Final Reflection

          When I first started this course, I wondered how well an online class was going to teach me to integrate technology across content areas.  Now, at the end of the course, I can truly say that I am well on my way to regularly using technology across my content areas.

          By staring off familiarizing myself with the International Society for Technology in Education standards was a great start.  I knew that I’ve seen these before but didn’t really remember them.  Looking over the standards really helped me identify where my weaknesses were and helped me form a GAME plan.  I first made a goal centering on my class blog.  I have students respond to my blog post once a week.  I made a goal to change the format to a forum where the students can not only reply to me, the teacher, but also their peers as well.  I am happy to say that I did accomplish this goal.  I successfully completed the goal setting, then I took action, and I monitored the outcome, and have evaluated my project (Cennamo, Ross & Ertmer, 2009, pg. 10).  We ended up not liking the forum format as much as the blog.  It was a little more confusing than I hoped it would be.  I was envisioning something like BlackBoard has in terms of a discussion board.  However, it was more confusing and hard to find who responded to who and difficult on my end finding who had responded to the initial post and who was responding to their peers responses.  In the end, I decided not to switch to the forum format and keep the blog – but add in a way to respond to a peer’s initial posting.  Without setting a GAME plan goal – I would have never found out about the forum.

          This new learning has helped me learn that I can try something with my students, have it be a new experience for us all and have it not work – and that’s OK.  It has helped me teach my students that I try new things too and they don’t always go as planned.  The important part is that we tried it and that next time it might be a huge success.  When I was in the evaluate stage of my GAME plan I use self-reflection and asked myself “how it is connected to other events, and what adjustments should be made to subsequent actions based on this learning”, this way I could improve my teaching and in turn, my students learning (Cennamo, Ross & Ertmer, 2009, pg. 11).

          My second GAME plan revolved around how elementary schools don’t really teach anything about copyright.  I have made it a point in my lessons to include copyright information and point it out to students.  We’ve had several discussions about why we would want to include copyright information.  I have also made sure in any research papers or work that they include some type of information stating where they got their research from.  Because in my 5^th grade classroom this is really their first exposure to siting sources I am only requiring basic information.  Starting out by just including the link, then working our way up to including the author, the publisher, when they accessed it and potentially more.  So far this year I have done a lot of modeling with citing and making sure that I give credit to where I get information.  I share copyright information on any quizzes I give and worksheets that get handed out and make sure I point it out to students.

          As far as integrating technology across the content areas goes – I’m all in.  Due to this course I have made a goal to incorporate at least one technological assessment tool per content area before the school year ends.  By trying to infuse one technological assessment in each subject area it forces me to find new ways to assess students with technology.  I may  have students create a brochure on Microsoft Publisher for one, then a PhotoStory for another.  I may have them take an online quiz or use our ActivExpression2’s to take a multiple choice, or open-ended questions.  I may have my students create a virtual tour for Social Studies with our upcoming Revolutionary War unit.  I will be researching more ways to use technology to assess students across the content areas as well.

          Problem-based learning takes longer to plan, and requires you to be much more open and flexible in your planning.  However, I have seen from the few times I’ve implemented problem-based lessons and units the students learn so much more, and take much more ownership over their end project whatever that may be.  I will work to complete my plants problem-based unit and examine the end result and build on that when planning my units for the upcoming school year.

          In conclusion, I feel that I’ve grown through this class and absorbed information like a sponge.  As a new teacher, I am eager to become better, learn more, then spread my knowledge to help other teachers – new or more seasoned.  I look forward to what the next class in store for me and I am thankful for what this class has helped me build upon.

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.

Engstrom, D. E. (2005). Assessing for technological literacy. Technology Teacher, 64(4), 30–32.
Retrieved from the Academic Search Complete database.

Ertmer, P., & Simons, K. (2006). Jumping the PBL implementation hurdle: Supporting the efforts of K–12 teachers. The Interdisciplinary Journal of Problem-Based Learning, 1(1), 40–54. Retrieved fromhttp://docs.lib.purdue.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1005&context=ijpbl.

International Society for Technology in Education. (2008). National education standards for teachers (NETS-T).           

Moursund, D. (2007). Problem-based learning and project-based learning. Retrieved from http://pages.uoregon.edu/moursund/Math/pbl.htm.

Torp, L., & Sage, S. (2002). Problems and possibilities: Problem-based learning for K–16 education. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

Monitoring my GAME Plan

            I am slowly but surely working towards my game plan goals.  I want to be sure that I do not move fast because if I try to do everything all at once I know that I will probably not stick with it.  I want to be sure that these changes will stay around because I know that they are going to be positive changes. 

            First, I’ve started to move towards changing my blog into a forum setting.  In the beginning of this week I met with our building website leader to help me set up the site.  I have set it up and plan on taking my students to the computer lab and answer some test questions after we review the rules of the blog.  Based on how well my students do in computer lab with the forum I may give them a forum assignment for homework, just to get them thinking about how to use the new format.  I want to set up my students for success so if they are not yet ready, I will sign up for additional computer lab time to reinforce the skills that are expected.  I will want to model what features they have available and what I expect to see on the forum versus what they posted on the blog.

            So far I have learned that students need time to learn new technologies and that my students are only ten and eleven years old and sometimes, they just have to use size 72 font with a pink background.  Using the forum is really going to challenge me to allow my students to be ten and eleven years old and that sometimes it is OK.  A question I have related to this is, how much is enough?  Normally, I would not let any of this be OK, but it has become apparent to me recently that sometimes they just can’t help it.

            My second goal is to add a technology based project to one unit at a time.  I’ve decided that for my first one I want to try a science project.  I want to try to introduce a concept mapping software into a project.  Concept mapping will “help reveal student thinking and can illustrate misconceptions” (Cennamo, Ross & Ertmer, 2009, p.149).  This can help me see what the students know and what they do not.  We have been working on the scientific method in addtition to force and motion.  I think I may try to combine these two ideas in a concept map.  This idea will take much more thought but this is what I have so far.  If anyone has done something like this I would love some suggestions or ideas or advice on how it went.  Picture of projects would be a plus but any suggestions would be helpful.

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.

Laureate Education, Inc. (2010). Assessing Student Learning With Technology [Video webcast]. Baltimore, MD.: Author

Carrying out my GAME plan

            After reviewing my GAME plan I realize that I have most of the resources that I will already.  I will need to do some more research on how to better incorporate technology into projects which will be scholarly articles and professional growth books.  Recently I have begun to really dig into my collection of education books from college and also my graduate studies.  I will be able to utilize the knowledge and suggestions in these resources by implementing my GAME plan.           I will want to speak with my colleagues to see if they’ve done any technology projects that went great or really helps the students solidify the information. 

            One of my goals is to change my blog from a blog format where I post a question or prompt and the students post their reply to a forum format.  The forum format will allow students to reply not only to my original post but also to each other’s posts.  It will be more of a coloration piece rather than just a response.  This will not only help students learn to post a meaningful reply but will also help prepare them for middle school.

            For my blog goal I will also need to give students time to practice.  I will need to find out what they know how to do and what they need more support on.  I will also need to make my expectations clear for the forum posts.  Because they are fifth graders they still have a fun time picking out fonts for their papers and adding smiley faces.  This will be an expectation that they do not use the forum as a chat between friends but it is part of their graded work.  I think putting clear expectations in place can really help improve the forum.  Also, by having the text on the screen it allows students to manipulate it how they need in order to understand it (Laureate Education, 2010a).  I may provide links to articles or websites for the students to explore and they can comment on each other’s ideas to improve their own thinking and challenge their peers to think more deeply.

            I believe that my two GAME plan goals will help promote metacognition.  My schools building goal last year and the current year was metacognitions.  We tell our students that metacognition is thinking about our thinking.  I could use both my technology projects and the forum for self-reflection, which in turn helps “students to make sense of the tasks they have completed” and allows them to grow as a learner (Cennamo, Ross & Ertmer, 2009, p.170).  My students do a good deal of self-reflecting already but most of the time if I go over it with them it is just me reading a response journal.  They most often do not share it with each other.  I believe that putting their self-reflections on a forum would be a great way for students to learn how to post on other students comments.

            As for my second GAME plan goal, it is adding an assessment or activity in each new unit.  Not for each subject but I want to try to get one project in for different subjects.  We are starting a new science unit that deals with force and motion so I am thinking about creating a technology, end of unit project.  That is really as far as I’ve gotten so far and am not even sure what I would do for it yet.  I was thinking about a PowerPoint but the students have done that before.  However, starting with something they’ve done before and have background knowledge on to start us off with.

           

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.

Laureate Education, Inc. (2010a). Meeting students’ needs with technology, part 1 [Video webcast]. Baltimore, MD.: Author

Laureate Education, Inc. (2010b). Meeting students’ needs with technology, part 2 [Video webcast]. Baltimore, MD.: Author

            When I first visited the National Education Standards for Teachers I was surprised that there were so few.  Usually in education there are 39 of everything with an a-g on each.  To see a 1-5 was pleasantly surprising.

            In looking over the standards there were some that stood out as ones that I am unsure how I would implement them or create them in my classroom then others where I feel I am doing them already.  To first set my goals for my GAME plan I reflected on which two I felt I needed to work most on and would be able to actively work on.  The first one was under “Facilitate and Inspire Student Learning and Creativity,” point c (International, 2008).  Point c states that the teacher shall “promote student reflection using collaborative tools to reveal and clarify students’ conceptual understanding and thinking, planning, and creative processes” (International, 2008).  I know I have ideas about how to improve this, but am just nervous about if my students would be able to handle it responsibly.  For example, currently we have a ‘blog’.  I had the option of creating a ‘forum’ but choose the blog because I felt my students would get distracted by the fun fonts and colors and emoticons they were provided in the ‘forum’ set up.  However, the blog does lack some features that I really like in the ‘forum’ option.  In the ‘forum’ the students can respond to my original posting, as they can on the blog, but they can also reply to each other’s posts directly on the ‘forum’.  I feel that they may take advantage and use it as a ‘chat’ feature and not what I would intend it for.  I may need to set up some strict regulations and practice in class before I allow them to use it for our weekly writings.  I also feel that I could benefit from this new blog layout because I would be able to directly ask questions or add on to students’ responses, resulting in deeper understanding and more thoughtful thinking and more accountability.

            Another standard I want to set a goal for is under “Design and Develop Digital Age Learning Experiences and Assessments,” point a (International, 2008).  Point a states that teachers “design or adapt relevant learning experiences that incorporate digital tools and resources to promote student learning and creativity” (International, 2008).  I feel that I struggle at this and need to work more on adjusting activities from our curriculum to the 21^st century.  Our curriculum is not ancient but it also does not provide us with any projects or lessons that require technology outside their student journal or textbooks.  I feel that I can monitor myself in this area by trying to integrate a new form of technology in each unit.  Not in every subject, but, for example, if I do not integrate a new technology project into my current social studies unit, I will in math, or science, or writing.

            An area where I feel I am excelling in most areas is area 3, “Model Digital Age Work and Learning” (International, 2008).  I can and do navigate between media’s in the classroom in front of my students and parents as well as my colleagues.  I also have a classroom website that has many resources for students and parents alike.  Students have access to tutorials made by myself that helps them on their homework as well as helpful links and study sites.

            Lastly, a second area where I feel confident in my abilities is number 4, “Promote and Model Digital Citizenship and Responsibility”, specifically, point a, “advocate, model, and teach safe, legal, and ethical use of digital information and technology, including respect for copyright, intellectual property, and the appropriate documentation of sources” (International, 2008).  From a prior Walden class it was brought up and discussed how the elementary level really doesn’t talk about siting sources and how valuable it is.  I have recently started making sure that I have the copyright information reproduced on pieces for my students.  On blog entries I am documenting where I am getting specific information from and also asking students to add where they got their information from – even if it is as simple as copying and pasting the website URL to the end of their post or paper or project.  They have not been exposed to it before so I want to slowly work them into it as to not overwhelm them.

            In conclusion, I will evaluate and extend my learning by continuing to monitor myself and hold myself accountable for this learning not only for myself, but also for each of my students.  I want to not only prepare my fifth graders for middle school but also for the real world.  I will continue to do outside research on these topics and document my progress to be sure I am doing what I say I will.

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).