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.