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