My Continued Progress on My GAME Plan

                Throughout this week, I have made some progress towards meeting my GAME plan goals.  However, one of my goals will need an extended period of time to take effect.  While I don’t feel the need to modify my plan, I do feel that the second goal, helping other staff include technology in their classrooms, will require me to continue working throughout the next school year. 

                My first goal which involves collaborating and working with other colleagues in my district has already begun.  Today, one of our middle school teachers came in to work with my first grade students to teach them how to create their own movies in iMovie on their iPads.  They will collaborate together again throughout the week as they work on their reflective movie about the school year.  I was impressed with how quickly and easily the middle school students were able to teach the younger students, and my first grade students were completely enthralled in what their older “friends” had to show them.   In addition, it was suggested by a colleague in this course that I consider using this idea to have the students reflect on their learning throughout the school year.  This is a great idea that I plan to implement next year as it will help provide a deeper understanding of my students’ work as they reflect on their progress every few weeks.  Since this project has started going so well, I’m also looking forward to finding other ways to collaborate with other grades.

                As my second goal involves discussing and helping colleagues become more involved with technology and the school year is coming to an end, I feel this goal will need to be worked on more at the start of the next school year.  At that point, I will be appointed the added position of being the technology coordinator for the elementary building.  This involves helping to train the other teachers on new technologies being implemented within the building such as our new internet phone system, automated substitute program, and the new carts of iPads being implemented in certain grades.  Some of this will require me to take some training this summer of which I am already registered for.  As I keep working on the progress towards this goal, I have noticed that some teachers have been more interested in the new technologies we will be implementing next year and are already coming to me with questions.  However, I’m hoping the trainings I take this summer will enable me to fully answer their questions.

Working on My GAME Plan Goals

                In order for me to work towards meeting the goals in my GAME plan, I first need to look at the resources available to me.  As much of meeting both of my goals involves working with colleagues, I needed to identify some colleagues willing to work with me on this project.  In addition, the technology I have available to me at my school also helps me to meet these goals as I will be utilizing a wide array of technological devices as I work with my colleagues.  A third and often overlooked resource that I will need is time.  Due to the fact that much of my plan requires me to work with colleagues, finding a time that works well for them to collaborate with me can be difficult under everyone’s chaotic schedules.

                At this stage, I feel very confident in how my plan is progressing towards meeting my goals.  My first goal to collaborate more with students and teachers is well underway.  I have had a project that I have been waiting to start with my students for some time now.  One reason for my wait has been because I know the project itself will be difficult for me to teach my students on their own while I am helping one student at a time.  I want my students to start taking video with their iPads of themselves reflecting on activities we have done throughout the year.  This is something they could already do on their own.  However, I want to teach them how to use iMovie and make their reflection into a short movie that I could compile later on.  One colleague of mine, who teaches middle school, has offered to have her middle school students partner up with my students to teach them how to work the program.  Through this collaborative effort, my students would learn the program much more quickly and would each have their own tutor. 

My second goal was to become more of a leader to help other teachers incorporate technology into their classrooms.   I have been working on part of that goal recently when I presented what I’ve been working on with the iPads to the school board and my colleagues.  While the school board was very excited, my colleagues felt overwhelmed.  By seeing this, however, my principal realized how much help some of my fellow teachers will need in this department.  He now sees that half hour sessions in our staff meetings or optional technology trainings will never help these teachers because they will try their best to avoid implementing it.  Instead, he wants to tack on a new role for me in the elementary next year as our technology specialist.  I still want to be teaching in my first grade classroom, so the details of what this entails will still need to be worked out. 

                In conclusion, I have only just begun to work on meeting my two goals for my GAME plan, but it has already brought about so many changes for me in my district this past week.  What my year will look like next year is yet to be determined, but I’m excited for the possibilities!

Matt Larson

Reflecting on the ISTE Standards

In reviewing the ISTE standards and their indicators, I have noted that I need to work on standard four, Promoting and Modeling Digital Citizenship and Responsibility, and standard five, Engaging in Professional Growth and Leadership (ISTE, 2011).

The indicators that I particularly need to focus on in standard four involves working with colleagues and students of other cultures using digital age communication and collaboration tools.  One major reason for my lack of work in this area is the lack of diversity that appears to be in my area.  However, after working on my Walden University Diversity Requirement for my portfolio, I reflected and began to realize that there was more diversity in my town than I had otherwise realized.  My goal for this standard is to exchange and collaborate ideas with a variety of colleagues in my district, community, and in other regions of the country.  A few actions I can take to meet this goal is to network more with my colleagues in the district and online.  I know many teachers online that use Facebook to connect with other teachers to share ideas.  This is one tool I could use more effectively.  In addition, a colleague in our middle school has been asking if our first grade class would like to collaborate with them.  They would like to team together to work on an iPad project and have the middle school students teach my students some functions of the iPad.  Incorporating projects such as these are great ways to collaborate with colleagues.  Upon reflecting on how the project went, I can begin to branch out from there and discuss working with other grades as well.  While I don't see the race or cultural differences in others I work with, the Diversity Proficiencies helped me to point out that they do exist in my school.  By working with a variety of colleagues and different aged students, my students will be exposed to greater diversity and will be able to collaborate with them on a more regular basis.

In the fifth standard, I noticed that I don't often get together with other colleagues to discuss how to implement the latest technologies effectively in our classrooms.  In addition, I am not much of a leader in trying to show others how to implement it or answer their questions.  There are a variety of ways I can go about meeting this goal, but perhaps the best way is to start joining in conversations and committee groups with the other colleagues in my district.  In the past, there has always been a noticeable age gap between much of the staff in my school.  Many fear and stay away from any form of technology at any cost.  Therefore, I tend to stay away from some of them as we don't share the same viewpoints.  I have recently joined some committees in my school, and this week I have presented to our school board about iPads in the classroom.  During this presentation, I was able to show the board members the benefits of using the iPads, and they were able to ask me questions that they had.  I plan to join other committees in the district to begin discussions about the inclusion of technology within the school.  By reflecting on the discussions we'll have, I can note any progress I may be making.  I keep a binder with notes, post-its, etc. that help me keep track of what went on during meetings.  By continuing to keep notes of these new meetings, I will be able to reflect later on my progress.  Furthermore, next year I have been asked to start giving some trainings in how to work our Promethean boards.  This will help ensure that I extend my practices in the future to meet these ISTE standards.

Reference

International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE). (2011). National Education Standards for Teacher (NETS-T). Retrieved from:  http://www.iste.org/standards/nets-for-teachers.aspx