My G.A.M.E. Plan

Throughout this Masters Program, I have done a lot of self-directed learning, which according to Cennamo, Ross and Ertmer, is "any increase in knowledge, skill, accomplishment, or personal development that an individual selects and brings about by his or her own efforts using any method in any circumstance at any time" (2009, p 2). The authors continue to lay out a GAME plan through which a self-directed learner can break their learning into four main steps:

1. Set Goals
2. Take Action to meet those goals
3. Monitor progress toward achieving goals and
4. Evaluate whether the goals were achieved and Extend your learning to new situations.

When reviewing the NETS-T (National Education Technology Standards for Teachers), I was really excited to know that I had been working hard on so many of the standards. However, a couple still stick out as ones to work on and I realize that I will encorporate the GAME plan to improve in these areas.

I have known for a while now, that I needed to work on the standard "participate in local and global learning communities to explore creative applications of technology to improve student learning" (Standard 5a).  In order to prepare my students for a global environment, I too have to extend myself beyond the boundaries of my own school.  My first goal was to go back to school for a masters in this area, which I have done.  Now, I want to incorporate collaboration between classrooms, whether inside of my school or around the country and world.  I will be going to a conference this summer at the Center for Innovative Teachers, in San Francisco, called the Integrated Technology Symposium 2009 for School Leaders: Digital Tools & Practices to Enhance Learning Across the Curriculum.  I am hoping to network with other teachers and build some contacts with which to collaborate during the next school year.  I definitely see this as a great additional resource for me within my action portion of  my game plan.  I have been monitoring my progress within my classroom.  I can already see growth in my ability to incorporate technology into my classroom.  With my new found confidence, I will be ready to go to this conference this summer and be able to communicate well and build working relationships. Then once I try "global collaboration" I will be able to evaluate how it went and decide if I need to continue or do things differently in the future.

My second goal and area with which to improve, would be standard 2a, "design or adapt relevant learning experiences that incorporate digital tools and resources to promote student learning and creativity."  Although I have already been working to this goal and have been monitoring my progress, my evaluation of my progress tells me that I need to extend myself in this area.  I know that I can do more in this area.  As part of the technology committee at my school, I have helped get projectors in every classroom and a variety of other things.  I am lucky to be only one of three teachers with a Smart Board.  My goal will now be to figure out a way to get all of the "old" computers on campus when they start to upgrade this summer.  This way I will be able to have small groups using computers at any time within my class period, rather than relying on scheduling time for the computer lab.  We only have one lab, and getting in there is difficult.  I want to start using Excel for data manipulation, Webspiration for concept mapping at the beginning or the end of a chapter, continue to do a better job with blogging and do more than one Wiki page per year.  Having more computers in the classroom will help me organize and plan my lessons so that I can incorporate technology to support content learning.  As Cennamo, Ross and Ertmer tell us, "technology can be used to support each step of the process: to gather information, to collect and analyze data, to synthesize results, and to present findings to interested stakeholders" (2009, p 30). 


Next year, I think that my students will help me to set goals, to take action, to monitor progress and then to evaluate how things are going.  I look forward to continuing on my path of self-directed learning and integrating technology into my classroom to support content learning.


References:

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.

National Education Standards for Teachers (NETS-T) located at http://www.iste.org/Content/NavigationMenu/NETS/ForTeachers/


2008Standards/NETS_T_Standards_Final.pdf