Course Reflections

The GAME plan that I designed and followed throughout this course was in regards to designing my own classroom webpage and in order to help me carry out my GAME plan, I was chosen to attend training on design webpages. I was very excited about going to this training and went with an open mind at how I could begin designing one for my classroom. Well much to my surprise, this training was not for individual classroom webpages. It was for the school webpage and keeping it up to date. While this is still beneficial to parents, I was hoping to be able to begin implementing my own classroom webpage at the start of the new year. However, I did learn how to design our school’s webpage and upload pictures on it to keep parents up-to-date on what is happening in our school. One thing that I took from this experience is that even though I was not trained on how to design a classroom webpage, I can use other venues for deigning the page. I am hoping that once we get our school webpage completed with everything that is needed, that I can play around in the software and determine how I can make my own classroom webpage.

I do not reflect on my teaching near enough but through the use of the GAME plan, I am able to reflect on my lessons and discover what went well and what did not go well. I also think that having students use the GAME plan during group activities will help them to reflect on their processes as well. Also by using the GAME plan, it helps us to set clear and obtainable objectives that student’s can see and grade themselves.

I learned a great deal on ways that I can begin implementing technology into my teaching practice. Through this course and talking with my administration, I believe that we are going to purchase a mobile laptop cart that is wifi capable. My school is not equipped with wifi capabilities therefore making it difficult to bring laptops into the classroom to work. If we want to use the computers, we have to go to the computer lab. Sometimes when we visit the computer lab, we run into the problem of not every computer working therefore meaning more time that I have to take to fix the problem. This becomes very frustrating after a while. I hope that funds will allow us to purchase this mobile laptop cart because I believe that it can be very beneficial to both students and teachers.

When we return from winter break, we will be starting our unit on geometry. I hope to be able to incorporate digital storytelling in some form for this unit. As far as problem-based learning and networking/online collaboration goes, I am not quite sure of how I will be implementing these into my curriculum but I do know that I will be using problem-based learning in science. When we return from break, I am going to talk with my colleagues about ways that we can use problem-based learning in our science curriculum. I am excited about my journey to implementing technology into my classroom and hope that next school year, I will have the means to be able to begin allowing my students to use technology first thing.

Monitoring Progress Towards GAME Plan

The progress towards my GAME plan is on hold at this moment until I attend the training on classroom webpages on Wednesday, November 30. I hope that after this training, I can begin to progress forward in my GAME plan goal and begin design my classroom webpage. During this time, I have looked at other classroom webpages and gotten some ideas that I would like to use on my own webpage. One of those things is providing useful resources to my parents. For example, one resource that I seen was teachers providing parents with useful websites that they can go on with their child to strengthen their skills in math. Also many of the websites had students homework for that week listed as well. I believe that this is a great resource for parents because it helps to keep them informed of things going on in the classroom. I know that many times I have parents calling me after school asking what the homework for that day was because their child either forgot to write it down or it is not legible. By posting this on my classroom webpage, parents can use this as a tool in helping to inform them of what is going on in the classroom for that week.

At this time, no I do not need to modify my action plan. Since I have not attended the training yet, I have not learned anything in regards to designing webpages but I have gained some useful information in looking and exploring other teacher’s webpages. Through some of these webpages, I have seen things that I plan to use on my own webpage. I do not have any questions at this time, but I am sure that after my training, I will have plenty of questions in regards to designing webpages. :) I am excited about this training because implementing a classroom webpage is something that I have always wanted to do. I hope that I can come back and share some useful information with my colleagues so that they can begin designing and implementing a classroom webpage as well.

Beginning Stages of Carrying Out My GAME Plan

For this assignment, I chose the GAME plan with the goal of designing a user friendly classroom webpage that parents and students can use. I also hope that my colleagues can find my webpage useful. In order to carry out my plan, I need a few resources. One of the resources that I need is guidance in how to design a webpage. I have been chosen to attend training on designing classroom web pages. I hope that through this training, I can obtain some useful information in helping me begin my classroom webpage along with information that I can pass on to my colleagues to help them get started as well. Another resource that could be valuable to me in helping me design my classroom webpage is looking at other teacher’s webpages to get an idea of how they set theirs up and information that they included on their page.

I will be attending this training on November 30 so this is the first step in helping me to reach my goal. I am very excited about this training because I enjoy designing pages and being able to actively experience technology. I hope that once I have my own classroom webpage up and running that I can plan a lesson in which my students design their own webpage that shows portrays important information learned in class. I believe that this training will begin to open up a new horizon for me and also give me some wonderful ideas that I can use in my classroom with my students in regards to designing webpages.

GAME Plan

For these particular indicators, I feel confident in them but I am not as proficient as I would like to be. I would love to have a classroom that is based solely on technology and begin seeing how successful my students become through the use of technology.

Indicator 2a: Design or adapt relevant learning experiences that incorporate digital tools and resources to promote student learning and creativity.

G- Goal
• My goal for this indicator is to begin planning mini-lessons that include some form of technology in which students have to be an active participant.
A- Action
• I plan to achieve this goal by incorporating small pieces of technology into my lessons.
• I also plan to achieve this goal by looking at my current lessons and begin brainstorming ways that technology can be integrated into the lesson(s).
M- Monitor
• For this particular indicator, I plan to monitor my progress by keep a checklist of all my lessons and if technology was incorporate within each lesson.
• Since I can be kind of hard on myself sometimes, I also plan to partner with a colleague and have them monitor my progress with implementing technology and or digital tools into my lessons.
E- Evaluate
• For this indicator, I plan to evaluate myself by using a checklist of lessons that technology was incorporate into and how effective they showed to be with my students.
• I also plan to work with a colleague in helping me evaluate myself as well.
• If I see that incorporating technology in lessons was successful for a majority of my students, I plan to begin implementing some form of technology in every lesson forward.


Indicator 3c: Communicate relevant information and ideas effectively to students, parents, and peers using a variety of digital-safe media and formats.

G- Goal
• My goal for this indicator is to design a user friendly webpage that parents and students find useful and resourceful.
• Another goal for me is that this webpage serves as a resource for my fellow colleagues as well
A- Action
• To help me achieve this goal, I plan to attend an Epowered training, provided by my district that helps me design a classroom webpage.
M-Monitor
• In regards to monitoring, I plan to use the knowledge that I received from this training to begin designing my webpage for my classroom. I hope to be able to have this webpage up and working after Christmas if everything goes well.
E- Evaluate
• To help me evaluate my progress with this indicator, I will set a deadline that I need to have my webpage completed. Once it is completed, I will share it with my students, parents and colleagues and have them give me feedback on the webpage in regards to how useful and resourceful it was to them.

EDUC 6711 Course Reflection

As I think back over the last few weeks in this course, I can honestly say that I have deepened my knowledge into ways that I can incorporate technology into my classroom. I also learned many different instructional strategies that can be used in the classroom. Overall, this course was very helpful to me and gave me many different ideas and uses of technology in my classroom.

Reflection on prompts:

1. After reading back over my “Personal Theory of Learning” I do not believe that I have any major modifications at this point. The only thing that I would like to being implementing into my teaching practice is more use of technology into the classroom and through this course, I learned various tools that I can use to engage my students and give them those positive learning experiences that are needed.

2. Next school year, I hope to be able to incorporate more uses of technology into my classroom either through the use of the Smartboard or through some of the different technology tools that have been discovered thus far. Two of the technology tools that I would like to use with my student is concept mapping and blogging. Through the use of these two technology tools, I feel that my students will get a variety of learning experiences and will allow them to be more engaged in the learning process.

Through this course, I have learned many different instructional strategies that I can use in my classroom. I use a few of the strategies that we have talked about in this class but there were some that were new to me. I hope to be able to incorporate a few of the new instructional strategies in my classroom in the near future.

3. Two long term goal changes that I would like to make to my instructional practice is to begin incorporating more use of technology into my classroom and obtain more technology devices to use within my classroom. As far as the incorporation of more technology into my classroom, I plan to begin doing that during the upcoming school year. Through out some of my courses, I have learned various organization or websites that I can look into at obtaining technology devices for my classroom at little to no cost. My goal is to begin looking into some of those organizations and websites with some colleagues of mine at the start of school.

I hope to begin working towards many of my long-term goals at the start of next school year!!(2011-2012)

:)

Voice Thread

This week we had to complete a Voice Thread that was based upon an issue we faced either in our classrooms or schools. Please take a look at the problem that I faced in my classroom.

Check it out:) https://voicethread.com/?#u1845824.b2094368.i11159037

Connectivism and Social Learning in Practice

This week we learned about the instructional strategy of cooperative learning. As I read about cooperative learning, I realized that I already implement this strategy within my classroom. The one way that cooperative learning is prevalent in my classroom is through learning centers. During these learning centers, students are placed in groups and are given specific task to work on in each center. The tasks normally align with our classroom curriculum. As far as grouping, I try to vary groups from week to week. Sometimes I group children based up their ability levels and other times I do random grouping. My students enjoy change therefore they accept any change within the classroom.

Through these cooperative learning center groups, students are socially connecting with one another. These learning centers are giving students the opportunity to interact with their peers on a different level than when outside on the playground. It is teaching students the appropriate way to interact with their classmates when working in cooperative learning groups. Through these learning centers students are becoming those MKO (more knowledgeable others) which in turn helps to foster students ZPD (Zone of Proximal Development).

From experience, I can say that my students enjoy working in centers and it teaches them great interaction skills that they may not get elsewhere. It also gives me a break from teaching and them a break from sitting still and listening therefore it's good for both parties involved. :)