GAME Plan Progress
Tom Wilcox
November 19, 2014
As a reminder, I chose the following NETS-T standards to concentrate on:
NETS-T Standard 4.d:
Develop and model cultural understanding and global awareness by engaging with colleagues and students of other cultures using digital age communication and collaboration tools (International Society for Technology in Education, 2008).
And
NETS-T Standard 1.c:
Promote student reflection using collaborative tools to reveal and clarify students’ conceptual understanding and thinking, planning, and creative processes (International Society for Technology in Education, 2008).
Two weeks ago I developed GAME Plan to help me develop proficiency in two NETS-T standards. Last week I looked at the GAME PLan and determined the resources I would need to tackle the GAME Plan. This week I will reflect on the progress I have made, and if there is anything I still need or should change to help me accomplish my GAME Plan.
My GAME Plan, as stated over the last few weeks is as follows:
To reach proficiency in the NETS-T Standard 4.d, I set the following goals:
- My students will send emails, videos, Skyping with a classroom from another country to get to know their culture.
- My students will correspond effectively (grammar, sentence structure, etc.) with the student they are matched with.
The resources I will need to carry out my plan are the following:
· A Chromebook for each child
· Parent permission slip (both paper copy and Google Form alternative)
· Google account
· An ePal teacher account
· ePal student account per child
· Partner classroom
· Skype account
· SmartBoard
To reach proficiency in the NETS-T Standard 4.d, I set the following goals:
- I will create a virtual reflection journal in Google Docs to reflect upon each day’s lesson and use it as a model for students.
- Students will reflection using a virtual reflection journal in Google Docs to determine growth and areas of improvement in their learning.
- Students will use their reflections to improve their academic weaknesses.
The resources I will need to carry out my plan are the following:
· Google account
· Reader writer notebook
· SmartBoard
The truth is, last week was a terrible week for me so the progress on my two goals has been minimal. My mother has been in the hospital this past week. I have been at her side each night which consists of a three hour round trip and a late night at the hospital. On top of that, It is report card time, all my grades were due, I had 80 narrative stories to correct, 80 summative assessments to correct, parent conferences, selling my condo, grad class assignments, blah, blah, blah… To say the least, I was a little swamped! I was able to set up email accounts for my students on ePals and I set up Google Classroom for my students. All of my students joined google classroom and we did an assignment using Google Classroom. It worked really well. The next step is to use Google Classroom for the virtual reflection journal.
One activity my class will be partaking is will be an author visit on December 2-3. We are currently reading the author’s book and on the 2nd and 3rd we will meet with the author and begin a writing assignment. In January, we will be Skyping with the author. The Skyping activity addresses NETS-T Standard 4.d. It will also give me experience using Skype technology in my classroom. I would like to use this technology more often. I will begin exploring the ePal website for classrooms that are looking for a partner school.
At this point, I will stick to most of the GAME Plan I originally constructed. After viewing this week’s video resource and reading the required text assignment, one area of my plan that needs to be looked at is the creation of effective assessments. Ross states that we must have a “cadre” of techniques to monitor and evaluate our students (Laureate Education, Inc.. 2009). In order for me to evaluate my GAME Plan, I must know if my students acquiring the skills that are expected of them. A combination of assessments including forced-choice, open-ended response, performance-based, and project-based should be incorporated into the plan. Rubrics and checklists will be the primary way of scoring the assessments. They are most effective because they help reduce subjectivity of subjective assessments (Cennamo, Ross, & Ertmer, 2009).
I look forward to implementing my GAME Plan in my classroom. With a few tweeks here and there, I am sure I will develop proficiency in the two NETS-T standards I have adopted for my classroom.
If anyone has used ePals in the past, I would love to hear from you. i would like to know about your experiences. What are some tips for a beginner to the process? If you have not used ePals, do you know anyone who has? If so, what were their experiences?
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.
International Society for Technology in Education. (2008). National education standards for teachers (NETS-T). Retrieved from http://www.iste.org/standards/nets-for-teachers
Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2009). Integrating technology across the contentInternational Society for Technology in Education. (2008). National education standards for teachers (NETS-T). Retrieved from http://www.iste.org/standards/nets-for-teachers
areas: Assessing student learning with technology. Baltimore, MD: Author.
Tom,
ReplyDeleteI am sorry to hear that you had such a rough week. I hope your mother is doing well. All considered, I think you did a great job of staying on track with your GAME plan. For Google Classroom assignments, are you having students within the same class collaborate together, or are you mixing your classes?
This week, my students were working on revising and editing essays. In order to do peer revision, I had the students make a copy of their essays, name it “Peer Revision,” and then share with a partner. Partners were instructed to make changes in different colors or to write comments. This way, after peer revision was completed, the writers could split the screen and look at their original drafts and the revised drafts simultaneously. If a student chose to make the changes suggested by his peer, he would make these on the original document; if not, he could ignore the suggestions. I will be assessing students on the suggestions they made to their peers’ papers (I had students share the “peer revision” document with me). This ended up being pretty complicated (probably because it is still new to my students). Despite my assigning due dates and creating checkpoints for the different components of this assignment, there were still students who had progressed through the steps of the writing process faster or slower than their peers. Because students were in different places, this was a problem, as some were ready to peer edit, but there was no one to edit their papers and no one’s paper for them to edit. This brings me back to my question about whether you mix classes or not. It had not occurred to me until now that I definitely could have mixed classes. All I would have needed to do is keep track of the students ready to peer revise (and their Gmail addresses). If I had done this, it would have helped the issue of students needing a partner. We would not have been limited to the students in the class. And, since the paper that students are editing is a copy, it eliminates the worry that a partner might delete his peer’s work or make changes that do not improve the paper’s quality.
I love that your kids will be participating in a Skype conversation with the author of a book they read. They are really lucky to have you as a teacher!
Thanks,
Marielle
Marielle,
DeleteThanks for the kind words. My mother is home and recovering. It’s been busy! I just sold my condo on Thursday and now must be moved out by the 5th of December. Will be another busy week, but an end is in sight.
My Google Classroom is set up by blocks (I have three 80 minute blocks). I encourage my students to collaborate from home with all students, not limited by classroom. Are you using Google Docs with your students? If so, one of the editing modes is "Suggesting." I encourage my students to use this mode because the editing is not permanent. All revisions show up in colored parenthesis and must be accepted by the owner of the paper. I like how you had kids divide their screen, but with suggestion mode, I doubt that would be necessary because nothing is deleted in the original. Your students can see both the original and the suggested revisions together.
I see where you are going with the reason for revising over multiple classes. It is difficult with writing, because kids write at such different rates. I have students staple rough drafts on my board, and anyone can revise them. But, there has to be a better way with Google Drive. I wonder if there is a way to create an editing folder where students can upload their documents into the folder for others to edit? Maybe a shared folder? I will look into it.
I appreciate your feedback! You are making me think.
Tom
Tom,
DeleteI can’t believe that it took you explaining “suggesting mode” to me in order for me to realize how I could use it for revision! This is one of those times where I am feeling rather silly but also grateful to have the opportunity to collaborate with people more in the know than me!
Thanks!
Marielle
Tom,
ReplyDeleteI am so sorry about your mom--what a horribly difficult week! I hope your mother is doing better.
I think you are doing some really exciting things in your classroom! When I taught second grade, I used Skype a couple times and not only was it highly beneficial to the students, but I also learned a lot from the experience. It was important to have my students prepared for the conversation (with questions/comments ready and written down) and to have a system for discussion in place so that they weren't all trying to talk to our guest all at once. :) I look forward to hearing how your Skype conversation with the author goes!
You make a great point about needing to think of ways that you will know that your goals are being met. Cennamo, Ross, & Ertmer (2009) mention how important it is to consider how you will monitor and evaluate your GAME plan, so you are wise to be thinking about how you will gauge this.
I hope you have better and less stressful weeks ahead!
Stephanie
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.
Stephanie,
ReplyDeleteThanks for the thoughts. Thankfully my mother is home from the hospital. Some good, happened. We sold our condo, however, we need to be out by the 5th of December. So I guess I have one week of crazyness left.
You present some great tips for me to plan Skype interactions. I would like to take advantage of Skype in my classroom in the future. When you Skyped, how did you find the people you Skyped with? I think it would be pretty cool to Skype with experts in their field and other classrooms across the country. Sometimes it is a matter of networking. I'm not a big networker.
Thanks again for your kind words and great tips!
Tom