Reflection - Week 7

From the start of this course I had to develop a "GAME Plan," (Cennamo, Ross & Ertmer, 2009, p.3).  In that plan I was instructed to chose standards that I was unfamiliar with and to use them in my lesson plans so I would become more comfortable with them.  The more and more I dug into my lessons and worked on my "GAME Plan," (Cennamo, Ross & Ertmer, 2009, p.3) the more I saw how easy it was to take a simple lesson and infuse technology.  I feel that one of the standards I've chosen on digital etiquette has been almost mastered in my classroom, but I am still a little weary with the standard on assessments.  I know that I will be developing another plan to help continue my growth with this standard so that I may better myself as an educator and make my time teaching a little easier if I can find the right assessments to use for each assignment.

When I first started my "GAME Plan," (Cennamo, Ross & Ertmer, 2009, p.3) I knew that I would use a reading subject, but I chose Writing because of the picture book unit my students are working in.  Due to the fact that I am on maternity leave, I knew that not seeing their actual projects and the process they were to go through, it would be hard for me to work on my plan.  So, I came up with the next best choice and that was their actual reading curriculum.  Although, this is one of our state tested subjects, I still find that this is one of the subjects I have the most freedom in.  Our reading time is at the end of the day and after lunch.  I find that my students always drag during this time and I thought that this would be the best time to integrate technology lessons into their day.  I was right about this one; they enjoyed working with the computers.  Although I was not able to witness their process in person, I was however, able to create the entire lesson at home and watch their discussions unfold right in front of me.  It was a great experience and I was given a ton of feedback from their long term substitute.  I actually feel it may have been beneficial to me, only due to the fact that I as a learner, was given direct feedback and suggestions on how the lesson played out with my students.  I now know when I return that I will have to manage the groups a little bit better and I will have to go over the correct way to post in a discussion on their pages.  

As far as using technology and integrating it into my lessons; I am all for that every day.  I know that one day it may be possible for that to actually happen, but for now I am sticking to my continued use of our SMART Board and the occasional use of lap tops.  I will, however, push to have my students on the computers more often and I did like my idea of the groups and discussions on wikispaces.  I've used this site in the past with seventh grade math students and found that a discussion board is a lot easier to work with when the subject deals with reading or writing.  I can't wait to get back into my classroom and share this lesson with our school reading specialist.  She always enjoys listening and watching what I learn from my time at Walden University, and she always encourages me to share with other teachers, so that they may step away from their technology fear and try something new in the classroom!

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.

ISTE. (2012). NETS for Teachers.International Society for Technology in Education. Retrieved January 16, 2013, from www.iste.org/standards/nets-for-teachers