Thursday, May 13, 2010

When looking at the National Education Standards for Teachers (NETS-T) I feel that I want to make improvements in the first two standards, Facilitate and Inspire Student learning and Creativity, and Design and Develop Digital-Age Learning Experiences and Assessments. I feel that I have a lot of knowledge in my subject matter, but I realize that I need to learn to use technology to advance my students learning. Once I do this, I will have to design and develop digital learning experiences. To be able to do this, I will have to do the research that is necessary to be able to incorporate these contemporary tools and resources to help improve my students learning of content knowledge. To do both of these, I must come up with my GAME plan to accomplish these goals. First I must set goals to accomplish both of these. I feel that I will be important for me to gain more knowledge of using contemporary tools in my classroom. So I feel that I must make a list of tools that I would like to possible use in my classroom, and then I must learn to use each of these tools. To do this I will do research on the Internet, and I will begin to work with the technology department in my school. This will help me learn to use these new tools in the classroom. Also, I am currently working with a football coach who I work with on a technology grant that we are getting at our school, and hopefully, this will help me learn the skills that I need to incorporate technology to make engaging lessons in the classroom. To monitor my progress, I would like to incorporate and use some technology in each one of my chapters that I teach. This is how I will monitor my use of these new technologies. This is where my evaluation will come from. I have learned in the past that I tried to incorporate some technology into my lessons, but I did not do enough research, and made some minor faults that hurt the lesson. I would never have thought of these problems had I not have done the activity. This is where I have made the most of my evaluations and improvements. This is where I hope to evaluate the work that I have done and come up with the adjustments that I need to to make improvements in my lessons. Once I learn these skills, I must then use my content knowledge skills and the new technology skills that I have learned to help student learning and creativity in face to face and virtual environments. To do this, I first must set the goal of incorporating these new activities and digital tools into my lessons, to help my students critical thinking and problems solving skills. To do this I will learn these knew skills and develop lessons to put them in place. To monitor this I will try to make at least one activity per chapter where I have an activity where my students do an inquiry based learning activity where they use problems solving skills in a real life situation. After this is done, I will evaluate the lessons and make the adaptations needed to the lessons to get my students to use the 21st century skills that will help them in the workforce in the future. These types of activities will help student motivation and hopefully it will keep my students actively engaged in lessons that will give them learning that they will remember forever.

4 comments:

  1. I enjoyed reading your post and appreciate how honest you were in telling us that you need to work on integrating technologies in your lessons. I am currently the technology coordinator at my school and integrate technology into everything I can, however I am horrible about investigating new technologies and technology related tools to introduce into the classroom.

    While reading your GAME plan, I wondered if maybe you should limit the number of tools that you start learning how to use and integrating into your lessons? The reason I suggest this is so that you do not become overwhelmed with all that is available. In addition, if you master 2-4 things initially, you will have the confidence to deploy those technologies often in your lessons which will then allow you to slowly add more tools in your teacher technology bag of tricks over time instead of redesigning everything you do at once.

    As a way to find out more about the resources and tools available to use, don't forget about asking the other educators in your building. I am constantly amazed at the vast knowledge resource I have in my cohorts at school. Yet, in my building, no one thinks about asking each other for ideas. Instead, they try to do it alone or go for help outside of the building.

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  2. Richard and Michael,

    I agree that limiting the goals each year is helpful. We tend to get overwhelmed as teacher as it is. Just incorporating two new technologies well is a hugh step. At least it was for me. I was also able to fine tune the way that I presented them and learned what to do and what not to do in the future.

    I also agree that we do not spend enough time collaborating with our peers. We tend to work alone in our classroom and celebrate any success by our self. I think that this comes from too many things to do in too short a time period. It would be nice if schools allowed for more collaboration time, so that teachers could share ideas. I enjoyed both of your ideas. Thanks,

    Kim

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  3. Richard and Kim,
    Thanks for the input. You are right, I may have to choose a couple technologies that I want to use and become knowledgeable with them so I do not become overwhelmed trying to learn them and trying to implement them into my lessons. I will also try to work with some colleagues to see what they are doing with technology in their classes. I could see what works for them and they could give me some ideas of how I could use them in my class. This would be a great way for me to use these technologies in my class, and it would be good for me to have someone that I could ask questions to while designing my lesson. Once again, thanks for the input.
    MS

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  4. Michael,
    I really like your comment about research being the foundation for your plan. It is humbling to come to the realization that we don't know everything. By modeling being a life long learner, you will help infuse these beliefs in your students.

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