Carrying Out My GAME Plan

As I take a moment to review the three goals of my GAME plan to improve my teaching practice, I think about the resources I need to have available, additional information I need from colleagues or students, and the steps I have attempted so far.  To carry out my first goal of incorporating more digital tools to promote student learning and creativity, I will need to maintain charged personal devices for the students to use during small group time (ISTE, 2008).  So far, I have shown the students how to find letters in the classroom or create letters with the toys.  Some of the students, using their creativity, have created collages of letters using the PicCollage application.  One student went around the classroom taking pictures of the letter “A”.  She found several of the letter “A” to take pictures for her collage.  I encouraged other students who began taking pictures of other letters.  Variety in technology is important (Laureate Education Inc., 2009b).  John Ross mentions that teachers usually can, as I would like to, attend professional development to learn about technology that is available to use to assist the students in showing their skills (Laureate Education Inc., 2009b).  I would like to have some additional information from students about what they know and their creative talents as I collect their work samples.

The next goal I have is to communicate information to students, parents, and peers using digital media (ISTE, 2008).  My plan for this goal is to effectively use the classroom blog as a way of communication.  Before using the blog, I decided to use the Remind 101 application to send emails and text messages to parents.  I did not receive as much response as I would have liked to.  As I attempt to use the blog for communication, I feel that I will be more successful since more media can be posted to the blog such as announcements, pictures, and videos.  I feel that I will receive more response with more exciting media posted.  In addition, I could post videos including content or instructions for students and parents to view at home (Laureate Education Inc., 2009a).  This would help extend the learning to the home environment.  The additional information I need is feedback from the parents about what they would like to see on the blog and how often they will be able to access the blog, if at all.

My third goal is promoting creative, innovative, and inventive thinking (ISTE, 2008).  I was able to provide the students with a writing prompt about how to catch a leprechaun.  The students mostly came up with some variation of putting the leprechauns in a box or cage.  I realized that their writing samples were not very creative, innovative, or inventive.  Thus, I realized that I should enhance their imaginations.  I took the students outside to the playground and the wooded area near the playground on a leprechaun hunt.  Outside, we looked around at the imaginary rainbows which were only imaginary and pots of gold which were tree stumps.  I had the students look for an imaginary leprechaun and try to catch him.  The nature elements sparked their imagination and gave them ideas of how to catch the leprechaun.  Next, I plan to use iPods for the students to create skits showing how to catch a leprechaun.  I would like more information on how to create more creative environments to engage the students in their own creativity and inventiveness.

References

International Society for Technology in Education. (2008). National education standards for

teachers (NETS-T). Retrieved from http://www.iste.org/standards/nets-for-teachers

Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2009a). Integrating technology across the

content areas: Meeting students' needs with technology, part 1. Baltimore, MD: Author.

Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2009b). Integrating technology across the

content areas: Meeting students' needs with technology, part 2. Baltimore, MD: Author.