Monitoring My GAME Plan Progress

I am continuing to make progress toward reaching my goals in my GAME Plan.  My first goal is dealing with using technology to facilitate experiences that advance student learning through creative and innovative environments.  I have contacted the district Discovery Education gentleman and he has told me about using different tutorials located on the Discovery Education website.  I have looked into a few of these and they seem to be very helpful.  I have also shown my students a video to help enhance their learning off the Discovery Education website.  As I progress though this goal, I have learned that using technology can have its downfalls.  As I was trying to download a video, it did not have sound.  I was able to fix this problem by downloading it in QuickTime player.

As for my second goal, we have one week of fluency checks done.  The way we were able to test fluency with Photo Booth was by allowing students to practice a few times and then take their hot reading test.  It was fun to go through the final recordings with each student and pause and go back to different parts to discuss errors or phrasing miscues.  I feel with continuing to work with students by using Photo Booth and the conference time, my students’ fluency will increase.

Carrying Out My GAME Plan

Resources:

The resources I will need in order to carry out my GAME Plan will include student access to the Discovery Education website.  They will become involved in using this resource, so it is imperative for my students to understand how to access this Internet-based tool.  My students will need to be shown how to use the website to obtain the information, such as the videos, to complete the assignments.  As for my second goal, my students will need to be reminded how to use Photo Booth to assess their fluency.  They will need to have a computer and their small group reading materials to help assess this.

Additional Information:

I will also need to make sure students are able to e-mail me their completed assignments via Discovery Education and my e-mail account.  This will need to set up in advance so students are successful in submitting assignments.

Steps Taken This Far:

As of right now, my students have been working on Discovery Education to locate videos I have assigned to the class.  They also have become familiar with Photo Booth by modeling it and they have begun testing one another’s fluency.

Personal GAME Plan

My Personal GAME Plan

After reviewing the National Education Standards for Teachers (NETS-T), I have chosen two indicators I would like to work on to strengthen my confidence in the use of technology in my classroom.

1. Facilitate and Inspire Student Learning and Creativity

Teachers use their knowledge of subject matter, teaching and learning, and technology to facilitate experiences that advance student learning, creativity, and innovation in both face-to-face and virtual environments. Teachers:

a.	promote, support, and model creative and innovative thinking and inventiveness.
b.	engage students in exploring real-world issues and solving authentic problems using digital tools and resources.
c.	promote student reflection using collaborative tools to reveal and clarify students' conceptual understanding and thinking, planning, and creative processes.
d.	model collaborative knowledge construction by engaging in learning with students, colleagues, and others in face-to-face and virtual environments.

2. Design and Develop Digital-Age Learning Experiences and Assessments

Teachers design, develop, and evaluate authentic learning experiences and assessment incorporating contemporary tools and resources to maximize content learning in context and to develop the knowledge, skills, and attitudes identified in the NETS•S. Teachers:

a.	design or adapt relevant learning experiences that incorporate digital tools and resources to promote student learning and creativity.
b.	develop technology-enriched learning environments that enable all students to pursue their individual curiosities and become active participants in setting their own educational goals, managing their own learning, and assessing their own progress.
c.	customize and personalize learning activities to address students' diverse learning styles, working strategies, and abilities using digital tools and resources.
d.	provide students with multiple and varied formative and summative assessments aligned with content and technology standards and use resulting data to inform learning and teaching.

GAME Plan:

Set Goals:

            Technology is constantly changing and it is important, for me, to continually assess my technology integration skills to ensure my students are gaining the skills needed.  As I review the first (#1) NETS-T indicator, I would like to set my goal as student reading comprehension by using Discovery Education.  I have not used Discovery Ed. in its fullest capacity yet, but I know it has a tremendous amount of potential.  It is my understanding that I would be able to assign students an article, video, or other digital information that they could become involved in.  Once they have learned about whatever the topic may be, they can take a comprehension quiz, created by me, as well as being assessed in a short or extended response format that will be e-mailed to me to be graded.  I would like to have peer feedback, in order to see if this seems fitting to fulfill indicator #1.

            As for my second goal, I would like to work with students on their reading fluency.  My students will be practicing a passage throughout the week and will be able to assess their progress by using Photo Booth to practice and test their fluency.  They will be able to replay their recording to listen for their errors and watch their eye motions, as they are reading.  Students’ diverse learning styles will be addressed, due to their specific reading level.  I would also enjoy feedback on this goal.

Take Action:

            Students will be working on reading comprehension skills, based on my school districts’ goals on Expository, Narrative, and Functional texts.  Students will become involved in these types of text or video and be required to answer multiple-choice questions, as well as short or extended response questions.  This will be good practice for my students when it comes time for our state and growth assessments.  Students will be submitting their answers, via e-mail, to me from Discovery Education.  As for my second goal, I will be using Photo Booth to aid in student achievement based on fluency skills.

Monitor:

            As my students and I work toward meeting my goal #1, I will be graphing student achievement based on multiple-choice and short and extended responses.  I will like to progress monitor student achievement on goal #2 by working with students to create an on-going graph on Excel.  They can update their information weekly to show improvement in fluency scores.

Evaluate and Extend:

            I will be able to evaluate student achievement based on their abilities to read or watch a video based on different topics and answer multiple-choice and short or extended responses.  In my second goal, students will be evaluating themselves each week.  If their graphs are showing a trend of improvement, the practice must be working.  I will be continually collaborating with teachers within my building, as well as my peers in this course.

References:

Cinnamon, K., Ross, J., Ertmer, P., Technology Integration for Meaningful Classroom Use: A Standards-Based Approach, Cengage Learning 2009.

ISTE Website, http://www.iste.org/standards/nets-for-teachers/nets-for-teachers-, 2008.aspx, accessed November 10, 2010.