Week 5-Evaluating My GAME Plan

I have now been working on my GAME plan for three weeks. In this post, I will evaluate the progress I have made and readjust my plans as necessary.

Goal #1:
Indicator 3d-teachers “model and facilitate effective use of current and emerging digital tools to locate, analyze, evaluate, and use information resources to support research and learning” (International Society for Technology in Education, 2008).

For this goal I have been focusing on helping my students learn how to evaluate web resources. I reread November’s (2008) book on the subject and created a checklist for use in my classroom based around his REAL strategy. (Email me if you want a copy.) The checklist was a great idea I received from commentors here, and I think it will really help students stay focused. I eagerly anticipate using it so that I can see how effective it is at helping students recognize the characteristics of a trustworthy source. I have also designed a lesson for whole group discussion around the Pacific Tree Octopus spoof website. I hope to do this lesson next week before the students start a project in their English class that requires them to research. (We have teaming at my school so this will be very helpful to my colleague.) At that point I will have some information I can use to evaluate the effectiveness of the checklist. The true test will be when students use the strategies on their own, however. So, I need another week to see what I can do to further refine my GAME plan for reaching this goal.


Goal #2:
Indicator 5a-I will “participate in local and global learning communities to explore creative applications of technology to improve student learning” (International Society for Technology in Education, 2008).

Last week I adjusted this GAME plan to focus on joining the Starboard IWB community. I set myself a short-term goal of watching some of the webinars available on the site and a long-term goal of creating a lesson to upload to the lesson community. I did watch one of the webinars and learned about a few new tools such as the stopwatch and screen capture. I have already started using the stopwatch to time my entry tasks. It would have been more helpful however, if I had watched the webinar while next to the IWB. Then I could have practiced while watching the webinar. The more I practice and learn about the board, the more seamlessly I will be able to integrate it into my instructional practice. I still need to discover the requirements for adding a lesson to the Starboard community, though. I would like to see if I can create a lesson that fits with my first goal. So my new plan is to work on fusing the evaluation lesson into the IWB software. That way I can possibly use that as my lesson to upload.

International Society of Technology in Education. (2008). NETS for Teachers. Retrieved January 10, 2011, from http://www.iste.org/Libraries/PDFs/NETS_for_Teachers_2008_EN.sflb.ashx

November, A. (2008). Web literacy for educators. Thousands Oaks: Corwin Press.

Week 4-Monitoring My GAME Plan

In my last post I provided an update of steps I took during the first week of my GAME plan. I also listed resources and information I will need to continue my plan. In this post I will share my progress now that I am two weeks into the implementation of my plan.

Goal #1:
Indicator 3d-teachers “model and facilitate effective use of current and emerging digital tools to locate, analyze, evaluate, and use information resources to support research and learning” (International Society for Technology in Education, 2008).

To reach this goal I have been rereading November’s (2008) book and marking down ideas for instruction. Based on my reading, I have a lesson planned on the domain extensions of URLs for next week. I will use that to lead into a practice evaluation of one of the spoof websites recommended by November. On that list of spoof websites I will definitely include the Pacific Tree Octopus site that was recommended last week by cchiapet. The only problem I am running into is the availability of computers at my school. Right now they are being used for our district assessments and are scheduled to be in other classrooms through February. That means that I will not actually be able to have computers in my room until March. Since I do not want to delay these lessons until then, I plan to conduct most of these lessons on my IWB and turn them into a whole class discussion. This is not ideal, because I fear that some students will tune out the lesson.

As I have not done a lesson on website evaluation before, I would welcome any advice on common barriers for middle school students when tackling this type of project. Thanks ahead of time for your help.

Goal #2:
Indicator 5a-I will “participate in local and global learning communities to explore creative applications of technology to improve student learning” (International Society for Technology in Education, 2008).

For this goal I have been working to connect with or create a community of Hitachi Starboard users. Since last week I have identified 5 people within my district who have a Starboard. I hope to contact them next week to see if we can share tips and lessons. I also went to the Starboard website and looked through the resources they have available. The webinar section looks very helpful and I would like to watch at least one of the archived webinars by the next time I report my progress on this blog. Unfortunately, there are not any pre-made lessons in the Starboard lesson sharing section that I can use. It seems that many of them are designed for Windows operating system which I do not have.

In my original GAME plan for this goal, I wanted to create a wiki to share lessons with other district Starboard users. After viewing the Starboard lesson resource center, though, I plan to concentrate less on a district level community and more on the wider community. I would like to work on a lesson that I can upload to the Starboard resource center. This will benefit many people and hopefully encourage others to add lessons that I can use. I do wonder what the requirements for adding a lesson are though. I will have to investigate that before I start creating a lesson. This modification to my GAME plan will still enable me to reach the NETS indicator, but will focus more on the global community aspect than previously.

International Society of Technology in Education. (2008). NETS for Teachers. Retrieved January 10, 2011, from http://www.iste.org/Libraries/PDFs/NETS_for_Teachers_2008_EN.sflb.ashx
November, A. (2008). Web literacy for educators. Thousands Oaks: Corwin Press.

Week 3-GAME Plan Next Steps

This week I am furthering my GAME plan by identifying necessary resources and information. That way I can begin my action steps and start to monitor my progress toward the goals I set last week.

Goal #1:
Indicator 3d-teachers “model and facilitate effective use of current and emerging digital tools to locate, analyze, evaluate, and use information resources to support research and learning” (International Society for Technology in Education, 2008).

Resources Needed: Computer time for students to practice effective use of digital research tools. Examples of websites that show different aspects of domain names, links, content, and other pieces needed for evaluation practice. If anyone has examples of good websites for evaluation, please let me know!

Information Needed: I plan to read November’s Web Literacy for Educators again (2008). As I read it I will pay attention to suggested teaching tips for implementing the REAL strategy with students. This includes websites for evaluation practice. I will also consult with my colleagues to see if any of them have taught evaluation strategies. If so, I will try to incorporate those strategies into my instruction.

Steps Taken: I have already begun to model evaluation of websites when we are using the internet on the IWB. In particular I have already shown how to look for the author and date in order to determine if the information on the website is trustworthy. I plan to continue this and add in more evaluation strategies, such how to read the URL, during whole class instruction. This is an easy step to take while I work on the two sections mentioned above.

Goal #2:
Indicator 5a-I will “participate in local and global learning communities to explore creative applications of technology to improve student learning” (International Society for Technology in Education, 2008).

Resources Needed: Update of Easiteach software (should be arriving soon according to my tech director). List of others in my district who have Hitachi Starboard.

Information Needed: I need to read the manual and help guides available at the Starboard website. While at the site I will also check to see if there is a community of Starboard users there. I also need to connect with the people on the list who have the Starboard to see if they are interested in creating a community to share resources.

Steps Taken: I have printed out a Quickguide to the Starboard that I need to read and ordered the new software update. These steps will make it easier to begin sharing with my learning communities once I have started to join them.

Thanks for reading more about my GAME plan. I am open to any suggestions or questions you have for next steps. Hopefully, I can get the resources and information by this time next week so that I can start taking solid action toward reaching the NETS indicators I chose.

International Society of Technology in Education. (2008). NETS for Teachers. Retrieved January 10, 2011, from http://www.iste.org/Libraries/PDFs/NETS_for_Teachers_2008_EN.sflb.ashx
November, A. (2008). Web literacy for educators. Thousands Oaks: Corwin Press.

Application 2: My GAME Plan

Self-directed learning is one of those phrases I have heard before, but never really stopped to reflect upon. The readings of the last couple of weeks have affirmed, however, the benefits of actively planning, monitoring, and evaluating my learning. Cennamo acknowledges that through the process of creating and delivering lessons teachers are engaging in self-directed learning (Laureate Education, Inc., 2009). I do not have an established way in which to monitor this process however, so it often ends up providing me with inadequate or ineffective results. In order to more effectively reach my goals for teaching with technology, though, I will utilize a strategy developed by Cennamo, Ross, and Ertmer (2009) called the GAME plan. The GAME plan helps you set goals, take action on those goals, monitor your progress, and then evaluate how you have done in reaching the goal (Cennamo, Ross & Ertmer, 2009). This post will detail a GAME plan for two indicators from the International Society for Technology in Education (2008) that I will work on for the next two months.

The first indicator I will focus on is #3d which states teachers “model and facilitate effective use of current and emerging digital tools to locate, analyze, evaluate, and use information resources to support research and learning” (International Society for Technology in Education, 2008). I have chosen this as my goal because the research process is such an important part of social studies, yet sadly, is an area where my instruction is lacking. To improve I plan to teach my students the REAL strategy for evaluating websites developed by November (2008). I will monitor students as they learn and apply each step to determine whether further assistance is needed. I can then modify my instruction to meet those needs. Once students are ready for independent practice, I will ask them to apply the skills in a research project. If they can successfully choose reliable websites, then I will have met my goal. This is only a rough idea in my head so far, though, so suggestions on how to teach analysis and evaluation of websites is appreciated.

The second indicator I will focus on pertains to my professional development. I would like to work on indicator #5a which states that I will “participate in local and global learning communities to explore creative applications of technology to improve student learning” (International Society for Technology in Education, 2008). This goal is important to me right now because of a grant I was awarded for an interactive whiteboard (IWB). I would like to connect with other teachers in my district who have one as well as globally to get help using the technology. The first action I will take is to find out how many other teachers in my district have a Hitachi Starboard. I will then see if they are willing to set up a collaborative space to share ideas and provide support to each other. The frequency with which we share ideas will be a good indicator of how well I am working toward meeting the goal. If I can learn and apply new strategies successfully from these collaborative discussions, then the learning community will be successful.

So those are my goals for the next two months. If you have any suggestions for improvements to my GAME plans, I would appreciate your feedback.

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.

International Society of Technology in Education. (2008). NETS for Teachers. Retrieved January 10, 2011, from http://www.iste.org/Libraries/PDFs/NETS_for_Teachers_2008_EN.sflb.ashx

Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2009). Promoting Self-Directed Learning with Technology. [Motion Picture]. Integrating Technology Across the Content Areas. Baltimore: Author.

November, A. (2008). Web literacy for educators. Thousands Oaks: Corwin Press.