EDUC 6713 – Week 7 REFLECTION

During the course of this class I have developed and monitored a GAME plan regarding the use of technology in my future teaching career. The two indicators I chose during week 1 to strengthen my confidence and proficiency went hand in hand. The first was modeling digital-age work and learning, and the second was engaging in professional growth and leadership. Throughout this seven week process I have been working towards achieving these goals. I found multiple sites that introduce new technologies that I subscribed to the feed of. Additionally, I contacted people in my district office who are in charge of learning about new technologies and integrating them into classrooms. They will be of great importance in achieving my goal of staying current! Developing this GAME plan will impact my instructional practice because I will always be on top of new technology trends. This is vital because students especially need to stay current. At this time I do not feel the need to revise my plan based on my progress because my main goal is to strengthen my confidence in digital-age work and learning and my plan will help me do just that. I did also talk to my principal about sharing new technologies with the staff to help with their professional development; he offered me time during faculty meetings. I may use the GAME plan approach with my students in Kindergarten when I introduce a new topic. I believe the plan and creating an essential question go together nicely and I plan on using both.

With the learning from this course I have learned that there are many benefits to integrating more technology into my Kindergarten classroom next year. Problem-based learning lessons are meaningful, but a bit overwhelming for a kindergarten student to do independently; therefore, we will do these lessons as a whole class. I plan on using social networking/online collaboration for big science projects, like the PBL I created on space. Having experts in a field answer their questions will be very engaging and memorable! Finally, I will incorporate digital storytelling into my instruction for many projects over the next year, especially during the first few months. This will serve as a get to know you activity among other things. I have enjoyed learning about each type of technology because they have made my instruction more interesting and fun for the students in my class!

EDUC – Week 4 Post

More on my GAME plan

Last week I discovered that my district has a few resources for me to use as I try to accomplish my two Goals. The two goals I want to accomplish are modeling and facilitating effective use of digital tools. The second is that I will share what I learn with my school and community. Cennamo, Ross and Ertmer (2009) state that there are a variety of digital technology tools available “that can be used to support authentic learning experiences” (p. 212). Therefore, it is even more important that I am constantly working towards my goal of staying current with technology. New things are introduced daily and I need to make sure I am learning about them. This week I went online and discovered a few blogs that are dedicated to introducing new technologies. One of the sites I found was: http://www.emergingedtech.com/. I haven’t had time to explore it completely, but it is encouraging to find a site that can help me reach my goal. Do you know of any more good sites to help with learning about new technologies?

At this point, I do not believe I need to make any major adjustments to my GAME plan. My only concern is that I will not follow through with my plan once graduate school is completed. Therefore, I have made a small addition to my GAME plan that states that once a month I will implement one of the new technologies I have found with my class. Do you think this will help me stay motivated?

-Chelsea

References:

Cennamo, K., Ross, J., Ertmer, P. (2009). Technology integration for meaningful classroom use: A standards-based approach.

EDUC - Week 3 Post

My GAME Plan Continued

Last week in my blog I wrote about National Educational Technology Standards for Students (NETS T) that I wanted to strengthen in my own practice. I then created a GAME plan for myself where I picked two of the indicators from the NETS T and set goals for my improvement. The two indicators I would like to strengthen my confidence and proficiency in are modeling digital-age work and learning, and engaging in professional growth and leadership. 

The two Goals I want to accomplish are “I will model and facilitate effective use of current and emerging digital tools to locate, analyze, evaluate and use information resources to support research and learning.” The second goal was “I will contribute to the effectiveness, vitality, and self-renewal of the teaching profession and of my school and community.” The resources I will need to carry out my plan are a forum where new technologies are introduced to teachers. Now that our Graduate School program is almost over, I am worried that I will not know how to find new technologies. Another resource I could use would be to read books that introduce new technologies. I could even contact my district technology coordinator and ask him to keep me updated. The additional information I need is what would be the best way to contribute the new technologies I learn about to the faculty at my school. I was wondering if during our faculty meetings our principal may give me five minutes to introduce a new technology. Then, if teachers are interested I can give them a more thorough explanation. I will make sure to impress upon them that technology can be very beneficial for differentiation and the bulk of instruction (Laureate Education, Inc., 2010).

The steps I have taken so far to achieve my goal is to email the district technology people about new technologies. I asked them if they have a way of being introduced to technologies that they are willing to share (i.e. a blog or website). I also asked what ways they are getting the information out to teachers in the district.  I found out that our district has a website already dedicated to new technolgoies http://my.uen.org/myuen/215616.  

References:

Laureate Education, Inc. (Producer). (2010). Meeting students’ needs with technology: Part 1. [Video webcast]. Retrieved from http://www.courseurl.com.

EDUC 6713 – Week 2 Post

Developing my personal GAME plan

This week in graduate school I learned about the National Educational Technology Standards for Students (NETS T). Along with the creation of these standards came guidelines for teachers so that our expectations are clear. Dr. Katherine Cennamo (2010) suggested a strategy for promoting self-directed learning; she said to establish a GAME plan where students will be setting their own goals, choosing actions (ways to meet the goal), monitoring own progress, and then evaluating if they have achieved their goal (Laureate Education, Inc., 2010).  I used this same strategy to create a GAME plan for myself where I picked two of the indicators from the NETS T and set goals for my improvement.

The two indicators I would like to strengthen my confidence and proficiency in go hand in hand. The first is modeling digital-age work and learning, and the second is engaging in professional growth and leadership.  I established two Goals to accomplish both standards and performance indicators. I will model and facilitate effective use of current and emerging digital tools to locate, analyze, evaluate and use information resources to support research and learning. Additionally, I will contribute to the effectiveness, vitality, and self-renewal of the teaching profession and of my school and community. I will Achieve this by keeping current on new and emerging technologies, discovering the application of it in the classroom and then sharing what I have learned with the faculty at my school. I am on the technology committee and have taken the role of teacher. My goal is to educate my colleagues and help them stay current. I plan on Monitoring my progress by holding myself responsible to implement a new technology once a term. I will evaluate my learning by assessing the effectiveness of the new technology on my students’ learning. Finally, I will Extend my learning by meeting my first goal of staying current on new trends.

Having a GAME plan allows me to stay current in my field and be a good example for the few teachers in my building who struggle with 21^st century learning. I hope that my GAME plan allows new teachers to experience the ease and engagement that accompany the integrating of technology.

References:

Cennamo, K., Ross, J., Ertmer, P. (2009). Technology integration for meaningful classroom use: A standards-based approach.

International Society for Technology in Education. (2008). National education standards for teachers (NETS-T). Retrieved from http://www.iste.org/Libraries/PDFs/NETS_for_Teachers_2008_EN.sflb.ashx

Reflection EDUC 6711

This week I reflect on the journey I have taken over the past seven weeks. I can honestly say that this class has been my favorite so far in the program because I have learned about new technology and then been able to use it in my classroom immediately. The whole purpose of choosing this Master’s program was the hope that it would have practical and real-world applications; now I can say that it has! With regard to my personal theory of learning that I developed in Week 1 I still believe that Piaget and Garder influence my current instructional practice. Dr. Wolfe (Laureate Education Inc., 2011) stated that every child’s brain is different; therefore, every child learns in a different way. This class has helped me realize that technology can be used as both an instructional and learning tool; this allows for more differentiation. Jean Piaget believed that “a child acquires knowledge by interacting with the world and constantly changing and reorganizing their own knowledge. [He] stressed that learning occurs when children engage with peers and adults in a social setting (Morrow & Dougherty, 2011).” In addition, Howard Gardner believes that every child has a unique intelligence or way of learning (Orey, 2001).  I use peer tutoring, cooperative learning and always activate my students’ schema before beginning a lesson. With the help of this course I know can see the benefit of incorporating technology into my theory of learning. I have gained a deeper understanding of how students learn in the 21^st century classroom; and even found new ways to teach them using educational technologies!

            I have already made adjustments to my instructional practice regarding technology integration as a result of the learning in this course because I now realize how powerful of a learning tool the Smart Board can be. I used to use the board primarily as an instructional tool; teaching my students the same things as before but with a visual aide. Now I find interactive ways to teach the same curriculum that get my students up off the floor and touching the screen.

The two technology tools I would like to use with my students more often are virtual field trips and VoiceThreads. The virtual field trip will support and enhance my students’ learning by allowing them to experience the content through images. As Dr. Orey stated often the more that I can incorporate images with a lesson the more likely a student is to recall that information later. Additionally, I will use VoiceThread more often because of the connection I can make between home and school. Last week I created a thread and shared it with the families of my students and received an abundance of positive feedback about being included in the learning process.

The two long-term goals I would like to make to my instructional practice regarding technology integration are to incorporate more technology into my everyday lessons and stay abreast of new technology as it is introduced into our culture. I plan on doing this by reading scholarly articles that explore new learning tools and practicing them in my classroom. Another overall goal I have is to find a successful way to teach my colleagues about what I have learned in this course/masters program. I plan on offering a seminar after school to share my ideas and hopefully allow them to teach me what technology tools they are already using. I think this will result in a new networking of ideas among the teachers and staff in my building.

Week 7 Graduate School

Hi everyone,
For this week's lesson plan my class created a VoiceThread. It is so fun! Go check it out and leave a comment for one  of the students if you get a chance!
http://voicethread.com/share/2521093/
Thanks,
Chelsea

Social Learning Theory and Cooperative Groups

VoiceThread link: http://voicethread.com/share/2499268/

This week in graduate school we explored the social learning theory. Dr. Orey (Laureate Education Inc., 2011) states that this theory is practiced by having students actively engaged in constructing artifacts and conversing with one another. Basically it is a way to get kids engaged collaboratively using some type of social networking. In the book Using Technology with Classroom Instruction that Works the authors state that the instructional strategy of cooperative learning “focuses on having students interact with each other in groups in ways that enhance their learning ( Pitler, Hubbell, Kuhn, & Malenoski, 2007, p.139).” In my mind these two definitions sound identical; that is why I believe cooperative learning was developed to be used with the social learning theory.

Dr. Orey (2001) suggests that by creating small groups, modeling appropriate behavior, setting high expectations and using criteria to assess student work Cooperative groups can have amazing results in the classroom. I like the way that in cooperative groups, students are able, through conversations, to gain knowledge from every member of the group. The entire point of a group is to use everyone’s prior knowledge to build onto one another’s learning. Then use that combination of knowledge to create an artifact. In this week’s chapter on Cooperative Learning I found that they offered many diverse tools to use in classrooms. I was surprised that I was unfamiliar with most of the programs mentioned. My goal now is to take some time and explore each option to see if I can use them in my kindergarten classroom. Do you know of one that would fit with my five and six year old learners?

Laureate Education, Inc. (Producer). (2011). Program eight: Social learning theories [Video webcast]. Bridging learning theory, instruction and technology. Retrieved from http://laureate.ecollege.com/ec/crs/default.learn?CourseID=5700267&CPURL=laureate.ecollege.com&Survey=1&47=2594577&ClientNodeID=984650&coursenav=0&bhcp=1

Orey, M. (Ed.). (2001). Emerging perspectives on learning, teaching, and technology. Retrieved from http://projects.coe.uga.edu/epltt/index.php?title=Main_Page

Pitler H., Hubbell, E., Kuhn, M., & Malenoski, K. (2007). Using technology with classroom instruction that works. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.