Tuesday, June 19, 2012

Reflection



When I think about the process of learning how to produce a GAME plan and how to properly produce success with my goals, I think about how much I learned about being a reflective practitioner. Throughout the whole process I had to constantly think and reflect about where I was going with my goals and how I was going to achieve them. The GAME plan had already built in the factor that I had to monitor what I was doing and then evaluate my process. I think that this is the only reason why my GAME plan was a success, since I was pushed to look at where I was going with them and see if I attained what I was supposed to. “The GAME plan requires you to think about and take steps to direct your learning process, specifically while learning about technology and how to integrate it into the curriculum” (Cennamo, Ross & Ertmer, 2009, p. 3). Creating small steps to reach my goals was one reason why I think that my GAME plan was successful. I think that I would have been overwhelmed by the process if I wouldn’t have taken small steps. My last reason why I think it was successful, was because I believed in the goals that I set and I thought of them as being important for my classroom. If I would have never thought it was useful, I don’t think I would have put so much thought into how I could incorporate my new learning into my reading intervention classroom. From my learning, I realized how important these Web 2.0 tools are and the different ways to incorporate technology into my classroom to help my diverse students that are reluctant readers.
            I had a lot of new learning through this process of taking action to meet my goals. I learned a lot from my previous course about incorporating eBooks into my classroom to help my most struggling readers. I also learned about how to create problem-based learning, which I had no idea how to create one before I took this course. I also saw how social networking and digital storytelling can be an integral part to the problem-based learning; I liked how they went together. My favorite things that I learned were from my classmates in this class. They gave great feedback with my blog posts and on my lessons in our wiki site. From reading about their ideas for their classrooms, I was able to start writing a list of ideas on how to make their ideas work in my classroom.
            I think that all of this new learning has already had a huge impact on my thinking as a teacher and on my instructional practice. Everything I do with my students, I am trying to incorporate some way to incorporate more technology. I am getting ready to implement my new GAME plan that I created in my professional development at the school that I teach. I am going to create my wiki site for the juniors that I teach, set up the blogging account for them, incorporate digital storytelling into their activities, teach them to use Delicious for bookmarking, and how to cooperatively collaborate using 21st Century skills. Once, I have done this with my two smaller classes, I hope to incorporate next year into my other classes.
            Overall, it is amazing to think about how much I learned in just 8 weeks from this course. When thinking about my future endeavors with technology, I need to remember what Abrams (2010) stated in one of our videos which was to “use technology to match your goals” (Laureate Education, 2010a). I know that I will be able to successfully create new GAME plans for myself and teach my students how to use them also. In the end, I am on my way of being a reflective, goal-oriented, flexible, knowledgeable teacher getting my students ready for their future 21st Century jobs.
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.

Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2010a). Abrams, A. (Speaker). Spotlight on Technology: Digital storytelling, Part 1. [DVD]. Integrating technology across the content areas. Baltimore, MD.

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