This week I took some time to reflect iste.nets standards
for teachers. As I worked through the
standards I found those that I was comfortable with and those that I was not so
comfortable with. When I finished with
Standard 1 Indicator D, I could not help but revisit the description.
Indicator D
calls for teachers to model collaborative knowledge construction by engaging in
learning with students, colleagues, and others in face-to-face and virtual
environments. Although I collaborate
regularly, I don’t use technology to collaborate with teachers in my district
and outside of my district. This weeks
learning resources pointed out that the best technology based projects are not
listed on a Google search, but can be found through educators using programs
such as Twitter to connect to teachers of the same content beyond the school
(Laureate, 2009). My GAME Plan for
addressing this indicator is as follows:
Goal: To broaden my
collaborative comfort zone with colleagues with in my district as well as
outside of my district in an effort to provide effective learning experiences.
Action: In my
district there are no professional learning committees at all, let alone one
for increased teacher collaboration.
The first action I will take is to speak with the IT coordinator at our
school to set up a PLC devoted to focusing teacher collaboration with an
emphasis on technology usage in the classroom.
If that goes well I would like to also attempt to create a PLC that
could use live streaming or video conferencing to connect the small rural
county that I teach in. Often there is
only one subject teacher per school and to use the technology that we may
incorporate in out classroom takes us one step closer to creating the virtual
environments we would like for our kids.
This touches on the idea that effective teachers that use technology
should be have some knowledge of their technology and it goes a long way to
creating a supportive culture for teachers who use technology (Laureate, 2009).
Monitor: Considering
that this is something that is very new to my district and to the best of my
knowledge the county. I will be keeping
a personal log as well as a log of our PLC meetings where I can not only record
the events of the meeting but also reflect on what is working what isn’t and
what can be improved.
Evaluate: I will
evaluate the effectiveness of the PLC by the responses of those involved as
well as by implementing the projects and technology that the group explores and
getting group feedback about the effectiveness of the technology and the
developed projects.
After just recently completing a project where students used
the web to research the personal and political backgrounds of the Presidential
candidates, the second indicator that I would like to address is falls under
the section entitled Model Digital Age Work and Learning which states that
teachers model and facilitate effective use of current and emerging digital
tools to locate, analyze, evaluate and use information resources to support
research and learning.
Goal: To model the correct use of digital tools to
efficiently locate and evaluate credible information through online research.
Action: Model the proper
ways to conduct online inquiry so that the best information is located in a
timely fashion. The students will watch
me model that and then they will have guided practice in the same field prior
to being turned loose for independent research. I will also model the website evaluation worksheet as we fill the
sheet in as a class via the SMARTboard.
We will discuss what credible URLs look like and practice together
evaluating a website of my choice. When
I feel that the class is ready to be turned loose, they will have an
opportunity to apply the strategies that I have modeled in their personal
research.
Monitor: As the
students are completing these tasks, I will be monitoring the questions being
asked, body language and evaluating their answers to questions to see if they
truly understand the strategies and the level of work that is expected of
them. If I feel through my evaluation
that they are able to try I will turn them loose. If the whole class is lost we will do more guided practice as a
group. Finally, if some in the group
are ready to start and others aren’t it will be no problem to take more time
with that small group and provide the extra instruction that those students
require.
Evaluation: I
mentioned above that some of the evaluation might take place while I am
monitoring, that evaluation is informal.
I will be collecting the website evaluation worksheet as a final
checkpoint for understanding. If all is
well then it is time to move on, if the students struggle I know that I need to
reteach.
The course
text informs us that simply using technology does not promote creative thinking
skill or engage students (Cennamo, Ross, & Ertmer, 2009). But if used in a calculated manner it is
blatantly obvious that technology can create effective lessons and teachers who
foster critical and creative thinking among their students.
Resources:
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.
International Society for Technology in Education. (2011).
Nets for teachers. Retrieved from
http://www.iste.org/standards/nets-for-teachers.aspx
Laureate Education Inc. (Executive
Producer). (2009). Ertmer, P., Program 3: Enriching content area experiences
with technology part one. Integrating Technology Across the Content Areas
[Educational Video]. Los Angeles: Solution.
Laureate Education Inc. (Executive
Producer). (2009). Ertmer, P., Program 3: Enriching content area experiences
with technology part two. Integrating Technology Across the Content Areas
[Educational Video]. Los Angeles: Solution.