GAME Plan Reflection EDUC 6713

I sat and thought about this post for awhile and even jotted some notes when stopping to reflect to gather up all the information I had taken in over the last 7 weeks. Like most of from my class, I have learned a lot and have taken away more than I ever anticipated. I looked back over assignments and blog posts from the last 7 weeks and my mind starts to race once again. How can I apply all this? Can I fit all this in? Are my students or other teachers going to think I'm nuts? Will parents think I have lost my mind because things are so much different now than when they went through school? These are all questions that I am not too worried about. Because of learning how to GAME plan, I will be able to map out better short term and long term goals not only for myself, but for my students as well. I have already saved a copy of both the NETS-T and NETS-S, to keep both at home and at school for referring back to frequently. I have not started back to school yet, but have already started setting things up and formulating rough drafts of GAME plans for the early part of the year.

As for adjustments to my instructional practice regarding technology integration, I already have saved different lesson plans, ideas and my content area unit plan from week 7. I have a bunch of new ideas to apply to lessons and units already developed from the last few years, but now have tools to attack them in a new way. Things I look forward to using include more project based learning assignments/projects, digital story telling, blogs, wikis, discussion boards and maybe even a VoiceThread or two! As if you can not tell by my typing, I am really excited about getting these things laid out and implementing them, provided I can the computer lab time. If not, I can still do some of them, plus with the digital story telling ideas, I could always have the students just present their story boards to the class.

Finally, I plan to revisit digital citizenship. I have hit it pretty hard in the past already, but plan to start right out of the gate, hopefully the second full week. Then, I plan to refer back to it/remind students before heading to the lab each time. I will also give reminders about educational networking and how it differs but is similar to social networking. I also plan to set up my own facebook page for my classroom - separate from my personal one, to help keep students and parents/guardians up to speed on assignments, projects, quizzes, etc.

Overall, I think this was a great class and have taken a lot away from it! Good luck to everyone!

Mike
:)

Using the GAME Plan Process with Students

When I first started into this class, I had no idea what a GAME plan was. Over time during this course, I have learned how to use the GAME plan, and have already started mapping out part of my year, based around some of the goals I have set for myself. I feel it is a great tool that can only help teachers improve on their work regardless of how long they have been a teacher. It does not matter if they are a 30-year veteran teacher or someone fresh out of college with their whole career ahead of them.

I really liked reading through the NETS-S for students and starting to think about how i could best utilize/ engage students into the process of meeting those standards. I came up with one simple, basic idea, lead by example. I know it may sound a little on the corny side, but here is the plan I came up with:

1. Take them out on the web and show them what NETS-S is, and also show them NETS-T, and explain how these are standards and proficiencies that we both need to meet and will work together on achieving.

2. Explain to students what a GAME plan is, and show them a few examples of my own.

3. Have students develop their own Game plans after showing them the NET-S.(I would make a classroom set of copies, that way each student would have one in front of them) Maybe even put it into a checklist format that way they could easily check off what they had done so far.

4. Monitor their progress weekly or biweekly, by having them pull their GAME plans back out and either check off or cross out what they had already accomplished. I would do the same with mine, projecting it up so they could see m progress as well.

This may all seem like a giant undertaking, but I feel I can start at the beginning of the year, it would be interesting as the year goes along to see students progress, as well as my own. Also, we could continue to modify and set our goals together, and basically grow together. Maybe this is all a little naive on my part, but this is the idea I am going to run with and look forward to any feedback and comments anyone would like to offer up.

Week 6: Revising Your GAME Plan

The biggest thing I have learned/figured out, is that I need to map out a timeline for my projects. This timeline would not just be for my students, but more or less for me when planning and try and coordinate that with available computer lab time. Without computer labs access, most plans would have to be reworked to accommodate those that do not have internet access outside of school. My plan if that was to happen would be to give students approximately 3-5 days to respond to question or an assignment posted online. This would allow those who do not have internet access time to get to a friends, local library, family members, etc., without having to do it by the next day. Any long term project at this point, without time in the lab, would be pretty much obsolete because of such circumstances.

Goals I would set for myself, would include:
1. Making sure there is a allotted time reserved in the lab for a project
2. Making sure that I meet my timeline set to be ready to be in the lab.
3. Making the most of the time in the lab that we have, so that little has to be done outside of school.
4. Continue to plan well, including making sure all accommodations for my students can be met.

Finally, I would want to make sure that I have everything set up including a list of websites and information readily available for all students. This could be setup through google docs, Blackboard, a wiki, or even a blog.

Again, I look forward to feedback from fellow colleagues as to what I may be forgetting or what I may not have thought about!

Thanks in advance!

Mike
:)