This week in our Walden course we are asked to llook once again at our progress towards meeting the goals of our GAME plan. I am feeling like a bit of a broken record here (remember those?), but I am still stuck. I am no where near ready to let go of the goals and plans I have made even though my schedule may have shifted somewhat. I still want to accomplish what I set out to do, and I will. As a matter of fact, I find the goals I established to be ones that require an ongoing effort. They are not the types of goals that can be ticked off my list. These are areas that I will continue to try to improve.
That said, there are some things that I have learned and can apply to my instructional strategy. As an action to accompany one of my goals, I have planned on creating class wikis with my students. I have tried this once before, and the biggest frustration was getting all of the students to join the wiki. They needed email addresses, and if they used mine, all of the options were not available to them. One of my peers in our online learning community had run into the same problem and provided a simple solution. Now I am no longer dreading this part of our wiki activity when we get to work on it.
Another thing I have learned is that it might be a little rough to get the ball rolling, so to speak, when beginning a new technology project, but the results are well worth it. For example, getting teacher buy-in for the teacher wiki projects ahs not been easy, but I think it is begining to come together. I can envision it as being the go-to source when teachersare looking for resources for a particular lesson they want to teach. It may take us a while to get it there, but I know it is going to happen!
I am really not ready to set new learning goals for myself at this time, because I do not feel like I have made the progress I would like on the ones I have already chosen. Once again...I will get there. I would like to expand my use of podcasts to other classes in our school and help other teachers start podcasts on their web pages, too. I think it would be a wonderful way for them to showcase what is going on in their classes. We have monthly professional development meetings by grade level in our school. Perhaps I could find out if a grade or grades would be interested in having me teach them how to do this during that time. I mean, if we have to stay after school, we might as well learn something useful, right?
One thing that I want to keep in mind as I set new goals for myself is to try to do a better job of timing the start of my actions to accomplish these goals. It seems like my lab time with my students is constantly being interrupted, but some months are better than others. Next time, I want to start my GAME plan in one of those "good" windows.
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I'm impressed that you are reaching out to your entire teaching staff. Maybe you could discuss your ideas with several teachers who are known as leaders in your school. They may be encouraged by your enthusiasm to help you meet some of your goals.
ReplyDeleteNancy, I like your post. I understand that you have to meet the content areas for the grades as the technology teacher, but my goodness, you can sneak in a collaborative project. One class can write to another class. This is what I am planning. When I spoke to my technology teacher from my old elementary post, who also had taught 3rd grade (like you) and moved to the tech room, she said there is no time to teach the new literacies. Honestly, she really did not know what I meant. This brings us to teacher education and inservices. Technology teachers need updating. Yes, I think because of the position you are in, you need to get the word out to the teachers. I think by using one of these plans from Walden, you could have the teachers earn a unit or point and participate in an activity that has them setting up a wiki one week and 'talking' to each other to plan an objective. Another week, they would have to open up a blog and perhaps reflect in it. These are just suggestions. You could pair up with another tech teacher. These are just suggestions and those that I will be considering myself.
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