My GAME Plan

As an elementary computer lab teacher, I work with students ranging from kindergarten through fifth grade for about an hour each per week when my class is not interrupted for testing, a mandated tutorial program, or an assembly. That is a very limited time window in which to accomplish my technology goals. Therefore, I strive to collaborate as much as possible with classroom teachers in my school. This way, I can reinforce the content standards while my students learn about technology and my students can tackle more complex projects than they could possibly do in my lab alone. I think this creates a wining situation for my students.

In my current course at Walden, I have been asked to develop a GAME plan (Cennamo, Ross & Ertmer, 2009, p. 4) for strengthening my confidence in at least two indicators in the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) National Education Standards for Teacher (NETS-T). With my situation in mind, here is my plan.

Goals
3b. Teachers collaborate with students, peers, parents, and community members using digital tools and resources to support student success and innovation.
4d. Teachers develop and model cultural understanding and global awareness by engaging with colleagues and students of other cultures using digital-age communication and collaboration tools.

Actions
3b. Develop a wiki for teachers to share ideas and resources. Teachers will be able to share Smartboard activities, arts-integrations lessons (we are an arts-integration school), helpful websites, and more traditional types of activities. Publicize the wiki.
Have students develop wikis about content they are studying. These would be collaborative lessons with classroom teachers. The product of these wikis would also be shared with the faculty of my school in an effort to encourage more teachers to use this tool.
Publish a school art gallery on VoiceThread to allow parents and community members to view and comment on student work.
Publish podcasts of student writing.
Classes will use Skype to meet with expert community members about content they are studying. For instance, they might meet with a banker when studying interest or a wildlife expert when studying about animal adaptations.
4d. Search for websites that connect teachers who are interested in collaborating on projects and contact those teachers.
Have our classes to use Skype to collaborate with students in other countries.
Post work on VoiceThread for our newfound network of learners to collaborate or comment.
Develop a wiki with the other class about the topic we are sharing.

Monitor
Ask the following questions:
3b. Are the teachers participating in the teacher wiki? Do they know about it? In the students’ wiki, are the students learning the content? Can they discuss what they are learning? Do the gallery and podcasts have visitors? How can we encourage more visitors? Do the parents know about them? Who are the classes Skyping? What other experts can we contact? How do we locate these people?
4d. Are there any teachers in my network that have already tried this activity? How did they find partners? Are there other sites for ideas about such projects that I can learn from? After talking with my partner teacher, are their changes to the project that he or she would suggest? Are the students excited about the project? If not, how can we increase their excitement? If so, how do we maintain it?

Evaluate and Extend
Ask the following questions:
3b. Did the collaborating teachers value this project? In what ways would they change it? Did the students master the content according to the classroom teacher’s assessment? Would the classroom teachers recommend the project idea to their peers? Did the parents and community respond to the gallery and podcasts? In what other ways can I collaborate with these stakeholders?
4d. In addition to the cultural understanding and global awareness, did the students master the content portion of the project? In what ways could I improve this project? Does the cooperating teacher have any suggestions? What changes would the students suggest? What other tools could we use to collaborate with students from other cultures? How can I get other teachers in our school involved in such projects?

I hope that my focus on these areas will increase my proficiency, make me a better teacher, and make my class more engaging for my students. I would appreciate any ideas anyone wishes to share regarding my plan.

Thanks for reading!

References
Cennamo, K., Ross, J., & Ertmer, P. (2009). Technology integration for meaningful classroom use: A standards-based approach (Laureate Education custom edition). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning.
NETS for Teachers. (2008). International Society for Technology in Education. Retreived January 13, 2010, from http://www.iste.org/Content/NavigationMenu/NETS/ForTeachers/Nets_for_Teachers.htm

Reflection

I have grown so much as an educator through my study of integrating technology into the classroom at Walden University. The course I am just completing, Supporting Information Literacy and Online Inquiry in the Classroom, has proven to be just as enlightening as my prior courses. Thought I have learned much in this course, the one thing that has really struck me is how our students need to be taught new literacy skills to be able to successfully maneuver in our digital world. Yes, reading and writing are still critical, but students need to be able to use these skills within a new setting. I remember being told to focus on having our students to read more and more nonfiction, and this was on the right track, but the information that our students are bombarded with requires much more than being able to understand how to read nonfiction print. Students are often faced with unreliable, inaccurate, and invalid information online, and they need to not only be able to read this information and glean what is relevant and important, but they need to decide if the information is to be trusted. This involves a whole separate set of skills, but they are skills that are definitely worth cultivating in both ourselves and our students.

As an elementary computer lab teacher, the bulk of the responsibility of teaching these skills is likely to fall on me, at least until the majority of my peers understand the importance of information literacy. However, these skills really need to be taught in the context of the rest of the content my students are learning. I don’t believe that any skill taught in isolation will make connections for the student and therefore will not be likely to be valued or retained. Because of this, I will be seeking more and more opportunities to collaborate with other teachers in my school and help my students make the necessary connections. This will also provide me the opportunity to teach the new literacy skills and their importance to my peers. I feel that as we share successful collaborative projects with the rest of the school, others will “catch the fever” and want to use the wonderful tools available to them. This should make the learning of both content and the information literacy more relevant to our students, and this should be a goal of all teachers, not just the tech savvy.

Because technology is always changing, a professional goal I have is to be able to keep up with new tools available. There are many ways to accomplish this goal. One way is to establish a network of others who value technology. There is a group of us in my school district, and we meet periodically and share a group on FaceBook. I am also working on creating wikis for teachers at my school to share digital resources. Other means include reading blogs focusing on technology, attending workshops, and joining ISTE. Their journal is wonderful!

Another professional goal that I have is to introduce new technological tools to my peers. Our school is about to start monthly professional development meetings for each grade level. This would be an excellent time to share a new idea for integrating technology with our staff. In a recent evaluation of our school, we were told that we possessed wonderful technology resources, but that they were not being used to their full potential. I think I can help to fix that problem. I also think that as the computer lab teacher for my school, I should be an advocate for technology. And as I work through my Walden courses, I am feeling more and more confident that I am quite capable to meet this challenge.