Reflection

My GAME plan was developed to enable me to respond more effectively to student lack of self-confidence about the use of technology, and to their resistance to work collaboratively with anyne except their best friends; to increase my level of engagement with peers who either want to know more about how to use technology in their classrooms, or who have information to share with me; and to engage parents more directly in classroom projects as participants, rather than as bystanders or peopele who micromanage their children by doing their work for them.

In the first area, I was able to encourage students who had never used GarageBand before to try it, however I left options such as using Powerpoint and delivering a face-to-face presentation or using Voice Thread open. Most students were able to successfully complete projects, however there was one class that remained highly resistant, and with whom I had more difficulty. I resolved this problem by assigning peer mentors who had already completed projects to assist them with the technology. In this sense they were exposed to collaborative learning as a necessary approach. The problem with this class was that probably the project was too overwhelming in the sense that they were unused to research projects, so they had the double burden of learning how to conduct research as well as learning ew technological skills.

I have contributed to the technological conversation in my department by introducing peers to blogging, to converting printable documents into documents that can be completed online, and by showing them how to use Google Docs and programs like Wordle, which students really enjoy. In addition, I presented a workshop at a district symposium on innovative ideas, was able to overcome technical difficulties, and showed teachers a simple blog site called Kidblog (kidblog.org).

In terms of parent involvement, the research project my students were working on was about their respective cultures; some students turned in amazingly detailed work about their family heritage; one boy filmed his mother making arepas, a Colombian snack. Since i love to travel, I allowed some of my students to use photographs I took in Rome and Costa Rica. One of my Italian students is interested in theater, so I suggested that she do a project on Commedia dell'Arte; it turned out that her mother years ago had dome some wonderful drawings of all the principal characters, which I scanned for her Voice Thread project. For the next phase of our yearlong autobiographical project, a couple of parents have already committed to communicating with our class via Skype about the work they do. What i have learned through this course is that flexibility and adaptability are key to going beyond the limits imposed by walls, and allowing the imagination rein.

In terms of immediate adjustments to my instructional practice, I am creating a wiki with my 7th graders about a book they are reading. We began by brainstorming questions they have about the book, and i am assigning research and blog discussions based on their questions. Throughout the course I have been steadily applying new information to classroom instruction, and I have learned much from reading the blogs and wiki pages of my peers. My ELL students have been using Inspiration to plan their writing prompts; I can see that having the visual in front of them really helps them to organize their thoughts.

This has been a very enjoyable and informative course, and I am sure that information I have learned here will follow me throughout my professional career.

Game Plan and NETS-S

The GAME Plan has helped me value the importance of setting specific goals for students in terms of their proficiency with technology and their progress in developing literacy and collaborative skills. Students can be the most critical of audiences for their peers, but with a rubric for peer evaluation this process rests within parameters that are safe for students who are sensitive to criticism and yet want constructive feedback. This is one of the wonderful parts of social networking: the ability to share in the editing, proofreading, and finally, in revising a piece of writing, or any other creation.


When students hear their voices for the first tine, they are sometimes shocked or surprised, so digital storytelling is a wonderful opportunity for them to get to themselves on many different levels. One of the prerequisites for understanding other cultures is in fact to understand as much as possible about oneself, and one's immediate environment. The collaborative process is actually uses prior knowledge of self as a springboard to discover more about the world, rippling out from self to include many other cultures. This a key goal of the Communication and Collaboration group of NETS-S standards. I will constantly try to develop this awareness of our microcosm of world diversity in the classroom.

Problem-solving and decision-making area also important survival elements in our world, and teaching this skill is critical if we are to guide students to construct a world that is sustainable, both in terms of the environment and in terms of global cooperation and social responsibility. If I can model to my students how to communicate effectively and how to use technology as a fast and efficient tool for communication. One of the NETS_T standards sets addressed in my personal GAME plan is Engage in Professional Growth and Leadership, and this is reflected both in various standards in NETS-S, such as collaboration, digital citizenship and critical thinking.

It is also essential that students grasp the concept that while the Internet is an invaluable resource for information and creating knowledge, it is not always infallible, and that guidelines are in place on how to navigate safely and successfully through waters that are at times turbulent. Helping students to acquire valid research skills is an extremely important part of being an educator, whether these skills are used to find the best possibile product or to develop a cure for disease.

GAME Plan Progress

This past Saturday I participated in an annual "idea expo" set up by my county's education foundation. This was the first time I participated as a presenter of an idea for which I was awarded a grant. For the first time, I found myself in front of other teachers, showing them how to blog on a website that I use with my students, showing them also how to create a Voice Thread, and discussing how I integrated this technology into my idea, which is a year-long student autobiography incorporating reflective, narrative and expository writing as well as a research-based multimedia presentation.

During the same day I went to workshops presented by other teachers, and understood more about how to integrate technology quickly into my subject area. Going back to the goals I set for myself in terms of the NETS-T standards fro engaging in professional growth and leadership, I feel proud of the fact that I was able to get over my fears about delivering materials to adults, and in spite of technical difficulties at the site (a local university) was able to present my ideas and even fuse them with tips i had picked up during the day from other presenters. I feel that I extended my learning by adding to my presentation a wealth of ideas I gleaned from my master's course, and I openly told the attendees that I had just learned some of the tools I was presenting, and that I am constantly trying out new resources.

I am still working on seamlessly infusing technology into the curriculum, and on the collaborative work with students. I noticed that students really appreciate it when teachers work with them instead of limiting themselves to delivering information; this is how I am interpreting the NETS standard that reads, "model collaborative knowledge construction by engaging in learning with students." I have core groups of students in each of my classes that have really bought into collaborative online learning, but there are other students who have not, and my goal is to reach those students as well. I was able to work closely together with a group of 7th grade boys whose assignment was to analyze a commercial, design a new commercial for the same product with a different audience, analyze it according to its persuasive elements, and then make the commercial. They were having a very difficult time getting started, but when I showed them the basics in GarageBand and iMovie, they took over and produced a fine piece of work, in which one of them was even filmed doing a backflip as part of their script. Some of the analysis was sacrificed, though, and my goal is to ensure that none of the content gets lost in the joy of using the resources.

I still really need to work with getting more of my colleagues on board with blogging and social networking: one major stumbling block here is that most teachers, unlike me, do not have a laptop cart in their rooms, and are usually unable to gain access to one. The media center, with its bank of computers, is very difficult to book, which leaves most teachers with virtually no access for students. I really would like to find the mega-grant to change this situation, so if any of you have some practical suggestions, please let me know. So I suppose a "new' (or rather, renewed) goal is to find the means to update technology in our school, since it is threatened with "extinction" (lack of funding).

Maintaining the GAME Plan

I just found out that a conversation I had with my principal some months ago bore some fruit. I had mentioned Voice Thread to her, and said that I think it was unreasonable to have this tool blocked by our district. She asked me to email her the link for this program, and then I did not hear anything more about it. Since my students are working at the moment on research projects with multimedia products, I thought that I would see if Voice Thread was still unavailable: it was finally available, and today I was able to show my students how to use it. For some 6th graders, creating a podcast from Garageband or even a Powerpoint was daunting, so they were happy to have an alternative that was somewhat easier, yet just as creative. This is another way for them to collaborate as learners, thinkers, and writers engaged in the writing process; what this means for my Game plan is that I have gained an effective tool to utilize with my goal of having students work cooperatively. I still need to become better acquainted with the program and become better at using it.

I also subscribe to the We Are Teachers feed, and read ideas there; this week I joined a competition with the objective of coming up with a lesson plan that incorporates visual arts with language arts.
(http://www.weareteachers.com/ideas/partnerask?grantId=49). I feel this moves my GAME plan forward because it motivates me to read about the ideas of other teachers who are integrating technology into their lesson plans, and at the saem time share my own ideas.

New questions that have arisen in the course of working on this project with my students are that, while two classes are highly motivated and have become used to thinking more independently, one class needs far more scaffolding in terms of developing "inner" timetables because they are more intimidated by the prospect of constructing their own work, and at the same time they find it difficult to work together collaboratively. I am going to have incorporate some small group activities that have nothing to do with their projects; what Ertmer terms "posthole" activities. It almost seems that I am going backwards, but this may be the only way to go forward.

Ertmer, P., & Simons, K. (Spring 2006). Jumping the PBL implementation hurdle: Supporting the efforts of K-12 teachers. The Interdisciplinary Journal of Problem-Based Learning, 1(1), 40-54. Retrieved from http://docs.lib.purdue.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1005&context=ijpbl.