Monitoring My Progress: GAME Plan

Thus far I am making what I deem to be fairly good progress in meeting the goals I have establish in my GAME plan.  First I set out to further my ability to strengthen ISTE standard 1b regarding the presentation of real-world issues and problem solving opportunities for my students.  Next, I established a focus of action in regards to improving use of collaborative tools to aid students in clarifying understanding during the creative process. 

       In the initial stages of the action part of my GAME plan, I discovered what I believed to be the “holy grail” of resources for a unit that I was planning to teach about Heroes in connection with two works of literature.  This web resources was a fully developed website titled MyHero.com equipped with everything I would need to guide my students through a problem-based learning experience.  However, my action plan called for me to strengthen my overall practice of providing these real-world experiences throughout the school year at many optimal points in my curriculum.  I ventured back into the world of online exploration and have been able to identify many viable websites that call for students to immerse themselves in the real-world connections tied to many of the novels we read in the 9^th grade English classes.  Many of these online resources are WebQuests that already map out the context, task, performance steps, assessment, and resources to accomplish the real world tasks.  It is a tremendous blessing to discover a problem-based unit that has been fully developed.  However, the frequently missing component in these resources was the consideration of formative assessments that would help the teacher measure student understanding and facilitate further instruction before the final product is complete.  This indispensible area of instruction would need to be fully considered if I were to use these resources. 

         My second goal for incorporating more collaborative tools to aid in the instructional process has been a somewhat more difficult road to tackle.  While I understand that there are numerous software programs that now offer collaborative opportunities, some are more authentic to the task than others.  For example, I have explored the website Turnitin.com for use in both a collaborative and reflective fashion.  However, I feel this is an artificial and somewhat forced platform to ask students to collaborate.  Its advantages are that the teacher can easily manage and facilitate the discussion ensuring originality and focus with the use of attached rubrics.  Its disadvantage is the fact that the collaboration and reflection happens in a separate platform from the authentic task platform.  Instead, the use of Google Docs or Apps has the ability to serve many purposes in the same space.  Students can create, revise, share, offer feedback, and reflect using the same online tool and space.  Additionally, teachers can use the add-ons “Goobric” and “Doctopus” to facilitate the use of rubrics with assignments they are requiring of their students.  I also feel that the use of blogs should always remain authentic to the task that is presented to students as well.  For example, if students are to participate in blog discussions, these discussions should whenever possible be authentic discussions of a topic related to the content in the real world as opposed to a blog created for the class specifically. 

I have been utilizing a table that tracks the websites and technology resources I have discovered as well as their purpose in connection to my curriculum.  I could create an additional column in this table that tackles the questions that I must consider when using this resource including the pros and cons. 

Carrying Out My GAME Plan: Resources & Tools

In my previous post, I discussed my initial GAME plan for strengthening my practice in the area of technology integration.  I decided to focus specifically on the area of “engaging students in exploring real-world issues and solving authentic problems using digital tools and resources” and “promote student reflection using collaborative tools to reveal and clarify students’ conceptual understanding and thinking, planning, and creative process” (ISTE, 2008).  At this stage, it is important to consider the resources and information I will need to carry out my GAME plan.

I have already begun to research viable website that would support my efforts to bring more real-world, authentic applications to the Literature of my curriculum.  One website that I believe would provide a direct link to a real world issue in connection with two of the texts we read is called MyHero.com.  This website is devoted to raising awareness of the heroes that walk or have walked among us in an effort to inspire every day citizens to rise up to meet the challenges presented in today’s world.  Both novels I read in the first marking period tackle this concept of what defines a hero and the challenges a hero faces on their journey.  This website houses a variety of multi-media tools that will allow me to facilitate this unit.  The website offers a plethora of sample webpages created by students that focus on a particular hero and their attributes.  The website contains tutorials on how to create a webpage, articles devoted to various topics around the main focus of heroes, and benchmark lessons that will help students to think more deeply about their selections and enhance their writing. 

Throughout the unit I am developing geared towards Heroes, I will need to provide opportunities for students to collaborate and reflect on their process.  Students will need regular access to both a computer and the internet to conduct the research on their hero, consult the MyHero.com website, construct the content of their webpage. Collaboration can be made possible using Turnitin.com which students are already familiar with to aid in discussion among peers.  Turnitin.com’s discussion board feature can be used as a forum for students to share their ideas, obstacles, and help each other to discover new ways to address the obstacles they are encountering.  I can also use Turnitin.com as a formative assessment tool where students submit evidence of certain checkpoints or benchmarks in their work progress.  This will allow me the opportunity to adjust instruction as needed depending on the outcome of the work submitted.  Finally, Turnitin.com can be used for Reflection both during the process and at the end of the process in order enhance metacognitive thinking opportunities.  Everything students submit through Turnitin.com can be initially developed using Google applications that allow for student choice in format including hyperlinks, images, tables, etc.  Google has a direct relationship with Turnitin.com which makes it easy for students to upload to Turnitin.com directly from their Google Drive. 

I am excited to explore this GAME plan authentically with my students in order to see who motivated they are to think about this real-world concept and tackle the technology learning opportunities I am setting before them. 

References:

Standards for Teachers. (2008).  Retrieved July 15, 2015, from

http:  http://www.iste.org/standards/ISTE-standards/standards-for-teachers.

Strengthening My Practice with a GAME Plan

It is important not just for students who are the future workforce of the world, but also for those who educate these students to be life long learners committed to strengthening their own abilities in order to be of service.  There are several of the ISTE standards that I found myself gravitating towards, but the standard that I believe could have the most tremendous impact on my teaching practice immediately is the first.  Facilitating and inspiring student learning and creativity should be second nature to most teachers, but as technology evolves teachers should be working to enhance their practice to meet the needs of student in a technology-rich environment. 

The two indicators I have selected to focus directly on for my GAME plan is standard 1b “engage students in exploring real-world issues and solving authentic problems using digital tools and resources” and standard 1c “promote student reflection using collaborative tools to reveal and clarify students’ conceptual understanding and thinking, planning, and creative processes” (ISTE, 2008).  Since I have been teaching English Literature in a very traditional manner for the majority of my tenure, it is important that explore the ways in which topics and themes discussed in the literature can be contextualized to allow students to tackle real world problems and produce opportunities for reflection and collaboration using technology.

There are many actions and avenues to reaching the goals I have set for enhancing my technology instruction.  In order to collect a variety of ideas for engaging my students in real-world problems connected to the literature we are reading, I can first conduct a search using the Internet to seek out both project-based learning ideas and WebQuests already developed in conjunction with the literature I am working with throughout the course of the school year.  Once I have exhausted by search using web search tools, I can consult professional websites such as National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) linked to my discipline to see if their archives reveal ideas for real-world connections.  Finally, I could search teacher blogs or lesson plan websites such as Teachers Pay Teachers to explore ideas in connection to my goal.

 In regards to my goal for promoting student reflection and collaboration tools, I plan to first explore the technology tools I am already familiar with and extend my understanding of these tools and their capacity for collaboration.  For example, our school uses Turnitin.com for writing submissions, and I remember seeing a “Discussion” tab that appears to be a collaborative tool that I have never explored.  I also remember Turnitin.com offering an option for teachers to create a reflection paper as a follow-up to previously submitted assignments but have never endeavored to fully understand this features potential.  Next, I will to learn strategies for establishing a framework or protocol for reflection and collaboration including such things as routines, rubrics, policies, and protocols.  With this need established, I will also search professional websites, the Internet, and commercial educator websites for tools and ideas for utilizing technology to establish these frameworks. 

Monitoring my progress with reaching the two goals I have set for myself could be an arduous task because I will be encountering such vast amounts of information and potential tools.  I will need to develop a system for tracking both the progress towards my goals and organizing both the information and the sources of the information.  I could easily develop a table or spreadsheet that contains essential questions, headings, and subheadings that address each one of the goals and its components in relation to my content.  Any time I find information or a new questions arises, I could import data or alter the table/spreadsheet to accommodate the new data.  Additionally, I am notorious for finding excellent resources online but failing to record my sources so that I can return to the content I have found in an expeditious manner.  I will use bookmarking tools available through my web browser to monitor my sources and mark them for further use and reference. 

Evaluation of my learning is perhaps the most important task in the GAME plan because it allows for a clear understanding of the progress I have made and the areas in which I will need to continue development. The best tool for measuring my progress would be to return to the table/spreadsheet previously mentioned to notice any gaps.  Additionally, I could dissect the standard and indicators I have chosen to really judge which aspects I have reached and which areas I could use further development.  With standard 1c, I should really be sure that I have tackled all aspects instead of globally addressing the standard. For example, have I focused more on collaborative tools for conceptual understanding and not quite given enough focus to collaborative tools use for the creative process?  Producing a written reflection will allow for me to thoroughly relay my thoughts regarding the evaluation of my learning and potential serve to help others who are attempting to strengthen their teaching practice in similar ways.  Publishing my reflection on my blog will allow the knowledge and skills I have learned to be transferred and accessible to other educators.

References:

Cennamo, K., Ross, J., & Ertmer, P. (2009). Technology Integration for Meaningful Classroom Use:      A Standards Based Approach (Laureate Education, Inc. ed.). Mason, Ohio: Cengage Learning.

Standards for Teachers. (2008). Retrieved July 8, 2015, from http://www.iste.org/standards/ISTE-           standards/standards-for-teachers