline of the consequences of improper use of technology from our administration and have found through survey results within our school that there are many teachers in our school that do not put a lot of emphasis on taking the time to demonstrate correct and incorrect usage. I was hoping to gather ideas from my colleagues and thus far have been unsuccessful. At the present time, I am still contemplating ways to modify this action plan. One suggestion would be sit down with our ILT team and try to put together a powerpoint modeling responsible use of technology. I personally need to learn more about security settings in order to prevent students from entering dangerous territory on the internet. This is definitely still a work in progress.
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
Carrying Out the GAME Plan
The first goal of my GAME plan is to collaborate with other high school health and Physical educators in order to share lessons that incorporate technology. As it may be difficult to ensure participation, I must find a way to carry out this goal. My first inclination would be to begin with an email to all the teachers to bring up the idea of sharing lessons across the county in hopes to spark interest. I will also mention this idea to our supervisor so that they can maybe dedicate a session during one of our in-services to lesson sharing. I have already begun to reach out to a few teachers, and they would be interested in sharing, they just admit that they get lazy and or forget that they can post to our Sharepoint portal. It appears that there are many teachers who already have lessons to share, but admit that they are lackadaisical when it comes to simply hitting “submit” on sharepoint. Others have expressed that they do not have access to many technology tools so collecting lessons would not be helpful to them. I plan to facilitate a meeting at the end of the school year, when things calm down, to discuss this plan for next year. I would like to offer up a few dates over the summer to see if a group would be interested in meeting to create different lessons. At this meeting, we could upload them to Sharepoint right there and then so that they do not need remember later. Accountability is my next feat. How will I get teachers to participate year-round? With this part of my goal, I need to be a squeaky wheel and send friendly reminders out on a bi-monthly basis or maybe organize a lunch to make it also a social event.
For my second goal of making sure that my students are responsible when utilizing technology tools, I will need to my administration as a resource to explore consequences of improper usage. I would also like to sit down with our building tech to review and explore the usage settings that can be activated on a blog or wiki site. This will help prevent students from going places and posting things that can result in negative consequences. I will also need to create a PowerPoint with scenarios that exhibit both responsible and irresponsible behaviors on the internet and with other tools. I have no problems creating PowerPoint presentations so this will be the easiest part of carrying out my goal. I will also need to access our school wiki site to create a classroom blog. I would like to create a screencast to supplement my instruction on how to use a wiki site. From there, students will have to create user-names to be able to track posts in the future.
For my second goal of making sure that my students are responsible when utilizing technology tools, I will need to my administration as a resource to explore consequences of improper usage. I would also like to sit down with our building tech to review and explore the usage settings that can be activated on a blog or wiki site. This will help prevent students from going places and posting things that can result in negative consequences. I will also need to create a PowerPoint with scenarios that exhibit both responsible and irresponsible behaviors on the internet and with other tools. I have no problems creating PowerPoint presentations so this will be the easiest part of carrying out my goal. I will also need to access our school wiki site to create a classroom blog. I would like to create a screencast to supplement my instruction on how to use a wiki site. From there, students will have to create user-names to be able to track posts in the future.
Wednesday, March 9, 2011
Implementing My Personal GAME Plan
“The GAME plan enables you to customize your approach to learning tasks, to develop relevant skills that are important to you, and prepares you for lifelong learning” (Cennamo, Ross, & Ertmer, 2009, pg.3). This sets the tone for my personal goals for strengthening my confidence and proficiency for the following indicators: to participate in global or local learning communities to explore creative applications of technology to improve student learning, and to promote and model digital etiquette and responsible social interactions related to the use of technology and information.
For my first goal, I plan to collaborate with fellow health and physical educators within the county to share ideas and lessons that incorporate technology. When it comes to learning about new applications, I would find it extremely daunting to try to re-invent the wheel. I am certain that there are many teachers that have implemented creative lessons, I just have never asked for them to share. At our county in-service I plan to communicate my desire to collaborate with other high school teachers to put together a series of lessons that can be utilized in our classrooms. Once we begin to explore new applications, we can begin to post our ideas on our sharepoint website. This acts as an online resource directory that all teachers within the county can use to share lessons. Another way to monitor this goal would be for our local learning community to communicate using a blog throughout the year. The evaluation will take place at the end of the years in-service to see how many teachers utilized the lessons that were posted and see if there are ways that we can tweak them if necessary.
My second goal will be a bit more challenging for me. I am becoming more comfortable using technology tools, but I am still not 100 percent confident that I can trust my students to act appropriately when interacting with certain tools. For example, I am fearful that a form of bullying will occur if I set up a classroom blog. So often I hear about students creating false profiles for other students on Facebook. Although Facebook is not an option in our school, I am unsure of the capabilities that my students have when communicating with other students online. I plan to set up a Powerpoint with examples of inappropriate usage as well as consequences. Consequences may be school-related but may also affect a student emotionally. One way to monitor this would have consistency when reading student posts to ensure that they are reporting responsibly and that no forms of bullying are taking place. To evaluate my goal, I will have students create an example of an appropriate post as well as one that includes an incident where bullying, or other inappropriate action, had been present during a blog post or voicethread. They will then turn in a reflection on what actions should be taken when a student interacts inappropriately.
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.
National Education Standards for Teachers (NETS-T). (2008). Located at http://www.iste.org/Libraries/PDFs/NETS_for_Teachers_2008_EN.sflb.ashx
For my first goal, I plan to collaborate with fellow health and physical educators within the county to share ideas and lessons that incorporate technology. When it comes to learning about new applications, I would find it extremely daunting to try to re-invent the wheel. I am certain that there are many teachers that have implemented creative lessons, I just have never asked for them to share. At our county in-service I plan to communicate my desire to collaborate with other high school teachers to put together a series of lessons that can be utilized in our classrooms. Once we begin to explore new applications, we can begin to post our ideas on our sharepoint website. This acts as an online resource directory that all teachers within the county can use to share lessons. Another way to monitor this goal would be for our local learning community to communicate using a blog throughout the year. The evaluation will take place at the end of the years in-service to see how many teachers utilized the lessons that were posted and see if there are ways that we can tweak them if necessary.
My second goal will be a bit more challenging for me. I am becoming more comfortable using technology tools, but I am still not 100 percent confident that I can trust my students to act appropriately when interacting with certain tools. For example, I am fearful that a form of bullying will occur if I set up a classroom blog. So often I hear about students creating false profiles for other students on Facebook. Although Facebook is not an option in our school, I am unsure of the capabilities that my students have when communicating with other students online. I plan to set up a Powerpoint with examples of inappropriate usage as well as consequences. Consequences may be school-related but may also affect a student emotionally. One way to monitor this would have consistency when reading student posts to ensure that they are reporting responsibly and that no forms of bullying are taking place. To evaluate my goal, I will have students create an example of an appropriate post as well as one that includes an incident where bullying, or other inappropriate action, had been present during a blog post or voicethread. They will then turn in a reflection on what actions should be taken when a student interacts inappropriately.
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.
National Education Standards for Teachers (NETS-T). (2008). Located at http://www.iste.org/Libraries/PDFs/NETS_for_Teachers_2008_EN.sflb.ashx
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