Monitoring the GAME Plan

As I continue taking steps meeting my goals for my personal GAME plan, I am getting access to the information and resources I need.  The biggest hurdle so far has been having unrestricted access for my students to computers and their Web cites that they need to access.  With time though, this will become less of an issue.

Reading and responding to my students' blogs has led me to modifications I do need to make to my plan.  At first, I thought monitoring digital citizenship and responsibility would be easy.  I also thought eventually I could back out of the picture.  This may happen for some students, but it is naive to think it will happen for all of them. I found it will take constant interaction with many of the students throughout the school year.  Students will need to know that what they put on the internet is out there for everyone.  Some of my students have stated things such as, "This book is boring and I fell asleep in class today."  This was a great talking point for us because I was able to talk about how employees have been fired for similar postings put on Facebook status updates.  It really surprises students and this shows me that teaching my students these concepts will take time and patience.

I have learned that students love having the opportunity to do different things with technology.  For example, the more my students were given time to explore their blogs, the more they enjoyed personalizing them.  Students put pictures and music on their blogs.  I also saw how much the students love to interact with each other.  They have actively discussed the novel we are reading in class right now because students have taken the time to respond to each others' posts.  They are also more willing to post on their blog once they see their classmates are reading and responding.  In the end it becomes cyclical in a very positive way.

As far as questions, I am simply exploring the blogs on my own in an attempt to see what other ways I can incorporate them into the class.  Now that students are actively involved with them, I want to take advantage of their interest.  I am excited about the possibilities.

Putting the Plan into Action

As I look back at my GAME plan, I'm noticing that already on my way with the use of classroom blogs.  As I further develop the use of the blogs with my students, I will be able to help them facilitate learning and creativity while also demonstrating and helping them learn digital citizenship and responsibility.

In order to continue carrying out this plan, I will need continuous access to computers.  I will need support from my administration and parents as we take the blogs and further develop them.  I would like students to get to the point where they are posting videos as well as posts on their pages.  I would also like their posts to be at times informal, but also have them post formal pieces of writing.

 I will need additional information as I continue to develop the use of blogs in my classroom.  When I get to the point where I have students upload videos on their blog (for example, i hope to have students film themselves acting out scenes of Julius Caesar) I will need to work with administration and parents again to find out what legal steps I need to take to make sure that we are covered.  I will also need to see where I can get cameras to use for the projects and also look into students using their cell phones as many have the video recording capabilities already.

Thus far, I have gotten a good start on the integration of this technology.  Setting up the blogs took some work with administration.  I had to get them approved and I am still waiting for the site to be unblocked school wide for student use.  At this point I have had to unlock computers for students whenever they wanted to access the site at school.  I also make myself available to students every morning 35 minutes before school starts so that they can use computers in my classroom.

It has been a good start, but I have much more that I can do with this and other technology in my classroom.  I know roadblocks will come up as they already have with the delay to unblocking the site.  The key will be remaining flexible and finding creative solutions to the problems.  So far, so good.

This week's post...

Coming up with a GAME plan this week didn't seem that difficult.  However, as I created it, everything seemed to be a little vague.  I was having difficulty coming up with concrete plans to see my goals through.  Megan shared a great site that deals with technology and multiple intelligences It will take a little time to sift through everything the site has to offer, but it does offer concrete options that will help.

National Education Standards for Teachers and Putting Them in Place Personally

My goals are to improve in inspiring and facilitating student learning and creativity, and I also want to be able to promote and model digital citizenship and responsibility.  In order to achieve these goals I need to continue to come up with different types of technology to incorporate in the classroom that deal with different intelligences so students have opportunities to express themselves.  This will also allow me to help students use the technology in a responsible way so that they know what is acceptable and what is not.  Monitoring my progress will not be as easy.  I need to continually reflect after each unit and see what types of technology were included and what intelligences were addressed.  I then need to look critically at what I am doing to see if there is anything that could b added for the next time the unit comes up.  Monitoring the student digital citizenship and responsibility will be a little easier.  For example, with my student blogs and I can monitor what information they are posting and give them feedback.  As the year progresses students should need less feedback and will be able to monitor themselves.  Finally, I can evaluate my success at the end of the year through reflection once again.  How much technology have I introduced and incorporated in my classroom.  What else can I work with over summers to incorporate as well.  Also, I can look back at students digital responsibility and see how it progressed.  If there was a lack of progression I will know I need to spend more time focusing on that particular area the next time around.  This seems like a somewhat daunting task, but I have already taken the first step with student blogs and I'm seeing great results so I'm looking forward to pushing forward.

New class and new blog

I'm excited for this class.  I am now beginning to see results in my classroom from the courses I am taking at Walden.  I want to incorporate more technology in the classroom and this year all of my students are using blogs as an extension of our classroom.  They are using the blogs in a similar way that we use the blogs for this course.  Students have one post a week and must follow their classmates and respond to one entry a week.  So far students like the idea of the blogs.  They have had fun creating them and have commented how similar it feels to Facebook. I hope their enthusiasm continues throughout the year and I hope this class helps me improve my use of Blogs in the classroom.