Reflection

     It's slightly unbelievable that we are at the end of this course.  Truthfully, this has been one of the most motivating and exciting courses so far!  I have really and truly enjoyed myself.  At the end of this course, I have realized that I learn or I am motivated to learn when technology is involved -just like my students.  Finding a way to motivate students is essential within the classroom and nothing is more relevant than real-world situations involving technology.  

     By creating the three GAME plan lessons, I see how easy it is to weave technology into the curriculum; although, easy doesn't necessarily mean quick.  It takes time to think over how and what to do, but the end product is much more substantial.  According to Dr. Ertmer (Laureate Education, Inc, 2010), "a good problem-based learning problem is meaningful, authentic, and allows investigations."  Students need to see the purpose of learning to become "self-directed learners" (Cennamo, Ross, & Ertmer, 2009).  As my three lessons were due, each one evolved into the other.  All utilized technology and were completely based on a real issue concerning our school district and the purchase of technology.  Everything just seemed to mesh together.  I'm not saying every lesson dealing with technology will be great the first time, but I"m willing to try more implementation in the future.

    My initial GAME plan was to create a blog with my students to improve their writing skills which developed into a collaborative activity in Google Docs and then progressed into digital storytelling.  The students will not always need to create all three activities, but that's how it progressed in my head this time.  In the future, I could pull one of the activities for a particular lesson or let the students chose.  It depends on what works best for the situation and the students.  

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. (Executive Producer). (2010). Spotlight on technology: Problem-based learning, part 1[Webcast]. Integrating technology across the content areas. Baltimore, MD: Author.

Monitoring Your GAME Plan Progress

     As of now, my school is working to secure individual technology for each student for next year.  This is very exciting, but it's not finalized so I'm unsure of which device will be purchased.  My goal of blogging is becoming a reality!  
     As I proceed with this blog (my first ever), I can perceive the challenges my students will face.  I can also foresee the benefits.  Physically setting up the blog and aggregator for RSS feed will take significant time, but it'll be worth it.  The time used to set up the blog successfully will benefit us in the long run.  Now that my own blog is working, I'm creating this post from my cell phone.  I can work from anywhere, and so can my students. Although, I doubt they'll see it as work.

     Lately, a concern has creeping in my mind. My goal for blogging has been to create better writers in my students - more fluent, creative, and reflective writers. Will my self-contained students adequately utilize their newly learned skills on pencil and paper standardized tests. These students require significant scaffolding (Cennamo, Ross, & Ertmer, 2009) and feedback from teachers, and struggle independently. On our standardized state test, the use of word processing accommodations reflects poorly on our school. How can I do what's best for the child when it harms the school? Where's the balance? Dr. Ross (Laureate Education, Inc, 2010) said the assessment must match the instruction. Well, teaching them with pencil and paper hasn't made them better writers, and I'm ready to rock the boat to see if the technology can provide the necessary motivation.

 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. (Executive Producer). (2010). Assessing Student Learning with Technology [Webcast]. Integrating technology across the content areas. Baltimore, MD: Author.

Carrying Out My Game Plan

When considering how to set up the class blog for our reflective journal and comments, there are a few "things" I'll need.  In order to keep the motivation "alive" for all my students, I would truly love to have enough computers, laptops, and/or tablets so every student can work at the same time.  No more "wait your turn."  That turns a child's impatience into a buzz-kill and who could blame them?!  By working with the media specialist and curriculum coordinator, I hope to finagle some extra gadgets or leniency with personal technology so every child can have the exact same opportunities.

Blogging is a new skill for me, so I seek out my school's media specialist often.  She explains the concepts in simple terms for my understanding.  While presenting this "new tool" to my students, I will probably need her help to get us underway.  After we're set up and working with fewer glitches, I would really like to invite other teachers to share in our blogs.  My self-contained students see me ALL DAY long so having other teachers comment on their work could provide more plausible suggestions.  In a previous course, I read a research article based on a collaborative blog for special education students and college students (Drexler, Dawson, & Ferdig, 2007).  For my purposes, I would love to have our exploratory teachers comment and reply to my students blogs - a fresh, new voice in addition to my own.  For this to work, I need to discuss the idea with those teachers.  In addition, the media specialist's know-how would be needed again to set up blogs for those teachers.  She really earns her money working with me!!

In order for my ideas to work, it's not going to happen by accident.  This is going to take A LOT of planning on my part.

Reference

Drexler, W., Dawson, K., & Ferdig, R.E. (2007). Collaborative blogging as a means to develop elementary expository writing skills. Electronic Journal for the Integration of Technology in Education, 6, 140-160.

My Personal GAME Plan

In the past, I have been eager to implement more technological experiences within my classroom, but I was unsure what to use or where to find it.  According to Dr. W.R. Daggett (2010),"we cannot prepare students for their future by simply helping them answer multiple choice questions on a state test. Life is complex, and being able to answer questions with a 

single correct answer does little to prepare students for today's world. Our goal should be to 

effectively promote highly rigorous and relevant learning in which students have opportunities to tackle challenging problems, the kind they are likely to encounter in life."  What they encounter in life is driven by technology, and the curriculum needs to address that fact.  

 From this week's readings, the time for excuses is over.  I need to prepare my students for world, and it needs to start now. After previewing the NETS-T (2008), I've selected three which I believe will be the most beneficial within my classroom.

• 1-c Promote student reflection using collaborative tools to reveal and clarify students' conceptual understanding and thinking, planning, and creative processes
• 2-c Customize and personalize learning activities to address students' diverse learning styles, working strategies, and abilities using digital tools and resources
• 4-c Promote and model digital etiquette and responsible social interactions related to the use of technology and information

GAME Plan

G-Goal Within a self-contained classroom, I will instruct my students with disabilities how to appropriately interact with and utilize the Internet as a reflective journaling tool.  I'm aiming for them to improve their writing and communication skills with a classroom blog.  In the beginning, the students could write a sentence or two which should eventually evolve into a well-structured paragraph and then a well-developed essay.

A-Action In order to accomplish this goal, I will create a classroom blog to post discussion questions.  The students could post at the end of the class period or as a homework assignment.  In addition to their own posts, they will respond to each others comments.  In order for this to work effectively, I will need to model appropriate reactions and responses - polite, yet constructive hints. 

M-Monitor These are questions I will monitor while the students are participating in the class blogs:  When participating in the blogs, are the students' writings, suggestions, and collaborations improving?  Are any students struggling with the content and/or technology?  How do accommodate students that are technology poor?

E-Evaluate and Extend Are the students applying what they've learned from the blogs across the curriculum?  Have their thought processes, organizations, writings improved?

References:

Dagget, W.R. (May 2010). Preparing students for their technological future.  International Center for Leadership in Education.  Retrieved from http://www.leadered.com/pdf/Preparing%20Students%20for%20Tech%20Future%20white%20paper.pdf

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

Hello to all!