Week 8: Reflection

Week 8: Reflection
I feel that I have taken many of the necessary steps to improve on my GAME plan.
First, I have set reachable GOALS that can easily be achieved by speaking with the technology director in our county, our school’s ITS guy, and professional learning coordinator. I also have been able to self-teach by navigating new programs and technology on my own.
The ACTION that I have taken to achieve my reachable goals involve contacting the county’s technology director to ask her questions on how to improve my blog, create my wikispace page to be used in my classroom, and many other questions to help guide me when attempting to use new technology. I have also put in numerous requests for our school’s ITS guy to upload new programs onto my school computer and also scout out an appropriate place for my new Promethean Board. He also has “cleaned up” my computer to ensure faster access when using both the desktop programs and the Internet.
In order to MONITOR my need to gain knowledge of new technology I like to play around with it so that I can become more familiar with how it works and how my students can benefit from such a program.
Last, but not least, I will EVALUATE and EXTEND my plan by the knowledge that I have gained and how easily I can navigate through new technology and programs. If I do not feel comfortable enough to navigate through the technology on my own I will need to strengthen my plan so that I can eventually reach that comfort level.
I have had a chance to learn of a new program called Classroom Performance System (CPS) . It is a system that allows teachers to import tests, created in our textbook’s testing program, for the purpose of review. It comes with individual student clickers so that each student can participate in a classroom game while the system also saves individual student results. It took me about a week to understand the entire program but it was worth it when the students responded in the positive way that they did and had the experience of learning with technology.
One immediate adjustment that I have made concerning improving my technological path to success is to add a Tech Resources page to my classroom wikispace. I added programs such as VoiceThread, Microsoft PhotoStory, and the classroom blog page. I hope to add to this list as I discover new programs so that there are multiple ways to reach the diverse learning styles in the classroom.

Week 7 Blogpost: Refelcting on my GAME plan

The two NETS-T standards that I initially chose to improve on were model digital-age work and design and develop digital-age learning assessments. More specifically, I wanted to improve on the following indicators: “customize and personalize learning activities to address students’ diverse learning styles, working strategies, and abilities usingdigital tools and resources” and “model and facilitate effective use of current and emerging digital tools to locate, analyze, evaluate, and use information resources to support research and learning” (www.iste.org, 2008).
In order to instill technology skills in my students, based on these standards, I must accomplish a variety of tasks. I have already achieved my goal of speaking with our county's technology director as well as seeking out professional development having to do with integrating technology in the classroom. I actually plan to attend a Smart Board class in January in order to learn how to use my new Promethan Board.
In order to customize and personalize learning I plan to use a variety of technology in my classroom to achieve maximum learning for all learning styles. I already have plans to use my wikispace page, blogging, and VoiceThread for next semester's science classes. These types of technology are of course aside from the basic computer programs such as Microsoft Word and Power Point.
I plan to model technology by updating my wikispace page daily with assignments, announcements, and a daily account of the lesson plans. I also plan to participate in online discussions.
I believe that I have greatly benefited from this course by improving on my knowledge of the different types of technology and how I can integrate them into my classroom.