Goals Update 7/22

This week, I am in the process of evaluating new internet tools. A number of people have sent me links to some pretty good resources. I am working through each link. I also have been going back through my delicious account (mrwright40) to review some tools I have gathered from the past that have never been used in my class. I do not plan on modifying my GAME plan at this time. Currently, I have several lesson plan ideas to work towards my goals. I have a flip camera recreation of a folk song activity. I have a Civil War and Ellis Island virtual tour. I have a group persuasive essay plan to be used with Google Docs. I have a Voicethread activity to be used with an upcoming field trip. I am also practicing working with prezi.com and animoto. I would like to use these in my classroom. I have a number of cartoon creation links on my delicious account that I am tinkering around with for upcoming lessons. I do not have any new questions that come to mind at this point.

Carrying out my Personal GAME Plan

Recently, I spent some time thinking about the types of technology tools I would like my students to be using in my classroom. I have knowledge of several tools that I have found useful for classroom instruction. Some of the tools I might consider to help me carry out my game plan are voicethreads, bubbl.us, prezi.com, blogger, animoto, podcasts, Google Docs, Google Earth, Virtual Tours, and teacher tools found at the Discovery Education web site. I have found it very convenient to collect tools as I come across them in my delicious account to be reviewed for later use. Has anyone found any sweet tools that middle school age kids might be interested in using for projects? This week's resources discuss giving kids options to complete assignments. I would like to try to be open minded about the ways my students will achieve their learning goals on my GAME plan activities.

I will need some additional information before moving forward with my GAME plan. I need to begin gaining a better understanding of the insides and outs of each learning tool to be used in my upcoming lessons. I also need to begin looking at my future content and start planning the first trimester lessons. Another task to focus on will be teacher paperwork like directions, hardcopy activity instructions, web postings, and discussion notes.

Other than thinking about possible lesson plan options or technology tools, I have not moved rapidly forward on my GAME plan. In the course of the next few weeks, I will begin to get back into school teacher mode. I hope to start pre-planning same activities that will fall right into place with the goals I would like to improve upon.

My Personal Game Plan 7/8

The two indicators I would like to improve on throughout the course of the next school year would be the following:

a. design or adapt relevant learning experiences that incorporate digital tools and resources to
promote student learning and creativity.

d. model and facilitate effective use of current and emerging digital tools to locate, analyze,
evaluate, and use information resources to support research and learning.

The GAME Plan

Goals:

I would like to be able to successfully integrate at least 3 relevant learning experiences that incorporate digital tools and resources to promote student learning and creativity during each trimester of the 2010-2011 school year.

I would like to be able to model and facilitate the effective use of the digital tools before and during the the 3 relevent learning experiences to be created for each trimester of the 2010-2011 school year.

Take action:

I need to identify 9 digital tools that can be used during each relevant activity.

I need to become very familiar with each tool.

I need to evaluate which lessons these experiences will be the most useful for implementation.

I need to design plans to model and facilitate the effective use of each tool chosen.

I need to create a checklist and a rubric to be used during each activity to insure that each goal is being met.

Monitor:

I will need to make sure I have at least 3 lessons developed using a digital tool and modeling each tool at the beginning of each trimester. Independent professional development time will be the best times to create these activities.

I will use the checklists and rubrics during each lesson involving the digital experiences to monitor my progress.

I will have to monitor if problems are occurring that don't help me meet my goals.

Evaluate

I need to review the checklists and rubrics after each lesson to determine overall success of each goal.

If my goals have not been met after each trimester, I need to make changes to each lesson plan to insure success during the next application.

I will determine what went right and what went wrong after each digital and modeling lesson. I will make the necessary changes to improve the lesson.

Course Reflection 6/27/2010

While learning in the past eight weeks, I have had many new revelations about teaching new literacy skills and the direction I would like to see my teaching practices progress. The most striking revelation I had about teaching new literacy skills would be how my students would be more hands on using this style of learning. The knowledge and experience gained in this course will influence my teaching practices going forward. One professional development goal I would like to pursue that builds upon my learning during this course and develops my own literacy or technology skills would be to work with other teachers in my department to create several quality inquiry based lessons to use with our current curriculum.
The idea that kept popping up in my head while creating my inquiry based lesson plan was how I was becoming the facilitator while the students were becoming the educators. I like this transfer of power. I constantly wonder if my students are learning and retaining the information. This style of learning puts more in the hands of the students. By the end of an inquiry based unit, a student should be able to tell you the ends and outs of their original questions. This style of learning helps free teachers up to spend more time assessing rather than presenting. One area I could really use some improvement on would be giving quality comments to students. This style helps free me up to give each student proper feedback.
The knowledge and experience gained in this course will influence my teaching practices going forward. After creating a successful inquiry based lesson, I gained confidence to create new lessons based on my current curriculum. I would like to add a few of these lessons during each major theme used during the course of a school year. I really learned a lot about assessment tools that could be used while each student is developing their understanding of specific concepts. I intend on using more checklists, conferences, and final activities during lessons in my classroom.
One professional development goal I would like to pursue that builds upon my learning in this course and develops my own information literacy or technology skills would be to work with other teachers in my department to create several quality inquiry based lessons to use with our current curriculum. While creating the inquiry based unit during this course, I felt like a kid on a bike with training wheels. I was never quite sure if I was doing it right until I got feedback from the professor. Now, I feel like I can ride the bike without the training wheels. I feel comfortable creating another lesson that fits my classroom curriculum. My first step would be to approach my department during upcoming in-services. I plan on passing on the information I have learned in this course. I hope to use ideas like how inquiry based learning puts more power in the hands of the students, they retain more doing this type of learning, and this style opens up more time for creating teacher feedback. I hope to get at least two others to join me in creating quality lessons for the future. I will make my lesson created in this class available to my colleagues. I plan on using my time during upcoming in-services to develop new plans with my colleagues to be used this next school year.
The past eight weeks have really helped me understand a new type of teaching that can really improve learning in my classroom. I hope to spend less time presenting information in the future and more time giving quality feedback to my students. Right now, my confidence level is really up for creating more quality inquiry based lessons. I hope to rope a few of my colleagues into developing more inquiry based plans to help add our students and our classrooms.

Panoramio City Discussion

Please answer one of the following questions:

Reg.- What impressed you most about the cities you toured today in class?


Honor's- What types of information can you infer about the particular city that you toured today?

Final Reflection

After reviewing my "Personal Theory of Learning," I realized that I could make a few changes to my current theory. This course has made me see the importance of all the learning theories. Each theory plays it's role in understanding how kids learn. I will continue to try to make my classroom lessons involve all the learning theories. I plan to incorporate more lessons using technology correctly. This course has helped me understand that just throwing technology into a lesson is not effective. Using technology to enhance the learning experience is effective. I want to teach my students about the new tools I learned in this class, so they can use them to learn about new information in the future. I would like to incorporate the instructional strategies learned from this class into my classroom. Using a variety of strategies will help the students learn new material in a number of ways. This will help keep up the interest level in the lesson.

I have began to use VoiceThread in my classroom. I really enjoyed how simple it was to use. I believe my students will have fun creating products using this tool. About a month ago, I used bubbl.us in my class. The kids really liked it. They had so much fun creating their own personal bubble. It really helped them organize their thoughts. One student asked me if he could use it on the state test. I had to tell him no. All of these tools allow students to create examples of their learning quickly and easily. These tools give the students a chance to learn and have fun, while creating evidence of their learning.

I have two long term goal changes I would like to make to my instructional practice. The first one is to allow more opportunities for my kids to create using the technology. I hope to become a little more hands off in my class. I wish to be a facilitator rather than the primary source of information. My other goal is to continue learning about new technology tools to incorporate into my classroom. The tools I have learned about help make learning fun. I hope to use these tools to keep my students interested in learning.

My VoiceThread

Here is the link to my VoiceThread activity. I definitely have room to improve, but I really enjoyed working on this activity.

http://www.voicethread.com/share/890000/