Evaluating Your GAME Plan Progress

My GAME Plan has really mad me take charge of the technology curriculum I have set for myself and my students in my classroom. My actions have been very effective because I have set aside a good hour each day to continue to work on the technology curriculum in my class. I have spent this time researching ways to introduce technology to my students and have found about 3 pages of child friendly websites and virtual tools to develop them into dynamic technology 4th graders. To say the least I am very excited. I have learned that using a basic search engine can lead to numerous possibilities. I have found that rearranging words on a search engine can open up many other possibilities to find tools. I also have found that I need to find a better way to get organized so I can easily access these tools for my students (such as a class wiki to organize all my thoughts racing through my head). I need to learn to present a small amount of information at a time. I am very excited about incorporating much more into my technology curriculum but I need to understand that this is very new to some of my students and this will take time. I want to adjust my plan on a individual students basis. My ultimate fantasy would be to have a technology book that students can follow and work through so they are understanding all aspects of technology.

I do have a few questions for classmates…

- What would be a good way to organize all the information I have found?

- At what age do you think it is appropriate to begin students with social networking? (something I am contemplating with)

- Do you think that students would benefit from working through a “workbook” and using problem based learning when it comes to technology?

Monitoring Your GAME Plan Progress

• Are you finding the information and resources you need?

I am finding many resources for my GAME plan. I am worried I am overthinking the goals I have set for myself and getting overwhelmed very qucikly.

• Do you need to modify your action plan?

I feel like I need to make my action plan more specific because it is somewhat broad for my 4th graders and for myself as the teacher

• What have you learned so far?

I have learned that technology has a lot to offer to us. I need to have specific, general goals in mind to keep on track and to meet the goals I have

• What new questions have arisen?
  

The questions I do have...

Do you feel overwhelmed when a goal is too large?

How to I make my goal achievable?

What are ways I can make technology a realistic positive learning experience for my students?

Carrying out my Game Plan

In hopes of accomplishing the GAME plan I have set for myself I have to find the necessary resources and information to carry out the game plan. Technology is something that is always changing and through my experiences with Walden I hope to continue to build on things I can offer to my students. I have been working steadily on a pacing guide for my 4th grade classroom. It started with looking at the benchmarks and objectives for my state standards and diving them into the 4 marking periods we have throughout the school year. Each benchmark has a specific goal but I am trying to get each lesson to go deeper so my students experience a higher order of thinking when it comes to technology and are ready to meet the demands of the 21st century.

I want students to understand the specific areas that the Internet can be an asset yet also look and find reasons that the Internet can be misleading. I hope to be able to find resources to share with colleagues and to present to my students so they have an interactive approach to understanding the benefits of the Internet.

STANDARD 2: Design and Develop Digital-Age Learning Experiences and Assessments
I began with something that I have found to be very interesting and greatly interactive for my learning process. I researched technology web quests and virtual field trips that the Internet has to offer and this is what I came up with ( I am hoping to find many more)…

http://eduscapes.com/tap/topic4.htm

http://www.internet4classrooms.com/why_webquest.htm

I found many videos on the Internet on how to use a computer. A simple start for students in the district in which I teach because unfortunately a lot of them do not have computers at there home. These quick videos can be found at http://www.youtube.com/ Honestly, I like to consider myself somewhat savvy when it comes to using the Internet but I also learned some things from watching these quick video clips. I want to the site and typed in how to use a computer and found many interesting new ideas and information.

To begin to carry out my GAME plan I have created a classroom wiki site for students to share information, http://mrsivesters4thgrade.wikispaces.com/ Students will post information to this wiki and share information with classmates about what they have liked or disliked about technology. Students will be responsible to find new material that has good meaning.

ASSESSMENT TOOLS: Students will be assesed on their contribution to the class wiki.

Standard 4: Promote and Model Digital Citizenship and Responsibility

A great idea I found was to have students create an http://www.google.com/ig . The entire classroom can create a media site to share information and be surrounded from the beginning of the day. I found this AWESOME IDEA at https://sites.google.com/site/thingstolearnwith/28-your-class-as-a-news-channel. Students create an igoogle site and upload videos, documents, and pictures to share with the class. I would have students make sure they are properly crediting sources that they get information from. This site will be shared in front of the class each morning.

I would also have students create a classroom website through http://www.weebly.com/ that would be a tool for parents to view to keep up to date with what our class is doing. Students would be assigned to specific duties to keep the class website up and running.