GAME Plan Reflection

Over the past six weeks, I have been engaged in an individual professional development plan utilizing the GAME format of setting goals, performing actions, monitoring progress, and evaluating/extending the results. My goals were primarily focused on increasing the effective use of technology by educators as part of my districts current focus on incorporating the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE), National Education Technology Standards (NETS) for students and teachers. For one of my action plans, I gathered video footage of technology integration occurring in my district as a result of collaborations between school level educational technologists (ET’s) and educators. As a result of these observations, I learned new ways of utilizing technology to improve learning in a variety of subject areas and grade levels. I now also realize that technology in my district is often being utilized in a ‘special project’ format and is not truly integrated into the curriculum in the powerful ways that it could be. The Walden course on Integrating Technology across the Content Areas has allowed me to develop new ideas on how technology can be regularly utilized within the curriculum framework in ways that continually promote self-directed learning and emphasize problem solving. This is a change in perspective relative to technology integration that I will now incorporate in all my teaching with both educators and students.

My second action plan involved creating a technology integration intranet site to be utilized by educators throughout my district. Through the creation of this technology resource, I discovered a wide variety of new internet resources in the areas of web quests, concept mapping, electronic portfolios, internet literacy, educational networking, digital storytelling, online tutorials, problem based learning, and assessment with technology. I learned the value of focusing on effective instructional pedagogy such as problem based learning which naturally promotes the integration of technology tools. Because of this, the intranet site I created emphasizes learner focused instructional practices, interdisciplinary education and collaboration. I plan to emphasize these effective instructional strategies in all of my future educator training sessions.

The actions I took as part of my GAME plans increased my personal knowledge on how to effectively integrate technology in ways that promote self-directed learning and emphasize problem based learning. In addition, both the technology integration videos and technology intranet site will help educators throughout my district effectively integrate technology in order to promote highest achievement for each and every student.

Will My Professional Development Plans Help Students?

As a district level educational technologist (ET), I primarily work with educators. My first professional development GAME plan (Goals, Actions, Monitor, Evaluation / Extend) involves filming collaborations between school level ET’s and educators as a means for me to learn and then be able to share, effective examples of technology integration that improve student learning. In my second plan, I am learning new instructional strategies and technologies through the process of creating a district technology intranet website. This resource will ultimately contain technology integration ideas in conjunction with effective instructional methods in order to promote effective learning throughout the district.

While my professional development plans are primarily directed towards educators, the ultimate goals is to improve student learning as educators incorporate purposeful technology integration and utilize teaching strategies that promote 21st century skills. These 21st century skills correlate directly with the National Educational Technology Standards (NETS) for Students and as educators increase their own skills in and application of the NETS Teacher Standards, the result will be increased achievement for all students. I believe eventually both of my plans will directly support all of the NETS standards for both teachers and students.

I shared my technology intranet website with my district leadership this week and they were very enthusiastic about it. I am now scheduled to present it at the next administrator conference in January. This will be an excellent opportunity for me to get administrator support throughout my district for effective technology integration and the use of teaching strategies such as problem based learning.

The websites and other resources that have been shared with me through this blog have been extremely helpful. This week I decided to change the ‘Video Production’ portion of my intranet site to read ‘digital storytelling’ because I think sometimes educators see the word “video” and they immediately think that it is too far from their comfort zone to attempt. The term ‘digital storytelling’ will be much less threatening. I am still gathering websites that educators have found particularly supportive in the areas of webquests, concept mapping, electronic portfolios, Internet literacy, educational networking, digital storytelling, online tutorials, problem based learning, and assessment with technology. I am sure there will be additional sections but right now these are keeping me plenty busy and, as ever, I am open to any suggestions.

Week 6 - GAME Plan Update

After going through the resources this week, I am changing my section on blogs and wikis so that it is titled social networking. Actually, I am taking the advice from Vicki Davis and I will call it educational networking. I was unaware of resources such as Ning or Think so they will definitely be included. I will also list and link to ideas and methods on how to incorporate social networking to improve learning. I have been garnering feedback from selected educators on what I have posted already and it is all very positive. Because of the scope of the actions in this project (GAME plan), I plan on working on it over the winter break and have ready for release to the district when teachers return in January.

I am still looking for excellent internet resources in the areas of webquests, concept mapping, electronic portfolios, internet literacy, educational networking, video production, online tutorials, problem based learning and assessment with technology.

My first professional improvement (GAME) plan involves documenting, with video, the collaborations between educational technologists and teachers. In the session that I filmed this week, the educator and ET had organized learning centers in a middle school science classroom. Most of the centers incorporated some form of technology and the students were thoroughly engaged in the learning activities. I also filmed a debriefing of the activity between the ET and the educator which will be extremely valuable. Educators are often so busy that they do not take the time to reflect on classroom events and learn from them. Reflection discussions between ET’s and educators are something that I will now stress as a component for effective collaboration.

One other piece of good news, I met yesterday with the IT chief for my school system. There is hope that our current Intranet will be converted into an Extranet that allows password protected access for students, parents and teachers from home. This would be a huge development and it would allow students and educators to create web content at school that could be immediately available for parents to view. My fingers are crossed that this will come to fruition.

All in all, it has been a busy and learning filled week. My professional development (GAME) plans have given me inspiration and I am excited about developing new resources that will increase the number of educators who are effectively utilizing technology to improve student learning in my district.

Week 5 - GAME Plans Update - HITS

I continue to work on my two professional development plans following the GAME structure outlined by Cennamo et al. (2009) which involves setting goals, designing actions, monitoring the process, and evaluating and extending results. This week I primarily worked on creating my district intranet website for sharing ideas on how to effectively integrate technology to improve student learning. What I am observing in many classrooms is that technology or ‘computer time’ as it sometimes referred to, is utilized as a filler or ‘fun’ activity and is not truly integrated with everyday classroom activities. The SMARTboards we are getting in the classrooms are helping to change this attitude but I think there needs to be an increased focus on pedagogy that emphasizes 21st century skills.

Now that I am actually creating my Intranet site, I am becoming more confident that this will be a valuable resource for increasing the effective use of technology to improve student learning in my district. I am learning about new technologies and new ways to implement existing technology tools to promote highest student achievement.

I have learned that I need to think bigger in terms of technology integration in the classrooms when I work with educators. I now see that many educators view integration of technology as a one time final project, instead of as a collection of valuable learning tools that can be utilized daily to promote student learning. This is especially true for educators who are actively searching for ways to differentiate instruction.

My biggest challenge continues to be working with educators who have very traditional views of education, where the teacher is responsible for dispensing knowledge. How can I best motivate these educators to consider approaches that incorporate authentic learning activities? With some of the educational technologist and educator collaborations that I am filming, I am observing the ET taking the role of ‘sage on the stage’ and I do not think this is helping the classroom teacher develop a 21^st century skills teaching mentality. How do I change this tendency?

On the Intranet site I am developing, I am emphasizing authentic learning approaches when I share ways to incorporate existing and emerging technologies. I have learned a tremendous amount as a result of my GAME plans and I hope to facilitate similar erudition with the educational technologists and educators that I work with.

References:

Cennamo, K., Ross, J., & Ertmer, P. (2007). Technology integration for meaningful classroom use: a standards based approach. Mason, OH: Cengage Learning