Just checking in again...

Stopping for just a moment to check where I am on my GAME plan, I realize that I am in kind of a standstill. I hate to say that, but I do want to be honest. There hasn't been much of any change since last week.

Parts of my plan are still on hold because I am not actually teaching much (any) right now: I am administering a tutorial program called A+ to my students, and I didn't realize that I would be doing this for so long. The original plan was to get the students used to the program so they could comfortably go back to their classrooms and work on it with their own teachers, and I think I will be able to let it go (to some extent) very soon. However, I am now implementing a new reward/motivation system for the program, and I have to get that running first.

I have also been out of school for 3 days this week and had another project (the school's 4-page newsletter) to complete. I wish I had had moe time this week to work on my plan.

I have managed to do some things, though. I have explained the teacher wikis to a few of my peers and asked them to share their favorite sites. The podcasts are still up and running, as they were last week. Because of a crazy schedue, I haven't had lunch with the art teacher or even been able to share more than two sentences in a row with her, but I should see her tomorrow and get the ball rolling for the student art gallery.

The student wiki projects and the student skype projects are not cancelled: They are just briefly postponed. I plan to pick up those projects again as soon as I am back to my regular teaching schedule. (Trust me: I can't wait!) Cross your fingers and pray that this happens soon!

Checking In

Looking at the GAME plan that I created last week, I asked myself the following questions:
What resources will you need to carry out your plan (video, reading, experts or colleagues, etc)?
What additional information do you need?
What steps have you been able to take so far?

The resources I need to carry out my plan are already available in my school. We have a computer lab and laptop carts for the students. We have laptops for all of our teachers. Microphones, headphones, and headsets are available. We also have a few webcams available. Each classroom has a Smartboard and we have a camera to use to photograph student work and school events.

I need to see about locating websites that connect interested teachers, and I need to look into upgrading my VoiceThread subscription. Either that or I need to get the other teachers in my school to subscribe. I also need to find teachers who would be willing to add resources to the wikis so that we can publicize them to the faculty of my school.

So far, I have been able to set up the teacher wikis that I have planned, and I have been able to have my students start the research for their wikis. I have begun to publish podcasts of students reading their writing on our school website. I have not been able to begin my Skype projects, but my principal has asked me to do a tutorial program called A+ with my classes, so this part of my GAME plan will just have to be delayed. I do have one class who is interested in this project, so at least I will be able to assist them during my planning time. One last thing I need to do is meet with our art teacher to plan the student gallery. I think we may be able to do this during our mutual planning time this week.

I’ll be back with you next week to let you know how I am coming along.

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.

Critical Evaluation Screencast

Our Walden assignment this week was to use screencasting software to critically evaluate a website. I enjoyed looking through the websites listed for us. They were all quite humorous. I will list them for you at the bottom of this posting so that you too can get a chuckle.

As I was doing this screencast, I kept thinking of ways that I could use this technology at my school. It would be wonderful for makeup lessons for absent students. It would also be a good way to explain concepts to the faculty (such as our new gradebook software) so that they could visit and revisit the video as needed. So many uses.

Oh well. For now, here is the link to my screencast. I hope you enjoy it, and I hope I didn't say "um" too many times!

http://screencast.com/t/YjdlOTZj



Just for fun, here are the links we had to choose from. Enjoy!
RYT Hospital Dwayne Medical Center
Help Save the Endangered Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus
MartinLutherKing.org
The British Stick Insect Foundation
Aluminum Foil Deflector Beanie
Britain for Americans
Computer Tan
Save the Rennet

Reflecting on My Personal Learning Theory

This week I am reflecting on the changes to my own personal theory of learning and my ability to effectively and appropriately integrate technology into my classroom. I am realizing that some of my views have been altered, but that others remain fairly constant.

At the onset of this course, I made the following statement regarding my views on learning, "My personal learning theory is that learning is reliant upon students being engaged in the classroom and making connections with new information." Of course I still think that this holds true, but after taking this course, I would like to expand on this idea. Yes, learning is dependent upon students being engaged, but I really feel that the principles of the constructionists and social constructionists are also a crucial part of my personal theory. I can think of no better way to learn and remember something than to dig in and do it. Constructionists call the product of this hands-on approach an artifact. Social constructionists prescribe that students need to interact with others while creating their artifacts. Both of these ideas ring true with me, and I think that both of these ideas will help students make the connections that they need to make to learn.

As I have stated before, I am the computer lab instructor in an elementary school where I teach students in K-5th grades. This makes my situation as far as technology integration a little different from most of my classmates. My entire school year is devoted to technology. (Well, at least the parts not devoted to testing: MAP, STAR, etc.) My biggest struggle is not how to use technology in my class, but how to integrate it with other subjects so that I am not teaching technology in isolation. This is also one of my long-term goals. My students need to have an authentic purpose for the tecnology that we use. To this end, I have decided to make an even stronger effort to plan with other teachers in my school so that the projects in my room reinforce the standards and material being taught in the regular classroom. For instance, I am planning virtual field trip projects with the fifth grade social studies and science teachers so that our students can visit places we would never be able to visit otherwise. This way our students will be able to create episodic memories of their experiences. I plan on extending this to the lower grades this year as well.

Another technology that I plan to incorporate this year is cognitive mapping. I want to teach the students in my lab to use tools such as spinscape and Kidspiration (which we have, but is not being used) so that they can create visuals to take advantage of Paivio's dual codong theory, but I also want to teach my fellow teachers to do this so that they can use it in their classes on their Smartboards. I just see this as being so useful in the regular classrooms, and I think my peers will, too, once they are introduced to it.

Perhaps the technology that I am most excited about is Voicethread. I am already working with our art teacher to create an online gallery of student artwork using this tool. We will post this gallery on our school website, just like I post the podcasts of our Principal's Pride Writing winners each month. I can't wait for the students to share about what they have learned in completing their art projects instead of just having "pretty pictures" to show to our community. I think the students and community will be excited about this as well. Voicethread has other possibilities, too. I want to use it to have students share projects thay have completed in their classrooms and to collaborate on problems they are trying to solve. With guidance, I think this technology could be used with even the younger students in my school. The trick will be to interest their teachers in it so that they will collaborate with me.

I guess this leads into one of my biggest long-term goals. I want to show my fellow teachers what technologies are available to them and help them integrate these into their classrooms. I can do this first of all by modeling the technologies with the students in my lab. I think that once the teachers see what can be accomplished with technology, they will want to use it too. I can show them what the students are doing in the lab by asking them to allow the students to share their projects on the Smartboards in their classrooms. I can also offer professional development at my school or dsitrict on using these tools. I am also willing to give up my planning time to help my fellow teachers if they need assistance.

One last long-term goal that I would like to mention, and perhaps my toughest challenge, is to do a much better job of using technology with my kindergarteners. Most of them cannot read yet and they are so young with such short attention spans that one 55 minute block of computer lab time each week is just not ideal. I would love to have their lab time broken down into two shorter segments, but since this is not going to happen, I need to think of other solutions. I have never taught kindergarten before, and last year I spent entirely too much time on Starfall with a little Word and Paint and a few other websites in the mix. I need to find other activities and projects for them to complete in my lab, and herein lies my challenge. Where do I find these activites? Everything I seem to find online is for older students or doesn't fit well into a lab setting. I think my answer is to begin building a network of other educators who teach computer skills to kindergarteners. A wiki would be a good place to compile and share our ideas. Another idea would be to share bookmarks through Delicious. I certainly hope that I can get some help in teaching these littlest members of my school.

I have learned so much through this course, and I am excited to share with my students and peers. It is amazing what is available out there for us to reach our students and help them learn if we are just willing to take a chance and try it. I think I will give it a try.

Online Art Gallery Ideas

I have posted a Voicetread project below in which I seek help in creating an online gallery of student art work. Please take a moment to visit my project and offer any helpful suggestions that you might have. Thank you!

I hope the embedded player for the Voicethread shows below, but if it does not, then the post below this one has a link to the same project. Thank you again for your help!