Adjustments

This course has encouraged me in a lot of different ways over the past 8 weeks. I feel that I have a good grasp of why we should be seeking out emerging technologies and doing our best to implement them in schools. I also feel that I understand the work that goes into learning a new technology and getting it to be effective for students. 21st century learners will thrive in a school where emerging technologies are embraced.

I have been chosen to be a member at my school of a technology committee in which we are discussing 21st century learning skills and emerging technologies. With this course I am definitely the most prepared out of all my colleagues to evaluate and comment on technologies for education.

Spotlight on Emerging Technology: Online Learning in K-12 Schools

http://voicethread.com/share/524489/

Game plan reflection

I believe that my game plan has been extremely successful over the span of this course. It was really good for me to take a step back to set goals and really lay out what I want to accomplish growth-wise in my classroom. I think that some of the digital based lessons I came up with for my students will be keepers and will really benefit my future classes. Adding technology to lessons can be an extremely worthwhile pursuit. My students were overall more engaged and created some amazing projects. I believe from the assessments that they also learned more as well. My classes performed better on the tests and projects than previous classes. My professional acumen has also grown over the past few weeks. The first growth area stems from this very class. By forging forward towards my masters degree I am working to further my abilities as a teacher. I am learning more and collecting more tools and strategies for my classroom. I have also begun to attend more meetings and to take more of a leadership role at my school. In the past I had just watched from the background as meetings were held and things decided. Now I feel I have input to add and decision making ability to leverage. All of this carries from the desire to improve my professionalism.

Help students

After working on my game-plan for several weeks now something would be amiss if it were not benefiting my students. After all, this is the main purpose for the game-plans existence. I have been taking Masters level courses in order not to benefit me, but to provide better experiences for my students.

One of my goals was working on my professionalism. This goal doesnt directly benefit my students. However, I believe that furthering my knowledge and developing contacts and relationships with other professionals will indirectly provide a tremendous benefit for my students as they are introduced to new experiences and possibly new opportunities.

The second goal was to provide students with digital age experiences. I think that this is a wonderful way to directly influence my students for the better. So much of school is the same focus as 10 or even 20 years ago. However, so much of the workplace has changed. There is such a focus on digital life and technology that if students were presented with the same learning as their parents the system would be an abject failure. I attempt every day to provide my students with digital age experiences that are not only interesting to them, but will give them experience that will benefit them in the workplace. I think that students who know how to use word processors and students who know how to make interesting presentations are destined to be more successful than students who are unable to do these things.

Game plan update: Wikis

This week I really got into the idea of creating a wiki for my classroom. I joined the wiki for posting our lesson plans and got to see what can happen when a group of people get together to create something. It really is quite amazing to work with other people to compile information and experience. Its true that people can accomplish much more when working together. I think this would be an invaluable tool for a classroom setting. I've worried over the past few months about how it would be received by my students due to their diverse abilities and backgrounds. However, I now believe that it could be useful for any student as long as the correct instruction and background knowledge is applied.

On the NET-S front I attended a faculty meeting today and conferenced with a group of teachers to meet the needs of a troubled student. Things like this really make me feel growth as a professional. I also just finished a lesson plan in which my students create a mechanical arm using the AutoDesk Inventor program. This program allows students to create objects in 3D on the computer. The mechanical arm is a multi-step project that challenges students in their creation and organization abilities. I've been thrilled with the outcome of planning more digital experiences for my students.

I would like to begin focusing on NET-S standard #1 which supports the development of student creativity. I feel that during these digital lessons students should really have the change to spread their wings and create things. It is rare in school when a student truly gets to do what they want with their project.

Game plan update:

My game plan so far has not been terribly effective. I mean, it's only two-three weeks in so Im not expecting miracles. I am however noticing that I am getting used to adding technology more and more to my lessons. I am also working on being a professional and influencing other people to act with professionalism in their every day meanderings. I am on the related arts team at my middle school and it is a very diverse group of people. They often act on situations by joking around or making jokes about students. At times I can see this as appropriate. When a student does something funny we all enjoy the re-telling. However, at other times it detracts from the meetings we have and often devolves into actually making fun of the student. I try not to take part in this. Im trying to influence things for the better by sharing the positive things that my students do and keeping the negative ones to myself. I believe this this will add to the level of professionalism in my school.

Currently my need is to get healthy. I am adjusting my game-plan this week by getting things done with the day that I took off school. My nose just wont stop running, but Ive got my postings done and Ive got my reading completed.

So far!

I believe that I am making satisfying progress on my Game Plan. I have been working hard as a professional to improve my skills and knowledge base. This has included an abundance of reading material, staying after for meetings, taking classes online, and just generally attempting to think like a professional. My biggest struggle over the past 3 years has been transitioning from college student to adult. Most of my friends are younger and weekends can be rough on me if I let them. However, I've been making progress with acting more professionally and responsibly.

My lesson plans almost all include some sort of technology now. Being a Tech Ed teacher, this comes fairly easy to me. I've been attempting lately to do two things with my lessons. The first is to attempt to add even more tech to each lesson. This I have been struggling with to an extent. Some of the lessons I have tried have flopped for various reasons. Others I have really liked and will use in the future. Secondly I have been trying to switch from paper tests to more active tests where my students have to perform a task. Students tend to like these tests more than more than the traditional style of test, and most do better.

I have the resources I need. I'm trying to meet my goals and become a better teacher every day that I enter the classroom.