Week 7 Game Plan Update

A few weeks ago I posted The five Performance Indicators for Teachers can be found on the web site for The International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) and the National Education Standards for Teacher (NETS-T) Teachers: 1. Facilitate and Inspire Student Learning and Creativity 2. Design and Develop Digital-Age Learning Experiences and Assessments 3. Model Digital-Age Work and Learning 4. Promote and Model Digital Citizenship and Responsibility 5. Engage in Professional Growth and Leadership
http://www.iste.org/Content/NavigationMenu/NETS/ForTeachers/2008Standards/NETS_T_Standards_Final.pdf

My GAME plan for professional growth includes the following goals:
1. Facilitate and Inspire Student Learning and Creativity a. promote, support, and model creative and innovative thinking and inventiveness.
5. Engage in Professional Growth and Leadership a. participate in local and global learning communities to explore creative applications of technology to improve student learning.
Some questions to consider:
Have I found the information and resources needed? This week I found three wonderful sites to add to my electronic resources. Digital Storytelling: www.uh.edu www.digitales.us www.storycenter.org

Is there a need to modify my action plan? There will always be modifications to my plans based on class dynamics, along with the new changes that are yet to come in our technology age. There is always a chance that the technology will not work, so I must be prepared with a back-up plan. My action plan is to continue to collect information with examples to be able to apply to a real lesson.

What I have learned so far?
During the GAME plan process, I have learned that technology is always changing. There are many resources available to add to our current list of useful tools for students. PBL is a great way to teach content and reach far beyond the single subject into and across the curriculum. It is also easy to get sidetracked by going on sites that lead you to other places. When looking at new sites, keep a journal to catalog new sites is a good way to keep them organized. It also helps to keep focused on the reason for searching a certain site.

Are there new questions?
No questions at this time.

Laureate Education, Inc. (2009) Integrating Technology Across the Content Areas. Spotlight on Technology: Digital Storytelling, Part 1.
Laureate Education, Inc. (2009) Integrating Technology Across the Content Areas. Spotlight on Technology: Digital Storytelling, Part 2.
Laureate Education, Inc. (2009) Integrating Technology Across the Content Areas. Spotlight on Technology: Integrating Multiple Tools to Support Content Area Learning.

Week 6 GAME plan progress

In the past few postings I have been working on my GAME plan for technology. The two goals previously stated are:

GOALS

1. Facilitate and Inspire Student Learning and Creativity a. promote, support, and model creative and innovative thinking and inventiveness.

5. Engage in Professional Growth and Leadership a. participate in local and global learning communities to explore creative applications of technology to improve student learning.

ACTION

Everyday my lessons have included a special question for students to be innovative thinkers. I have been keeping a digital list for next year.

This summer I will participate in a Promethean Training.

MONITOR

As the warm up for each day I have engaged my students in creative thinking. Collecting and keeping answers on the Promethean Board to reflect, tally, evaluate, and save for future use.

After attending the Promethean training this summer, my intention is to have 5 make and take ideas to grow as a professional with creative applications of technology to improve student learning.

EVALUATE

With only a few days left of the school year, I am collecting teacher editions of my reading and math series to make flipcharts and interactive lessons over the summer for next year.

I will continue to add to the binder of “How To” for the Promethean to help myself and fellow teachers use as a reference.

Laureate Education, Inc. (2009) Integrating Technology Across the Content Areas. Promoting Self-Directed Learning with Technology.

GAME PLAN WK5

GAME plan progress: Week 5 update

There are only 12 days of school left. My days are filled with report cards, portfolios, and PTD folders.I am still excited about using technology in my classroom! I will be using my technology equipment to the last day of school.

1. Facilitate and Inspire Student Learning and Creativity a. promote, support, and model creative and innovative thinking and inventiveness.
5. Engage in Professional Growth and Leadership a. participate in local and global learning communities to explore creative applications of technology to improve student learning.

Each day I still have been posting “Think About Questions” for my students to draw and write about in their journals. We share with partners and then as a class. We made our worm habitat this week and we will be writing more facts about our animal for research to complete our books.

My Promethean training is not until the summer; however I have been keeping a chart of websites that I can use for next year. Thank you to all my Walden classmates who continue to share wonderful sites!
This one is the last one I added to my list from Rachel...
http://storybird.com/books/learning-about-storybird/


Laureate Education, Inc. (2009) Integrating Technology Across the Content Areas. Meeting Students’ Needs with Technology, Part 1.
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.

Review of GAME plan

Review of GAME Plan
Week 3 posting for my Walden University Class
EDUC 6713: Integrating Technology Across the Content Areas.


Resources needed to carry out plan: In my previous posting I explained my GAME plan. Our school year is quickly coming to a close and the use of my Promethean Board and the program Active Inspire are two key resources that I will need to continue documenting essential questions. My training will take place over the summer. Files need to be made for my electronic saved questions.

Additional information needed:
• 5 make and take activities from my Promethean Training.
• Tally and chart of questions that I have already asked my class.

Steps in the right direction of my GAME plan:
I have already started documenting the questions that my students have answered and have started a file of used questions.

GAME PLAN

This posting is for my graduate class from Walden University.

EDUC 6713: Integrating Technology Across the Content Areas.
Developing My Personal GAME Plan

The five Performance Indicators for Teachers can be found on the web site for The International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) and the National Education Standards for Teacher (NETS-T) http://www.iste.org/Content/NavigationMenu/NETS/ForTeachers/2008Standards/NETS_T_Standards_Final.pdf

Teachers: 1. Facilitate and Inspire Student Learning and Creativity 2. Design and Develop Digital-Age Learning Experiences and Assessments 3. Model Digital-Age Work and Learning 4. Promote and Model Digital Citizenship and Responsibility 5. Engage in Professional Growth and Leadership

The video lecture by Dr. Katherine Cennamo describes how being self-directed can support and enhance learning. The GAME plan is a self-directed way of learning. My GAME plan for professional growth:
GOAL
1.Facilitate and Inspire Student Learning and Creativity a. promote, support, and model creative and innovative thinking and inventiveness.
5. Engage in Professional Growth and Leadership a. participate in local and global learning communities to explore creative applications of technology to improve student learning.
ACTION
Everyday my lessons will have a creative piece for my students to be innovative thinkers. There will a daily post of a question in my class to help my first grade class practice inventiveness. This summer I will participate in a Promethean Training.
MONITOR
As the warm up for each day I will engage my students in creative thinking. Collect and keep answers on the Promethean Board to reflect, tally, evaluate, and save for future use. After attending the Promethean training I hope to have at least 5 make and take ideas to grow as a professional with creative applications of technology to improve student learning.
EVALUATE
To keep track of the creative ideas I will make a digital folder of practice thinking questions to share with other teachers as well as to add to each year. I will make a binder of “How To” for the Promethean to help myself and fellow teachers use as a reference.

Laureate Education, Inc. (2009) Integrating Technology Across the Content Areas. Promoting Self-Directed Learning with Technology.

Think Out Loud Evaluations

Blog posting for Walden University
EDUC 6712: Supporting Information Literacy and Online Inquiry in the Classroom
Week 4 Reflection
I think that it can be very difficult for a student to decide whether a site is valid without the tools to help them. Critical thinking skills are a key to a student’s success when navigating a web site. Giving our students a check list of some things to look for, such as the ABC’s, will help in their quest for accurate information.
Please use the following link to view my Screen Capture with Audio recording.


http://www.teachertube.com/viewVideo.php?video_id=170610&title=Pacific_Northwest_Tree_Octopus




Resources
Laureate Education, Inc. (2009) Supporting Information Literacy and Online Inquiry in the Classroom. A Teacher’s Perspective: Evaluating Information Online.
Laureate Education, Inc. (2009) Supporting Information Literacy and Online Inquiry in the Classroom. Information Literacy: Evaluating Information.
November, A. (2008). Web Literacy for educators. Thousands Oaks: Corwin Press.

Connectivism and Social Learning In Practice

The instructional strategy Cooperative learning correlates directly with the principles of social learning theories. Cooperative learning can be described as students working together with the purpose of actively engaging students in the learning process. Social learning supports the cooperative learning theory because of the student communication, collaboration, and cooperation with others. Empowering students to be responsible for their learning, contributing for the good of the group, would not be possible individually. This strategy imitates real-life learning by including teamwork and students working independently to contribute their piece to complete the assignment. With this in mind, students can collaborate with different levels of knowledge, experience, and expertise. They can be successful in making meaningful connections to their learning by interacting in a social atmosphere. The technology that I found to support this meaningful learning would be the wiki. I feel this is a good tool to help students work together on a task and be able to contribute their skills. I have not used this with my first grade class, but I am looking for ideas.

Laureate Education, Inc. (2009) Bridging Learning Theory, Instruction, and Technology. Social Learning Theories, Connectivism as a Learning Theory, Spotlight on Technology.
Orey, M. (Ed.). (2001). Emerging perspectives on learning, teaching, and technology. Retrieved from http://projects.coe.uga.edu/epltt/ Social Constructivism, Cooperative Learning, Connectivism.
Pitler, H., Hubbell, E., Kuhn, M., Malenoski, K. (2007). Using technology with classroom instruction that works. Alexandria, VA:ASCD.

Cognitivism in Practice

This week, in Using Technology with Classroom Instruction that Works, there were two instructional strategies that embed technology: “Cues, Questions, and Advance Organizers” and “Summarizing and Note Taking.” These strategies relate to cognitive learning theories. Virtual Field Trip tools can be a great way to research and make connections to learn about a specific place, topic, or person. They correlate to the instructional strategies and cognitive learning theories because they give an image to make connections with new information to their prior knowledge. There are many templates the can help students in note taking that are created in Inspiration. Once they have put information into the cells, they can use the notes to summarize their findings.
In first grade, we teach a unit on geometric shapes. I have in the past made a chart to show the geometric shape, the name, and the real life connection. This seems so one dimensional after hearing about the multiple intelligences to help link short-term memory with long-term memory according to Dr. Orey in the video segment, “Cognitive Learning Theories.” With the use of technology, I can find more that one real life connection to each geometric shape. On safarimontage we have a video clip that shows the geometric shapes like the stop sign, the pentagon, and a yield sign. Also I could have them sort and match geometric shapes on a worksheet created for practice in the computer lab. We could then print two copies. One for them to use as a reference and other to cut and paper sort as a game for homework. Students could make a poster using all the geometric shapes and labeling the name and with a picture of the real world use. To extend this, my students then can work on a class PowerPoint with the images from the posters. To keep it in their long-term memory, my students could also link up the image of the real life picture to the geometric shape with concept mapping tools.
Orey, M.(Ed.). (2001). Emerging perspectives on learning, teaching, and technology.
Retrieved from http://projects.coe.uga.edu/epltt/index.php?title=Main_Page
• Section: Multiple Intelligences and Learning Styles
Pitler, H., Hubbell, E., Kuhn, M., & Malenoski, K. (2007). Using technology with classroom instruction that works. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.

How I Can Blog With My First Grade

This school year I will be starting a class blog. Here are some of my thoughts for my new blog.

Publish Student Work: My class blog will a great place to show case my student's work. I would like first to set up peer reviews with our two other first grades in our building. Then expand to our first grade classes in our county. Then I hope to share with other first grade classes everywhere.

Build Community: Currently I send home a class newsletter monthly. My blog could have the class newsletter along with a place for families to ask questions about upcoming class activities. We do Research Labs about animals. Parents could contribute facts, links, and photos to our class research. This would help students to learn information about physical characteristics and habitats.

I am open to new ideas from other teachers, parents, and students.
How do you use a blog with your class?

Comprehension Connections

This year our school is implementing a Comprehension Toolkit. The strategies we will be using come from the book Comprehension Connections; Bridges to Strategic Reading by Tanny McGregor. We will be using these strategies for math, reading, science, social studies, and health. The vocabulary that my students will need to know for comprehension are metacognition, schema, inferring, questioning, determining importance, visualizing, and synthesizing. This set of words will be new to my first grade, but after reading this book, I think the concrete examples will be a hit with my class. School wide we have had a word of the week from the vocabulary kit by Isabel Beck and the children really enjoy learning new words and their meanings. My plan to introduce this new set of comprehension words will follow the plan of the McGregor's book. She uses concrete examples that can be referred to each time we use each strategy. In order to engage students in academic lessons my scaffolding strategies include modeling language, visuals, gestures, and demonstrations. (Herrell & Jordan, 2008). With the help of McGregor's book, I will help my sudents make connections with the things they already know and explain that it is the same as your schema. there are wonderful posters that I will refer to often and bookmarks to help students with strategies and the new vocabulary. As first graders, they will be learning new words every day. I will have them write new words with a picture in their own Quick Word Book.

Will the new strategies, concrete examples, and visuals for vocabulary be enough for my ELL students?

Herrell, A., & Jordan, M. (2008). 50 Strategies for Teaching English Language Learners(3rd ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.

CREDE Standards in My Classroom

The Five Standards for Effective Pedagogy from the Center for Research on Education, Diversity & Excellence: http://crede.org

1. Teachers and Students Working Together; Joint Productive Activity
2. Developing Language Skills Across all Curriculum; Language Development
3. Connecting Lessons to Students' Lives; Contextualization.
4. Engaging Students with Challenging Lessons; Challenging Activities
5. Emphasizing Dialogue over Lecture; Instructional Conversation

The standard that I feel is best implemented in my class is 5: Instructional Conversation. In my first grade classroom, the desks are arranged so that conversations between myself and a small group of students can happen daily. My students are reminded of the goals for the day by reading our objectives several times during the assignment. We review class expectations for groups. My students are guided by strips of paper for genuine conversations.This helps keep groups be student centered. The strips of paper say: Ask a question, Say a fact, Give your opinion. This helps my first grade class continue talking to their peers. They also give positive feedback to their fellow students by saying "What I liked about your book was... or The part I liked was when you said..."
The area that could use some improvement would be 3: Contextualization. For my first grade class there are many parents that come the first few days of school and then are not very involved. I feel I need to do a better job learning about my students' families homes and community. I currently send a newsletter home to the students and families to outline the learning activities for the month. Sending an invitation for parents to come at least once a quarter to see the class and their child's work would be a good way to get families involved. If parents and families feel welcome to come to my class it could open the lines of communication between students, teachers and families. My first grade will make connections based on what they already know. I need to build on what they have learned at home and from their families to make meaningful connections.
For Standard 4: Challenging Activities, I feel we can always make a lesson better. After teaching a lesson, I am constantly thinking of how I will teach the next one. There are some things that are already in place like higher-level thinking questions for comprehension. Another area that I challenge my students is vocabulary. We have a vocabulary word of the week and we encourage our students to use the new words they are learning.
(Dr. Roland Tharp, CREDE)
http://crede.berkley.edu/standards/standards.html
Herrell, A., & Jordan, M. (2008). 50 strategies for teaching English language learners (3r ed.). Upper Saddel River, NJ: Pearson.