What Time is it? GAME TIME!

            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.