Update to my GAME plan, week 4, EDUC-6713

Thank you to my colleagues for providing some great feedback and links to other sites for information that can assist me in the pursuit of getting some things changed in the school district that I work for. I know that I am facing an uphill battle, however, some information shared by you has opened-up new possibilities and ideas.

In an effort to continue my request that the school district allow blogs and wikis, I plan to share some comments posted, and will leave identities anonymous. I will show the powers to be that technology surrounds us all and should be embraced and used in appropriate fashions when and where appropriate. I do not feel that I need to modify my plan at this time, but will continue to surge forward with my request.

I have learned that the district I work for appears to be going in the opposite direction with respect to using blogs and wikis as to those of my colleagues in this course. It seems to me that there are no major issues from other districts with allowing this type of communication tool in a classroom environment from other districts and therefore, should be granted for my courses.

The big question is, how to you convince the bureaurcracy of the district to make changes? It seems to me that a lot of policy is put in place from educators who have not been in the classroom for many years, thinking that the policy is the best for everyone. It is frustrating, and I am seeking help from anyone who can give advice.

Cennamo, Ross, and Ertmer, (2009), state, “Use blogs to achieve an instructional goal. Blogs can help students practice and demonstrate different styles of communication, especially through writing” (Cennamo, Ross, & Ertmer, 2009). Having a blog for my class will not only help me, it will help my students and their parents see what they are learning and how they are applying their skills with the projects that they are working on.

Reference:

Cennamo, K., Ross, J & Ertmer, P. (2009). Technology integration for meaningful classroom

            use: A standards-based approach. (Laureate Education, Inc., Custom ed.). Belmont, CA:

            Wadsworth, Cengage Learning.

GAME Plan Week - 3 EDUC 6713 Integrating Technology Across the Content Areas

The intended learning strategy I would like to incorporate into my next student activity is the use of affective networking. Affective networking, as stated in Technology Integration for Meaningful Classroom Use by Cennamo, Ross, and Ertmer, states: “By offering choices of media and tools within the scope of your required content, you are supporting students’ affective networks” (Cennamo, Ross, & Ertmer, 2009). A valuable resource I am going to pursue is access to a classroom blog or wiki page. Currently, my school district blocks access to such sites and I feel that having an online collaborative tool would be beneficial to student learning.

To get started on this process, I will begin with my department chair with the request and see what happens. I already have the technology in place to allow this to happen, I feel that the technology should and can be used to help the students socially interact about class related issues and topics. I will do some background research on other districts in the metro area that allow teachers to have a classroom blog or wiki and share my findings with whom ever makes the decision on these matters.

By having a classroom blog or wiki page, my students will be able to share what they have been able to accomplish, ask questions, etc. to help each other out with course work. They are already doing this through social media sites such as facebook, but I feel that a class site to discuss specific items related to an assignment or project would be appropriate and should be allowed.

I am reaching out to my fellow colleagues about this issue. Have any of you been successful with a classroom blog or wiki site? Have any of you run into issues from the local school or school district about creating one?  I plan to start this process next month when school starts back and classes begin. Any help on the issue would be greatly appreciated.

Reference:

Cennamo, K., Ross, J & Ertmer, P. (2009). Technology integration for meaningful

            Classroom use: A standards-based approach. (Laureate Education, Inc.,

            Custom ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning.

My GAME Plan

My GAME plan: Video Announcements

NETS-T standard 1. Facilitate and Inspire Student Learning and Creativity

Teachers use their knowledge of subject matter, teaching and learning, and technology to facilitate experiences that advance student learning, creativity, and innovation in both face-to-face and virtual environments.

a.  promote, support, and model creative and innovative thinking and inventiveness.

NETS-T standard 4. Promote and Model Digital Citizenship and Responsibility.

Teachers understand local and global societal issues and responsibilities in an evolving digital culture and exhihit legal and ethical behavior in their professional practices.

c. promote and model digital etiquette and responsible social interactions related to the use of technology and information.

These are two standards that can help strengthen my confidence in my vdieo broadcast course. In order to work on the these two standards, I will develop a video production lesson plan that requires criticial thinking and self-direction from my students. After modeling how students will plan, storyboard, film and edit, I will assign the students to small groups and give them several topics to choose from. The topics will be about public service annoucemnets.

Students will promote and model appropriate public service announcements that affect their everyday lives. They will address the importance of their announcement through a video commercial. During the process, I will address with the students the importance of digital citizenship and responsibility.

I will monitor student progress on a daily basis to see how the students are progressing with the assignment. When the project is complete and the video are shown to the class, a rubric will be used for evaluation. I will also take the opportunity to have an open dialog with my students to see what worked and what can be improved on. Hopefully through the evaluations and open dialog we can determine if the overall goals of the project were met and if not, how I can change things to meet the goals.   


Reference:
International Society for Technology in Education, (2008). National education standards for teachers. (NETS-T). Retrieved on July 4, 2011 from
http://www.iste.org/Libraries/PDFs/NETS_for_Teachers_2008_EN.sflb.ashx