Reflections on my progress so far

The first of my GAME plan goals was to implement the explicit teaching of safe and ethical practices in all my classes. The information I need to achieve this goal was covered in our previous course. The QUEST strategy for teaching safe and ethical practices is spelled out in the course material provided and I am very much looking forward to trying it with my students on a regular basis.

Aside from these resources, I will also need to begin writing curriculum and lesson plans that include this new information. Since, I do not teach within a National System I feel that there is easily time in our syllabus to include this. Obviously I will not know how successful or effectively it will be until I have had a chance to reflect and evaluate the lessons.

Discussions with colleagues will have to wait until school starts again. I imagine that most of the teachers will be interested in what I am saying but will naturally look to me and my class trialling the lessons before making any changes in their own classroom.

My second goal involves staying up-to-date with current developments and I believe that I have been doing this through my learning network. Similarly to my first goal, I have many ideas about implementing technology into my lessons next year and this is also why I was motivated to ask for a change of grade level for next academic year. I have very much enjoyed teaching first graders but I felt that I could integrate and extend my delivery of technology much more with older students.

At this point, I do not feel that I need to modify my action plan. Kaladia has kindly offered me some food for thought. Her main question was how would I go about getting colleagues to collaborate with technology integration. In fact, I do not believe that my goal is to have colleagues collaborate on projects. Since I am not the technology co-ordinator I have the space to create my own personal goals. I do hope that some of the other teachers might be inspired or at least show an interest in what I am trying to achieve.

Over the course of many weeks on the Master’s Course, I have learned a great deal with regards to the difference between technology teaching and technology integration. Mainly I have learned that there is room for both, although I do believe that the integration part can often lead to the former as the students practice using software and become more familiar with different technology applications.

I am reassured to know that integrating technology is an enormously valuable tool for 21^st century learning and not just a fad.

Resources need for GAME plan

As I mentioned in my initial posting, there are several actions that I would like to take in order to achieve the goal of advocating, modelling and teaching legal and ethical use of digital information and technology. The first would be to open these discussions during grade level and whole school faculty meetings. To discover what is happening in other classes and to reach a consensus on how we can all move forward in order to ensure consistency across the grade levels. The next stop is two-fold: planning for and explicitly demonstrating good practice in the classroom.

I hope to achieve the implementation and explicit teaching of safe and ethical use of digital technology through the QUEST strategy covered in Week 7 of EDUC 6712. I do not believe that I will need any additional resources than I already have at my disposal. However, regular and reliable access to the internet will be necessary. The greatest resources that I will need to successfully achieve this target will be careful lesson planning and assessment.

Since we are halfway through the summer vacation, I have not yet been able to carry out these plans but I intend to begin as soon as the new academic year starts.

I also wrote in my initial posting that, for me, there are two greatest sources of information and education in this regard. The first is my personal learning network online: other professionals sharing their experiences and knowledge and the older students creating and demonstrating how they use technology. “After you’ve identified your learning goals, you need to take action to meet those goals (…) You could take a class. You could ask others. You could research information online or in books. You might even ask your students” Cennamo, Ross & Ertmer (2009) p.4.

It is nothing new to me to be regularly reading and checking my aggregator for interesting posts on new technology tools and their application. During the holidays I am fortunate enough to have additional opportunities to refine, revise and add to my personal learning network. One of my favorite ways of keeping up with new developments during non-teaching times is to read educational publications and technology-related materials such as Mac Magazine.

This is my GAME plan

I would like to make a more conscious effort to explicitly advocate, model and teach safe, legal and ethical use of digital information and technology, including respect for copyright, intellectual property, and the appropriate documentation of sources (NETS-T 4a)

The last course: Supporting Information Literacy and Online Inquiry in the Classroom has opened my eyes to the fact that many teachers (at least in my school) are not deliberately instructing students on the legal and ethical use of digital information and technology. Whilst we all agree that it is important, I do not believe that we are making this point transparent enough to the students. Indeed, I am not at all certain that most teachers are even familiar with our school’s Acceptable Use Policy. There are several actions that I would like to take in order to achieve the goal of advocating, modelling and teaching legal and ethical use of digital information and technology. The first would be to open these discussions during grade level and whole school faculty meetings. To discover what is happening in other classes and to reach a consensus on how we can all move forward in order to ensure consistency across the grade levels. The next stop is two-fold: planning for and explicitly demonstrating good practice in the classroom.

Progress will be monitored through the assessment and evaluation of my students’ knowledge and digital artefacts. If my students’ work reflects the appropriate use of citations and paraphrasing, as opposed to copying and pasting without crediting the sources I will feel that my goal has to some degree been achieved. My learning will have been extended by the development of my lesson plans and instruction in such a way as to reflect this change in my students. Monitoring my progress towards developing consistency across grade levels may be more a matter for my administration to evaluate and track. However, I will feel successful if, at very minimum, teachers are able to engage in positive and useful collaboration through our discussions and reflections.

My second and on-going goal is to evaluate and reflect on current research and professional practice on a regular basis to make effective use of existing and emerging digital tools and resources in support of student learning (NETS-T 5c). The beauty of the technological advancements of recent years is that there seems to be a tremendous increase in the creative use of technology tools. The downside is that this progress seems to be happening at such lighting speed that it is often hard to stay abreast of all the new innovations and applications.

For me, there are two greatest sources of information and education in this regard. The first is my personal learning network online: other professionals sharing their experiences and knowledge and the older students creating and demonstrating how they use technology. “After you’ve identified your learning goals, you need to take action to meet those goals (…) You could take class. You could ask others. You could research information online or in books. You might even ask your students” Cennamo, Ross & Ertmer (2009) p.4.

Whilst my personal learning network keeps me up-to-date with current research and novel ways of implementing the strategies, I feel that I need to make a more conscious effort to regularly evaluate my use of technology and its effectiveness vis-à-vis my students’ learning. In order to achieve this goal, I would like to maintain a technology journal; which includes my own observations, personal reflections and accounts of both student focus groups and colleagues’ comments. “Key to effective reflection is to go beyond a simple description of what happened to consider why it happened, how it is connected to other events, and what adjustments should be made to subsequent actions based on this understanding” Cennamo, Ross & Ertmer (2009) p.11.

Reviewing these notes at quarterly intervals will allow me analyze patterns in the data and monitor the progress I have made towards achieving this particular goal.

References

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 for Technology in Education. (2008). National education

standards for teachers (NETS-T). Retrieved from http://www.iste.org/Libraries/PDFs/NETS_for_Teachers_2008_EN.sflb.ashxhttp://www.iste.org/Libraries/PDFs/NETS_for_Teachers_2008_EN.sflb.ashx