The acronym GAME really helped me focus on the steps I needed to achieve my goals and I think this will be especially helpful for my students. My first goal of explicitly teaching and modelling safe, legal and ethical use of digital information (NETS-T 4a) has already lead me to plan this exposure into my curriculum. I have spent considerable time planning for implementation. My lesson plans are ready to go. I am ready to monitor and collect data so I can evaluate the impact on my students and, assuming all goes well, I am excited about sharing these new techniques with my colleagues and administration. My second goal (NETS-T 5c) was easier to implement since it involved me monitoring and reflecting on emergent technology tools and resources. My personal learning network has offered plenty of opportunities and a large amount of helpful advice. I have prepared my technology journal but, until school starts, it will not be possible to reflect on the implementation of new tools and resources.
As I mentioned, the acronym GAME will help my students see each step of the process clearly. However, with such young students (first graders), I will need to give the students clear examples and alternative language for the words Monitor and Evaluate. Plenty of modelled examples should help them to see how they can look reflect back over their learning in order to measure its effectiveness. Teacher-assessments, peer-assessments, audience feedback and self-assessments have always featured heavily in my instructional practice.
I had already thought that I was doing a good job of integrating technology. However, this course has shown me that there are gaps that need filling. Mostly, I feel that there needs to be an increase in conversations about the ethical use of technology school-wide. Many teachers use technology for research but it is not always effective and students are not expected to quote sources.
Our curriculum is based on inquiry and therefore problem-based learning is a big feature of what we already do. Students are guided to locate their own inquiry questions and the teachers provoke deeper thought with problem-based questioning.
This course has made me reconsider the effectiveness of social networking/online collaboration. I feel that this is an area that I have tended to avoid with my young first graders in favour of all the other wonderful things that can be done with technology to extend my students’ learning. However, this year I will be moving to third grade and I already have plans to include online collaboration as a regular way for my students to reflect and report on their collaborative projects. In order to do this, I will assign time at the beginning of the year to explicitly teach some rituals for the regular use of these technology tools. With regards to digital storytelling, it is my intention to spend more time investigation and evaluating the most appropriate digital storytelling tools for my particular group of students for this upcoming academic year.
Posts
