Week 7 Game Plan Reflection

Burton, Maureen

December 17, 2011

The use of a Game plan can be very effective in helping anyone develop new skills.  By completing a Game plan, a person develops a plan of attack for their learning (Cennamo, Ertmer & Ross, 2009, p. 3).  I found the process to be effective as I developed two Game plans for extending my use of the Interactive white board and real world experiences for my students.  I think the key to its success is that you monitor and evaluate your progress along the way which keeps you motivated and on track for true growth.  I think using the Game plan with students will prove effective because each student can customize their approach to the learning task and the specific skills they want to develop (Cennamo, Ertmer & Ross, 2009, p. 4). 

Game Plan One Evaluation

We are progressing on our Earth Day project.  I have had to do smaller projects to help my students get familiar with the new technologies.  The digital storytelling in my social studies classes this last week has really helped my students with the technology aspect of the project.  These remedial readers have benefited from working with a more heterogeneous group of students.  This has helped build their confidence in the use of Windows movie maker.  It has also helped with storyboarding.  My students have been evaluating the old movie and using that to guide their research into current statistics relating to recycling and landfills. My students have begun storyboarding certain sections of the movie, but they still do not have a clear plan for the final product.  Some of it will have to wait until spring because we will need to go out and do some filming around the community. We live on a beautiful 50 mile long lake and some scenes have to do with what boaters and lake visitors can do to protect our environment. All and all, I feel like I am well on my way to providing my students with a real world experience that has been engaging.  I have found that this project has been motivating for my remedial readers.  They seem to enjoy working on the project and are taking pride in what they are doing.  Since they know their film will be shown publicly.  I find it very difficult to engage remedial readers in school-work.  I have learned that this type of projects does motivate them so I will be looking for additional projects of this nature to use in the future.

Game Plan Two Evaluation

I am well on my way to integrating the Mimio board into my instruction.  I really think that I was hung up on the word interactive and thinking that I should have my students “interact” with the board during instruction.  I think that this misconception came from seeing short videos of how they are being used in primary classrooms.  I now realize that there are times when this will work, but for me it is much more of an instructional tool.  My Mimio notebook is really a place to save all of my instructional materials that will make for stimulating, engaging, lessons.  The rich visuals will help my English language learners as well as the many students living in poverty whose vocabulary is limited.  Since this is really the first year I have done this, I now need to add all my resource into the Mimio board as I develop the unit.  The number of visuals that can be uploaded and saved into the Mimio notebook is amazing.  I have video clips, still shots, sound, graphic organizers, links to Web sites and eventually, I would like to add exemplars although, I need to put those in after the unit for use next year. 

Reflection of Problem based Learning, Social Networking and Digital Storytelling

During this course I have implemented several new technologies through problem based learning.  The key reason for implementing Project based Learning (PBL) is to connect engaging activities to relevant content (Ertmer & Simons, 2006, p. 48).  I found this to be true.  It was very engaging for students, therefore I will look for opportunities to incorporate it into my social studies instruction.  I would like to try to develop three PBL’s to use throughout the year because it allows teachers to cover more standards than other curriculum (Laureate Education, Inc, 2011a)

Digital storytelling is a natural with social studies.  My students enjoyed the assignment and their products, while not completely finalized, show a great deal of content knowledge.  It will definitely become a part of the instructional strategies that I use with my students.  Virtual field trips or tours of the geography of a region will help bring really my instruction alive.  It will allow me to integrate reading and writing into my social studies content (Laureate Education, Inc, 2011b). 

The use of Wiki’s and Blogging has been fun to use with my students.  I liked it because everyone was able to communicate even though they were not in the same room or classes and everyone got to add their thoughts (Laureate Education, Inc, 2011c).  As part of my unit plan, I had students working on collaborative research using a Wiki pages to pool their findings and then using the Wiki to produce a digital storyboard.  I learned that using Wiki pages can be very beneficial for some parts of a project, but not others.  I was amazed at the quantity and quality of research my students gathered.  I liked the fact that my students from four different class periods were able to collaborate on the same research.  I had students tell me that they enjoyed it so much they were on the Wiki page at two in the morning.  My students also used a Wiki page to create a storyboard for their digital story.   My experience with this lesson was it was a bit frustrating for students who were working on the storyboard because they were not able to collaborate face to face. When in this creative phase of the project there were a lot of small details that needed to be discussed and negotiated by team members.  The students were frustrated in that they were not able to do this in real time.  They each did what they could during their class period, but I did not feel like they were as effective as they would have been if they were working on it either face to face or at the same time in different rooms.  Like any other instructional strategy, we need to make the professional decision about when and how to use it. 

All in all, I found social networking to be a natural for working with adolescents.  I can see many opportunities to incorporate it into my curriculum.   I will make it part of my pedagogy.  The most exciting one for me during this unit was the Skyping experience with the Egyptologist and her son.  It was one of the most exciting new things I have done in years.  It really opens up the possibilities for connecting with people from all over the world.  An educators’ job is to provide opportunities for students to connect with experts from around the world (Laureate Education, Inc, 2011c)

References

Cennamo, k., Ross, J., & Ertmer, P. (2009). Technology integration for meaningful classroom use: A standards-based approach. Mason, OH: Cengage Learning.

Ertmer, P., & Simons, K. (2006). Jumping the PBL implementation hurdle: Supporting the efforts of k-12 teachers. The Interdisciplinary Journal of Problem-Based Learning, 40-54.

Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2011a). Technology integration. Spotlight on Technology: Problem based learning - part one.  Baltimore, MD: Author. Retrieved from: http://sylvan.live.ecollege.com/ec/crs/default.learn?CourseID=6072063&Survey=1&47=7892802&ClientNodeID=984650&coursenav=1&bhcp=1

Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2011b). Technology integration. Spotlight on Technology: Digital storytelling - part two.  Baltimore, MD: Author. Retrieved from: http://sylvan.live.ecollege.com/ec/crs/default.learn?CourseID=6072063&Survey=1&47=7892802&ClientNodeID=984650&coursenav=1&bhcp=1

Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2011c). Technology integration. Spotlight on Technology: Social networking and online collaboration - part one.  Baltimore, MD: Author. Retrieved from: http://sylvan.live.ecollege.com/ec/crs/default.learn?CourseID=6072063&Survey=1&47=7892802&ClientNodeID=984650&coursenav=1&bhcp=1

Week 4 Game Plan Progress

Burton, Maureen

November 22, 2011

This last week I have continued to make progress on my goals.  For GAME Plan one, I divided students into research teams to locate current information on recycling, reducing, reusing, composting, storm drain pollution and the danger of plastic bags.  Each group has been doing Internet research on their topic and right now I am having the create PowerPoint presentations for their topic.  I am having them do the PowerPoint presentation as a means of collecting their data.  These students are struggling readers and writers and I know that they enjoy creating PowerPoint presentations so I decided that rather than telling them to simply take notes.  We can use their presentations to write the script of our multimedia presentation.  What I did notice this week in doing the research is that my students were struggling to find good Websites.  I ended up creating a list of links for sites that would provide them with the information they need.  Providing scaffolding like this will help students find success rather than frustration.  I also got in touch with the man who made the original Earth Day movie for our town and he is on board for helping us create an updated version.  He invited my students to come to the recycling center and transfer station and is getting us one of the original copies of the movie.  I will plan that field trip when we are closer to pulling it all together.  All in all, I think we are making progress.

For GAME Plan 2, I have not done that great on moving forward with the Mimio Board.  I am struggling with how to incorporate its use with social studies content.  Most of what I have done is with my remedial reading class.  I use video clips, images, sound tracks, etc., in class all the time, but I do not need it for those.  I did a lesson this week using the textbook page to have students highlight the topic sentence and underline supporting details. It went fine, but when used with the whole class, only a few students got to come up and use the Mimio pen.  I was hoping and expecting it to be more engaging.   In struggling for ideas, I went back to re-read the page on using interactive whiteboards in our textbook.  I think I need to focus on having my students interact more with my instructional material.  Teachers can use their whiteboards to interact with documents, images, video, and animation (Cennamo, Ross & Ertmer, 2009, p. 93).  They make it sound so easy to come up with ideas. I did find and join the Mimio Connect Community so I am looking forward to exploring their ideas this next week and collaborating with others using the same technology.  I am still open to any ideas anyone in this community has too. 

Have a great Thanksgiving everyone!

Reference

Cennamo, k., Ross, J., & Ertmer, P. (2009). Technology integration for meaningful classroom use: A standards-based approach. Mason, OH: Cengage Learning.

Week 3 Game Plan Monitoring

Week 3- 11/15/11

Burton, Maureen

Over the last week I have been working on the implementation of my GAME Plan.  My first GAME Plan was to integrate my Mimio Board into my instruction.  It is important to continue how well a new technology is meeting your goals and evaluate its effectiveness (Cennamo, Ross & Ertmer, 2009, p. 75).  I set the goal of using it at least once a week so here is my progress so far.  Last week I had my students work on Digital Story making using storyjumper.com.  I then had my students put them up on the Mimio Board and use the tools to help each other edit and revise their work.  It was one the most engaging editing/revising activities I have ever done with students.  I had 15 sixth graders who were almost attacking me to get their hands on the Mimio pen to make corrections.  It is important for teachers to understand their students’ learning style preferences in order to provide successful learning experiences (Cennamo, Ross & Ertmer, 2009, p. 166).  I will guarantee that if it had been on a worksheet, the level of engagement would have been minimal. 

Today the administration told me that my remedial reading class would be part of the “Focus on Education” tour.  With the news that the superintendent and community members would be coming in to observe in my classroom in two hours, I did what any good teacher would do.  First, I panicked, and then there was the frantic cleaning of my room, and then trying to come up with the best lesson possible.  I decided to showcase my use of the Mimio Board with a group of five students who were editing a Digital Storybook.  I had five others working on research on my classroom computers for the Earth Day multi-media project and the other five were playing a matching game with Greek and Latin roots.  I am happy to report that everyone was impressed with everything my students were doing.  As for me, I am so happy with my progress on diving into the use of my Mimio Board and being comfortable enough to have the superintendent and community members watch how I was integrating it into instruction.  I believe that I am on track for Game Plan 2.

As for Game Plan 1, we are beginning the research for a real world project for Earth Day, but I do not think that there is a high level of engagement yet.  We have not gotten too far into the use of digital tools.  I guess I can take credit for using digital resources by searching on the Internet, but it is all about taking small steps forward.  On a project like this, the research needs to be done before creating with new digital tools can happen.  I told the superintendent and community members that we would be completing the project for our town’s Earth Day celebration, so in that respect, I am now locked into creating a quality project.  Mrs. H gave me some great advice on how my students might use a Wiki to gather their information.  I think this would be a good idea and one of the many digital tools we use to create our project.

Reference

Cennamo, k., Ross, J., & Ertmer, P. (2009). Technology integration for meaningful classroom use: A standards-based approach. Mason, OH: Cengage Learning.

GAME Plan

By Maureen Burton

As I reflect on the National Educational Technology Standards and Performance Indicators for Teachers, the two areas that I feel I should establish a GAME Plan for are numbers one and two. By developing a GAME Plan, I must think about and take steps to direct my learning about technology and how to integrate it into the curriculum (Cennamo, Ross & Ertmer, 2009, p. 3). 

GAME Plan One addresses NETS standard 1: Facilitate and Inspire Student Learning and Creativity.

In developing a GAME plane for standard one, I want to focus on engaging students in real world engagement using digital tools and resources.  By creating realistic context for students’ learning, the teacher provides a holistic, complex problem in which to ground their learning (Cennamo, Ross & Ertmer, 2009, p. 47).  My goal is to have my student create a multi-media presentation for the Earth Day Celebration in our town using as many new technologies as possible.  For this project I want to move beyond a simple PowerPoint presentation.  Our sixth graders do an Earth Day town clean-up each year.  The picture on my profile is of my student showing off their days’ collection from last year.  Over twenty years ago our town recycling center put together a video on the importance of the 3 R’s.  The information presented is outdated.  I want my students to evaluate the information in the old movie, research and develop a 21^st century multi-media project.  My action for this goal will be to begin working on the project with my students.  I need to go for it and push myself outside of my comfort zone.  As a part of the action, I have selected a few technologies that I want my students to incorporate into the presentation to expand their 21^st century skills.  One of the technologies I would like to incorporate into the project is to have my students Blog with others about ideas for how students can make a difference in saving the environment.  I am trying to figure out whom to collaborate with on this.  In our video this week, it suggests that the best collaboration is grassroots (Laureate Education, 2011).   I will monitor my progress on providing my students with a real-world experience and new technologies as we progress on the development of the presentation.  I will need to collaborate with other teachers for learning some of the new technologies and they are available in the district and community.  I will evaluate by our ability to produce an awesome Earth Day multi-media production.  Students take more pride in work that will be viewed by many eyes (Jansen, 2005, p. 27-28).  I think that I have given myself enough time to effectively implement new digital resources one at a time as my students work on producing a multimedia presentation for the community. 

GAME Plan Two addresses NETS Standard 2: Design and Develop Digital-Age Learning Experiences and Assessment.

The first step is to select a current technology and set specific goals for learning about the topic (Cennamo, Ross & Ertmer, 2009, p. 7).  I am learning to integrate my new Mimio Board into my curriculum.  Since it is new to me and I have had no training, I must be a self-directed learner.  I have been learning to use the tools and have tried to sketch together two lesson ideas, but have not completed the lessons or used them with my students.  Everything was so difficult to do.  After expressing my frustration with having to scan anything I wanted to add to the interactive mode of the Mimio Board at home, the technology director figured out that my system was set up wrong.  Now that I will be able to add more content, my goal is to develop interactive reading and writing lessons using the Mimio Board.  The action that I will take is to develop at least one lesson each week.  I am open to any ideas on where I might get more training on it or ideas.  I have read the instructional manual.  It sure would be nice to find lessons already created for the Mimio board.  Does anyone know of a collection of these? I will monitor my progress by my ability to do a lesson each week.  I will then reflect on the lesson in order to evaluate its effectiveness on content knowledge, literacy skills as well as how it allows for student creativity.  It is important for teachers to evaluate how well a new technology is their educational goals (Cennamo, Ross & Ertmer, 2009, p. 75).  Based on this reflection, I will decide what I can do to add more technology, engagement and creativity to future lessons. 

References

Cennamo, k., Ross, J., & Ertmer, P. (2009). Technology integration for meaningful classroom use: A standards-based approach. Mason, OH: Cengage Learning.

Jansen, B. (2005). Meaningful products:Making the whole greater than the sum of the parts. Library Media Connection, 27-28. Retrieved from: http://web.ebscohost.com.ezp.waldenulibrary.org/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=8c5c86a4-ede7-4cc7-a569-0615c8675c76%40sessionmgr13&vid=6&hid=13

Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2011). Program 4: Enriching content area learning experiences with technology. [Webcast]. Technology integration for meaningful classroom use. Baltimore, MD: Author.

Yahoo! I did it!

Hi folks,
This blogging is all new to me so I am a bit confused, but I am sure I will have no problem by the end of the course!  I would love someone to respond to this so I see how it works.  Thanks in advance!
Have a great weekend everyone!
Maureen