GAME Plan Status

When reviewing my GAME plan, I think about new ideas and resources, modifications to action plan, new learning, and questions that I have.  For my first goal of using digital devices and resources to promote creativity and learning, I have been maintaining charged devices in literacy and math centers for students to use various applications in order to learn and showcase learning (ISTE, 2008).  The resource I used was already available to me.  However, I am always looking for creative applications that offer higher order thinking and creativity.  I learned that there are more engaging applications than PicCollage.  For example, the students can use Toontastic puppet show application.   I have modified my action plan to include Toontastic on the devices and promote the use of Toontastic for digital storytelling because the students have more flexibility to show their creativity with voice, movement, and expression.  These features were not available on PicCollage. 

Regarding my goal to communicate more effectively with students, parents, and peers with digital media, I have gained some new information (ISTE, 2008).  I have spoken with several parents to determine the frequency in which they are able to visit the blog.  More parents than I expected were unable to view the blog due to no internet access or unfamiliarity with accessing blogs.  My idea as a result of this is to modify my action plan to include available times for parents to come to school to get a tutorial on how to access the blog.  Another idea is to allow parents to use a school device to access the blog via quick response code at certain times of the day.  I feel that this would allow for more parent involvement.  Also, posting a quick response code would allow students, siblings, parents, and other teachers to access the blog with one scan of the reader.  I have learned that providing multiple ways to access information is the key to parent involvement and communication.  I would like to ask my colleagues for input as simple, digital ways to communicate with families.

My third goal is to encourage creativity, innovation, and inventiveness (ISTE, 2008).  I have allowed the students to express themselves creatively using videocameras.  However, this activity that I tried was not using technology in a creative way.  It was more about being creative and videorecording the experience.  Even though my goal was not based in using technology, I would like to modify my goal to include technology in the learning experiences.  However, I am having a difficult time finding technological resources that my students are capable of using.  I thought about finding a flip book resource that is user friendly or another application designed for students in prekindergarten or kindergarten.  Can anybody provide resource ideas that will help promote creativity, innovation, and inventiveness with young students?

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

Ashley Davis

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.

GAME Plan

I have reviewed the International Society for Technology in Education Standards to determine the indicators on which I can improve my teaching practice and create a GAME plan (International Society for Technology in Education, 2008).  One goal I have is to “[d]esign or adapt relevant learning experiences that incorporate digital tools and resources to promote student learning and creativity”.  One action I will take to achieve the goal is to use personal devices during small group instruction.  I have realized that I do not offer as many opportunities as I should for students to interact with technology for meaningful learning experiences.  For example, I will allow students to create digital artwork including letters and captured images of items that begin with each letter.  I may use these digital work samples to create a digital book on a personal device for the students to read in the library center.  I will monitor progress by ensuring that all students have an opportunity to use the devices frequently to create artifacts to showcase learning in a media of their choice given various applications.  I will post their work to our class blog to promote students using the technology.  My learning will be evaluated and extended after seeing the work the students create and determining how the students can be guided to use a larger variety of digital tools for creativity and showcase of learning.

Another goal that I have is to “[c]ommunicate relevant information and ideas effectively to students, parents, and peers using a variety of digital age media and formats” (International Society for Technology in Education, 2008).  An action I will take to achieve this goal is to use the classroom blog to communicate events, exciting achievements, and student work with parents and students.  Since my students are generally incapable of searching for our blog, I plan to create a quick response code linked to our blog for students to be able to see our blog just by scanning the code.  I will monitor my progress by communicating with parents to gain feedback on the blog as to what can be added.  My learning will be evaluated by taking the parent comments and the frequency of students viewing the blog into consideration to determine the effectiveness of the communication.  Next, I will extend my learning by adjusting the blog components to ensure parent satisfaction and student engagement.

The next goal that I have is to “[p]romote, support, and model creative and innovative thinking and inventiveness” (ISTE source).  The actions I will take to achieve this goal are to encourage students to create something different than their peers, look outside the classroom for student inspiration such as at a nearby park, and post work that is truly innovative to encourage individual thought.  I will monitor the progress by looking at the work of my students to determine how including these actions evolves their work into more creative work.  Then, I will evaluate the students’ work and my teaching practices to determine how I can change my teaching and the classroom environment into a more creative classroom.  The goal can be extended by allowing more media to be used for creativity.

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

Reflection on Learning

As I reviewed the learning theory assignment that I completed in week one of this course, I realized that I would make some modifications.  I still feel that learning occurs through meaningful experiences.  However, in this course, I have learned that there are multitudes of technology resources available to use in conjunction with the nine clusters of effective teaching strategies as mentioned by Dr. Debra Pickering (Laureate Education Inc., 2011b).  In addition, I have learned about experiences that involve technology that the students use for their own learning as opposed to the teacher dominating the technology.  One adaptation I would make to my learning theory would be that I do not need to create learning experiences for my students.  They can create their own learning experiences.  My students ask several questions each day.  I have decided that much of their learning could stem from their natural questioning.  Learning, in the real world, does extend from our natural questioning.  Thus, I should use technology to allow my students to learn and showcase their learning about things that interest them currently.  I often assume my students are interested in topics, so I create week-long units about them.  I have realized that I need to let them tell me about their interests.

One major adjustment I am making to my instructional practice is turning instructional technology into learning technology.  Instead of playing videos for the whole class and standing at the front of the room to talk about the video, I can allow students to do their own research.  One specific way I will do this is by posting a picture of chickens and eggs next to a QR code of a hatching chick.  The picture is a nonlinguistic representation of the content that the students will explore.  Pitler, Hubbell, and Kuhn (2012) explain the importance of using pictures as nonlinguistic representations to assist in the students’ understanding (p. 105).  The students can look at images such as the chicken and eggs to determine which video they would like to watch.  Then, they will write what happened in the video to summarize their research.  This is more engaging for the students because they would get to choose their topic.  Also, the students would be conducting and summarizing their research without the help of the teacher.

In my classroom, we do several concept maps to sort and organize ideas.  I will begin using digital concept mapping instead of using chart paper to save paper and allow my students to manipulate the concept map instead of me doing the writing.  They can use pictures.  I would like to use virtual field trips in the classroom.  Dr. Michael Orey describes how virtual field trips create experiences for students: “we can create this episodic memory, we can create a rich experience, and this rich experience could be the foundational experience in this network of ideas that a child can have when they’re learning the content (Laureate Education Inc., 2011a).  There are a few virtual field trips that are age appropriate for my students.  I would like for my students to create these field trips.  Another tool that I will begin using is VoiceThread.  I will be using it to have students comment on each other’s writing.  I will post pictures of their writing on the VoiceThread and have them read their writing into the VoiceThread.  Then, I will have the students post comments on VoiceThreads.  I really found it fairly easy to navigate the VoiceThread app on my iPhone.  Thus, I plan to use iPods and iPads for the students to create VoiceThreads and post comments.

One long-term goal I have to improve my instructional practice is to create an environment where the students can easily access technology to use for their own learning.  Dr. Michael Orey explains that “learning tools are…about what the child can do with the technology” (Laureate Education Inc., 2011c).  My plan to achieve this goal is to make the iPads or iPods available for the students to use to learn and to showcase learning.  I have already begun this process by making the technology readily available by encouraging the students to take pictures of the work they are proud of which will be showcased as a slideshow on our classroom blog.  Also, I am allowing the students to learn how to create digital presentations using a video camera.  The next step I am taking is to provide QR links to virtual fieldtrips or instructional videos for the students to use to learn.  Then, I will allow students to create their own virtual field trips of places we go or documentaries of things we do at school.  Another goal I have is to create a global learning environment by finding classrooms in different parts of the world to communicate.  In prekindergarten, students need to appreciate other cultures.  Interacting with people in different parts of the world would give my students the awareness of places different than our community.  In order to achieve both of these goals, I have discussed the goals with my colleagues at school.  Hopefully, we can change the way we teach to a more student-led, technology rich environment.

References

Laureate Education, Inc. (Producer). (2011a). Program six: Spotlight on technology: Virtual field trips [Video webcast]. Bridging learning theory, instruction and technology. Retrieved from http://laureate.ecollege.com/ec/crs/default.learn?CourseID=5700267&CPURL=laureate.ecollege.com&Survey=1&47=2594577&ClientNodeID=984650&coursenav=0&bhcp=1

Laureate Education, Inc. (Producer). (2011b). Program eleven: Instructional strategies, Part one [Video webcast]. Bridging learning theory, instruction and technology. Retrieved from http://laureate.ecollege.com/ec/crs/default.learn?CourseID=5700267&CPURL=laureate.ecollege.com&Survey=1&47=2594577&ClientNodeID=984650&coursenav=0&bhcp=1

Laureate Education, Inc. (Producer). (2011c). Program thirteen: Technology: Instructional tool vs. learning tool [Video webcast]. Bridging learning theory, instruction and technology. Retrieved from http://laureate.ecollege.com/ec/crs/default.learn?CourseID=5700267&CPURL=laureate.ecollege.com&Survey=1&47=2594577&ClientNodeID=984650&coursenav=0&bhcp=1

Pitler, H., Hubbell, E. R., & Kuhn, M. (2012). Using technology with classroom instruction that

works (2^nd ed.). Alexandria, VA: ASCD.