Wednesday, October 6, 2010

Evaluating my GAME Plan

As a way to monitor my professional growth and leadership development, I have decided to create an electronic portfolio that demonstrates the technology learning activities used with my students across all content areas for my GAME plan. So far in my electronic portfolio, I have included all technology related activities I have done with my students across all content areas. These activities have helped make learning more engaging and interactive for my students. While monitoring my GAME plan, I made an adjustment to update my electronic portfolio on a weekly basis instead of on a monthly basis, which was part of my original implementation plan. I have found that this approach helps me reach my goal more effectively because it allows me the opportunity to reflect more frequently on the types of activities used with my students.

Throughout the implementation of this GAME plan, I have learned to be more structured, clear and precise with my planning on a weekly basis so that I can truly relate and integrate technology across all content areas. By staying more focused during my weekly planning process, I have been able to maximize my instructional practices with my students. We have less down time throughout our day and our lessons are much more focused.

I want to continue using a variety of technology activities with my students across areas. Are there any other suggestions on the type of technology I could integrate within my classroom to help make learning more engaging and meaningful for my students? So far, I have used many interactive SMART Board activities and students have typed a personal story using Microsoft Word documents. In the near future, I would like for students to create PowerPoint presentations, make KidPix slide shows, create a podcast, and make a class webpage about the life of a famous person we have studied in our social studies unit. I am also interested in having them experience making a voice thread, but I would like to have suggestions on how to simply integrate voice threads into our second grade curriculum.

To adjust my GAME plan, I will add links to our already existing class webpage that shows the technology related activities we have done in our class so that parents can also share our learning experiences with us.

8 comments:

  1. Jewel,
    You are making great progress on your GAME plan. At the bootom, I added a great website that has technology activities for K-5 students.

    http://computerlabactivities.wikispaces.com/

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  2. Hi Jewel. It is great that you are making changes as needed to your electronic portfolio. Reflection is so important! Have you used Inspiration? This is a great program to use with concept mapping.
    Angie

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  3. Wow Jewel, I am impressed that you are encouraging your second graders to create power points and pod-casts... boy to I feel small...lol I just learned how to make a power point myself....and here your are already teaching your students... Well, good for you! The cool thing about all this is we are all at different levels of learning and as long as we are moving forward and making progress it's all good. Good luck to you!

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  4. Hi Jewel,

    I also post links on our class websites to sites that incorporate our standards and/or offer more instruction or practice for my students to use at home. I get a lot of positive feedback from my parents about the extra interest and motivation their children have at home with these sites.

    I am also very impressed with all of the technology your young students are using - you are really preparing them to be very capable 21st Century citizens!

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  5. Kelley,

    Thanks so much for your useful website on computer lab activities. I will definitely look into that for the next time we have computer lab.

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  6. Angie,

    Thanks for your suggestion. I have used Inspiration to make concept maps with my students before, but it was mainly done as a whole group lesson. This year, I will try to release the responsibility to my students and let them work in pairs to make their own concept maps. I am curious to see how it goes.

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  7. Leann,

    I think it's great that we are all on different levels because it exemplifies the dynamics of our students within our own classroom. Being able to collaborate together and bounce ideas off of each other helps us all grow at higher points.

    Also, you'll be amazed at how much your students already know about powerpoint or how much they can pick up on it once they are exposed to the program. Soon, you may want to have them make a brief powerpoint slide show about an interesting topic, show them some key pointers and then let them have a go in pairs. You will be blown away at what they can produce, all on their own, without our help!

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  8. Lisa,

    I love your idea of providing more links on our class web page that will be helpful for students to use at home. We just had family math night on Thursday night, and we provided the parents with useful math websites to use at home. I will go ahead and attach those links to my class web page as an additional resource for parents to use. Thanks so much for your idea.

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