GAME Plan for Students

In many ways the International Society for Technology in Education standards for teachers naturally support their standards for students so that a teacher who is effectively meeting the standards for teachers will by effect have students who are meeting the standards for students. Standard 1 for both teachers and students relate to each other in this way. The first standard for teachers is to facilitate and inspire creativity and learning in students and the first standard for students is to demonstrate creativity and innovation so it stands to reason that a teacher who is successful in facilitating and inspiring creativity in students will have students who are demonstrating creativity and innovation. For this standard monitoring and evaluating student progress toward this standard for students should then be part of the teacher's GAME plan in meeting this standard for teachers.



Reviewing my original GAME Plan I wrote it for the standard, "design and develop digital-age learning experiences and assessments", and I chose to "focus on the two performance indicators of design or adapt relevant learning experiences that incorporate digital tools and resources to promote student learning and creativity, and develop technology-enriched learning environments that enable all students to pursue their individual curiosities and become active participants in setting their own educational goals, managing their own learning, and assessing their own progress."



In considering the ISTE-S standards and the GAME Plan strategy I would make several additons to my GAME plan should I have my own classroom again in future. To the Action portion I would add teaching the GAME Plan strategy to students and have them use to create GAME plans to meet their "learning targets". "Learning targets" is a name my school district has given to the supposedly simpler worded translations of our content standards which are presented to students so they know what they expected to learn. I think that by having my students look at their learning targets, develop questions they would need to find the answers to in order to meet their learning targets and then develop GAME plan for achieve this learning, it will effectively allow my students to manage their own learning and assess their own progress. I would also add monitoring and evaluating how well my students are meeting the ISTE-S standards to the Monitoring and Evaluation portions of my GAME plan.

International Society for Technology in Education. (2008). The ISTE NETS and Performance Indicators. Retrieved Dec. 15, 2010, from http://www.iste.org/standards.aspx.

Game Plan Progress

During the past week I have made two primary advances in my game plan. The first involved creating a Problem Based Learning project for my Ecology Unit which incorporates technology, the second involved the observation of an ELMO Document Camera in use in a classroom.

Although ecology is one of the areas of biology that I care about the most, since it is the last unit in my curriculum, it has in the past been probably the least organized, most disjointed, and most rushed unit I have taught. It generally comes down to how many days do I have left to fit this unit into. This is one of the reasons that I chose this unit to focus on building up during my current Walden course. The primary reason I chose to enter the teaching profession is that I believe that in order for us to continue to survive as a species on earth, we need to have an understanding of ecology and how the affect of our actions on the environment can ultimately impact our continued survival. I found it disheartening that I never seemed to have enough time to really be able to teach this properly. Even more disheartening was hearing my students comment that they did not care about learning about ecology because they felt it did not impact them. My hope is that through the problem I provided them to solve and the tasks involved in the PBL project that it will help them realize the importance of ecology and discover how interconnected all organisms and the environment are to each other and how the disappearance of one species can impact other species and find ways in which they can help stop this domino effect. Creating this PBL applies to my GAME plan in that it incorporates technology in a learner centered experience.

Over the past couple of years my school district has started purchasing some ELMO document cameras for classroom use in some classrooms. Last spring they distributed a questionaire to teachers about the devices we had in our classrooms, if we use them, and if we would use them if we had them. They also asked us to provide them with a technology wish list of what equipment we would like for our classrooms (not a guarantee that we would get it, but a tool to help them determine how they might best spend future technology funds for classroom equipment). One of the devices they asked us about was the ELMO. At the time I really did not have much of an idea of exactly what an ELMO was besides a cute, giggly muppet on Sesame Street. For the question, "if you had an ELMO in your classroom would you use it?" I was unable to answer since they only gave us the option of answering "yes" or "no". I found myself wishing I could answer, "maybe I would, if I knew what it was and what it could do". I found myself imagining some bulky, complicated digital camera like contraption attached to a frame to take pictures of items on paper to transfer to a computer. With this in mind I did not think I had a use for it being that I already had a scanner in my classroom. I was more interested in a set of regular digital cameras that my students could use to take photos to upload for inclusion into projects. Today however, I was subbing in a Kindergarten class which has an ELMO. The class aide was teaching many of their lessons using it which allowed me to observe its use. I found that the mental picture I had was incorrect. Rather than scanning and uploading images she was demonstrating to the students how to complete their activity and what she was doing was being projected up on to the screen where they could see it in real time. Somewhat like a transparency projector except it did not require transparent objects or a special marker, she was using the actual objects the students were using and was able to walk them through step by step how to complete their activity. I can think of several ways I could use this in a classroom of my own (demonstrating lab steps for one, including which side of the thermometer to read) and I am sure if I were to have one available in a classroom of my own someday that I could find even more uses for it. Not to mention it was a small, light weight, easy to manuever device.

GAME Plan Progress Update

Given that my GAME plan was primarily written for steps I would take if teaching full time and I am currently in a substitute situation, I have been focusing on gaining insights from other teacher's lessons. This week I began thinking about how I could be more active at doing this other than primarily making passive observations like I had been. This week I happened to get job assignments for the school I taught at full-time previously three days in row subbing for different teachers. All three teachers left lessons dealing with technology for me to do with students. This gave me a better opportunity than usual to investigate technology use in the classroom a little more actively. I was able to chat some with the teachers I subbed for regarding the technology being used. Today I also asked the students to complete a survey for me about what types of technology tools they have used in school projects, what other types of tools they would be interested in using to complete projects and how they feel the technology use has impacted their learning.

Monday I was subbing in a social studies class. The civics class was using an on-line game program that they are "test driving" for the school district. Students were playing a virtual football game and the number of yards they would gain or lose in the game were determined by their answers to review questions and the difficulty of those questions. Since it is a new program being tried out the teacher is not sure yet as to how much it is contributing to student learning, but some of the students were having fun playing it so it does seem as though it would have some contribution to student learning of basic concepts and vocabulary. Tuesday I was co-teaching with a teacher who teaches a computer lab based math class. She was using an on-line math tutoring/practice program with her students. Students were presented with problems to solve and they could click to get hints if they needed them. She told me she is not sure if the program has been improving student test performance though she has seen some increase in test scores, but she said where she has seen the biggest difference is that because the program gives students real world problems to solve, her students have no longer been asking how they would ever use the material in real life. The class I am substituting in today is working on a typical research paper assignment using internet resources. This is also the class who I distributed the surveys to. This teacher's other class today is completing a webquest.

The surveys helped to give me a bigger picture of what tools other teachers have been using and it seems despite our state being part of the 21st Century Learning program, use of web 2.0 tools has been limited. All students responded that they had used Power point, many had used blogs, only a few had used wiki's and message board discussions. None of the students indicated that they had used digital concept mapping, digital story boards, voice threads, or podcasts. Some of the students were asking me what these were. Many of them indicated interest in using digital story boards, blogs, virtual field trips and podcasts. A couple indicated interest in using their cell phones in learning. One mentioned using cell phones to access the internet in a classroom with a limited number of computers. Another student said he would like it if teachers sent out homework assignment instructions and due date reminders to student cell phones via text messaging. Several students felt that technology which allowed them to view each other's projects and provide each other with feedback would be beneficial for their learning.

Actively seeking feedback from the teachers using the technology as well as from students regarding the technology they were using in their classes added an additonal element that is hard for me to gain from only being in the classrooms temporarily. It would also be helpful if I could find some teachers using more web 2.0 tools to find out how they are using them and gain feedback from them and their students as to their impact on student learning and motivation.