Final Blog Post/Reflection

The GAME plan provided a structure to my goals that made moving towards and achieving them less daunting.  Though it is typically easy to identify hopes, the pathway to success can be difficult to define.  After identifying my goals in the GAME plan, I found the planning of the actions I would take to be more effective than simply attempting to pursue the end goal.  Monitoring and Evaluating the plan ensured that I did not get bogged down in the initial plan and allowed myself to adapt and reflect upon my goals as I moved towards them.  My two goals were to improve communication of curriculum content to parents and students via the use of technology and to model and teach an ethical and responsible presence online (NETS-T, 2010).  I feel that I have made great strides in both areas. 

The incorporation of SmartBoard lessons, creating more depth on my blog, and increasing communication home have helped to make me a better teacher.  I feel that I am reaching further and helping my students create more connections than before.  My examination of ways that I can use technology to reach my students undoubtedly helped with this goal.  Regarding the implementation of ethical usage of resources in technology, I have made great strides in using citations and modeling ethical use.  In order to add my own creative elements, I have used more original work than borrowed images.  I have worked with a variety of students in helping them set up blogs of their own.  Via modeling and a “blog group” that meets periodically, we have confronted issues of fair use and citing sources.  I am very pleased with my ongoing progress on these two goals.

In working with these goals, I was able to explore a variety of technologies and means for implementing my goals.  I used screen capture tools to collect information from class and original images to add to my blog.  I have participated in professional development to learn about the capabilities of my new SmartBoard as well as engaged in independent research and practice.  Like most digital natives and technology enthusiasts, much of my learning has come from independent discovery and trial and error.  This learning along with knowledge gained via class assignments and applications will greatly affect my teaching.  Prior to constructing the collaborative learning assignment and the digital storytelling lessons, I did not believe that those types of activities would lend themselves to mathematics instruction (Cennamo, et. al., 2009). 

The readings, examples, and videos showed that with a bit of creative thinking, these strategies are effective in all classrooms.  Not only do I intend to implement these teaching strategies in my class, but I am also seeking out examples of successful implementation in other classrooms.  For example, I have been incorporating mathematical music videos in my classroom on a regular basis as both a learning tool and an example of a type of digital story that we will create later in the year.  Additionally, I have attempted to use technology to make my lessons more exciting and allow for more student involvement.  Without a doubt, I have increased my students’ involvement in my lessons by making interactive elements in my SmartBoard lessons.  Finally, I have taken the notion of the multistepped GAME plan to heart and have thus used that approach on a variety of specific tasks as well as my larger technology goals.

Overall, I feel that the more I am exposed to and educated about technology for the classroom, the more opportunities I have to improve my teaching.  I am continually encouraged and excited by the programs and resources that I encounter in my classes and enthusiastic about their implementation.  Our lesson planning during this course opened my eyes to resources that I did not realize could actually work in my classroom.

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.

National Education Technology Standards for Teachers (NETS-T) located at:http://www.iste.org/Content/NavigationMenu/NETS/ForTeachers/2008Standards/NETS_T_Standards_Final.pdf