During this course I have learned a great deal about new and emerging technologies that could be used with my students. I never thought of virtual environments or games to be a part of a curriculum. However, after taking this course I have found many ways for these to be included in my teaching on a daily basis. I found a MUVE (multi – user virtual environment) that would be spectacular to work with money concepts with my kids. Not only does it reinforce the money skills, but it also forces them to solve real life situations that could arise in a safe environment. It also allows them to collaborate with a variety of learners both in their class as well as globally. This is a whole new way of teaching and learning for me and my students.

For the upcoming school year I can see myself searching for a variety of these MUVE’s or educational games that would allow my students an opportunity to explore and learn with these in their classroom. These could be a great way to get some students hooked onto such things as history and math that normally would not be interested in these topics.

Now that my masters program is coming to a close I see a variety of new technologies and ways of thinking to get my students ready for the 21st century world. These learners are exciting to work with and with the new technologies it makes it that much more fun to teach on a daily basis. This program has helped me understand a variety of ways to get my students involved with technology and in a way that would highly motivate my students.

Here is the link to my voicethread. I evaluated the online learning tool Moodle.

Enjoy

http://voicethread.com/share/1183257

This course has taught me a great deal about UDL and DI. Before this course, I did not know what UDL really consisted of and I thought DI was a strategy instead of a way of looking at teaching. That being said, I have also gotten a great deal of resources from my research and my peers though the social network of Ning that I will use in the future. Many of the resources that were given were great ways to implement UDL and really gave a good explanation of the pieces of UDL and how to implement them in a classroom setting. Those will come in handy when I continue my journey with UDL. Other resources that I learned about were jigsaws, surveys that would allow me to get to know my students better, as well as some resources that would help bring technology into the classroom like math and reading websites that bring UDL and DI into the classroom.

I have found that technology is a great way to get the students engaged. My class has a computer lab time assigned to it each week. It is 50 minutes in length and allows my students a great deal of time with technology. Sometimes I have my students type in a program we have at school and other times I allow them to explore. After taking this course and learning about the vast amount of technology out there, I am going to take one technology every couple weeks and explicitly teach it to my kids. They are 3rd graders, which is a great age to get them involved with the computer as much as possible and to learn as many different technologies as I can teach during the school year. Something I am going to have them do in the next few weeks is create a diagram using a voice thread, PowerPoint or another paint program and label the parts. If they choose voice thread they can then add a voice feature to allow them to explain the function of each part. This is exciting to me and I cannot wait for the adventure to start for my students!

This class has been quite the journey. I put my first GAME plan into place and have felt successful in many areas of my GAME plan. Throughout the course I have tweaked it to better suit my needs and skill level and in time will continue to tweak it to meet my level of expertise when integrating technology in my teaching and professional development. By going through this process I feel that I better understand the GAME plan and will be able to put it into practice with my students. I feel that it would better allow them to develop their technology skills as well. Over time they will get better and better with revising their plan to better suit their needs. It is something that every student should use and get accustomed to revising as they gain skills.

I have learned a wealth of knowledge from this class about various technologies. During the rest of this school year, which may go into July here in Maryland due to snow, I can see myself using Digital Stories with my students as well as social networking tools to get the students used to seeing technology in their daily lives and see how it is intertwined in their daily learning. I have already started using the Smart Board more and more, and have created many lessons to use in the classroom. The excitement that technology brings to the classroom is amazing and it truly makes the learning come alive for the students in my class. I look forward to learning about more technologies as I come across them and as they are developed in the future.

After looking at the ISTE website and the NETS-S, I found that they are interrelated to the NETS-T. The goals are very similar, however they are just geared to the audience. I have created a GAME plan for myself and I feel that it will and has made me more fluent and aware of the technology and how to use it properly as well as what to use it with in my daily teaching.

I feel that first and foremost, students should be taught how to be citizens on the web. They should know the safety they need to take in order to be safe on the internet. They also need to know the repercussions of actions as they surf and search the net for various reasons in their schooling. This is important I feel to teach at an early age, since technology is embedded in so many classrooms on a day to day basis.

I also think that students should be using technology to learn, present and assess themselves about various aspects of the curriculum. The teachers need to introduce the students to a host of technologies that are available to them, so they are able to pick and choose the correct and most reasonable technology to suit their learning and needs in their school.

I could see myself making a GAME plan template for each student to pick one of the standards to work on a semester or year. I am not sure how much time they would need since we do have weekly computer lab time, a semester may be better and then as they go through it they could tweak it. They know how to set their own goals. We do this for reading, writing and math on a daily basis and I feel that they could do a similar thing for technology. Something that I could see needing to be stressed is the mere fact that this is an ongoing process. So many of my students want to know what they need to do to get an A or how to finish the task at hand. If they are told upfront that this is an ongoing thing, and will never really be finished, I feel it would be more beneficial to my students. I could model using my own GAME plan and show them how I have tweaked mine and made mine suit me as I go through the process and become more proficient with technology.

The NETS-T and NETS-S are intertwined and go hand in hand with one another. In order to meet the student’s needs, teachers first need to be come fluent and comfortable with the technology standards and create their own GAME plan that they modify continuously. This is exciting to see the correlation and even more exciting to think that the students could one day, and maybe are NOW, more fluent in the technology around us!

National Education Standards for Teachers (NETS-T) located at http://www.iste.org/Content/NavigationMenu/NETS/ForTeachers/2008Standards/NETS_T_Standards_Final.pdf.

This course has been an amazing journey with technology. I have learned about so many new technologies that I could use with my students that would address several NETS-S as well as the NETS-T. This course has brought technologies for social networking as well as technologies for presentations that I have yet to use since I had never heard about them. This week in my learning resources I learned about many social networking technologies that could help my students connect with students around the globe. I like the idea of epals as well as the flat classroom project. These two would allow my students to immerse themselves in curriculum around the world and learn things from students with different backgrounds than themselves. Having such a diverse population in my own classroom, this could be exciting for the students to go to their country and connect with students who are native to that country as well.

New goals I have set for myself based on the NETS-T are to model digital citizenship and responsibility. I want to be able to address the diverse needs of my students. I really think by having these collaboration tools that my students can use on a daily basis, this would help meet this standard. The more collaborating with a diverse group of people, the better understanding my students will get about various topics, especially in social studies. I think it would make for an interesting classroom network with other classrooms around the world. This would be quite exciting and keep the students engaged because they would want to show off their skills as they learned from the classroom across the ocean.

A few learning approaches I may try to improve my learning would be to get a network started to be able to bounce ideas off of. In my learning videos this week, Vicki Davis mentioned having a network of teachers that you build throughout your career to help bounce ideas off of and to collaborate with their classroom. This is something I would like to try and something that I deem very valuable. I am definitely a teacher who in the building will bounce ideas off my colleagues and I am also someone people come ask questions and concerns to get help; By having this digital network the same thing could happen, however there would be more experts as well as a wealth of information out there that I had never tapped into.

This journey is far from over and will continue far past this program. This program has been a springboard for me in getting my technology skills built upon and I have gained a wealth of information that will help my current students as well as students in the future. This technology is ever changing and it excites me to see what other possibilities are out there!

Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2009). Integrating technology across the content areas. Baltimore: Author.

I have started to have some of my students review the sites and technologies that have been on my list to try. This I think would be a great way to see how exciting they are to a student as well as how useful. The students I think will enjoy reviewing them as we do more and more. They have been doing this in their computer lab time so it may take a few sessions to really finish one review per site.

I have also gotten a list of members of my staff who are interested for next year to be a part of a technology committee. This has been helpful and there is a lot of interest so I may have to actually limit the members. I do not want to make it into another staff meeting, but have a small group to help make the decisions and talk about what is more important technology wise for the students in our school.

I have continued to make progress although small and will continue to plug away at it over the next several months.

This week for my graduate course I have been asked to monitor my current GAME plan and revise as needed. I have continued to talk with my colleagues about the two goals I have picked and have started to make some progress. Although it is slow going, I can feel some process being made each and every time I tackle a new aspect of my GAME plan. I have found some technologies that colleagues have suggested, I just have to find time to review them and make sure they are appropriate for my third grade students. This is going to take some time so I can evaluate them correctly and find technologies that are appropriate and will really foster learning along with the curriculum, being taught. I have also started asking around the staff about a committee for next year in regard to technology. Some people have seemed interested but this is hard to really get into until next year and I know who is still at the school and such. This part of my GAME plan may have to be put on hold for a few months, but is definitely something I will get to when the new school year begins.

I think at this point in my GAME plan the only modification I would need to make is to postpone the committee aspect. At this point in the year is not a great time to start something like that and for it to be most effective. A question I have about the committee is would having a student representative from the younger and older grades be helpful? Something to ponder in the upcoming months.

This process has really allowed me to evaluate my GAME plan and see where I am currently. It has also gotten me thinking about technology and it seems to really be in the forefront of my mind currently. I think that is due to the nature of my program and getting me excited about the endless opportunities in regard to technology. This will be even more exciting as I put my entire GAME plan into effect this coming fall.

Now that I have my GAME plan in place and have selected a variety of standards to address for me personally, I need to think about the next steps. What will I need to carry these out? What resources will I need? How much time will it take to make this all happen? I have already started to do a few things for each of the two standards I have selected.

In order to effectively teach my students how to use a variety of different technologies, I will have to first compile a list of technologies that are worth something to my students. I need to make sure they are age appropriate, safe, user friendly and something that will not only be engaging but will enhance the curriculum being taught. I have spoken to fellow teachers in my building about what softwares they use and have consulted with the technology team in my county via email. Some of the suggestions they had were different types of media (podcasts, blog sites,, wikis etc). They also gave me some other ideas for presentation software that I will be able to use in the classroom. My students are pretty good with Power Point but I would also like them to be using other presentation software as well as technologies to enhance their learning.

For the other aspect, I find this one to be a little more tricky. I am going to have to find teachers in my building who are just as interested with technology as I am. I think this is something that will have to go into effect next year since there will be a lot of planning needed to make it work well. I have asked my principal if we could have this as a committee next year and she said why not as long as I was willing to lead the efforts. I am ok with this, but will definitely need help along the way to make it work best for the students at my school.

It is exciting to start to think about the various ways to get technology throughout the building. It is quite a task but one that will be well worth it once everything is in place. The kids and teachers alike will both benefit from these tools. A little education and application is all it will take. I am very excited about this endeavor and will keep you posted as I go through the journey!

National Education Standards for Teachers (NETS-T) located at http://www.iste.org/Content/NavigationMenu/NETS/ForTeachers/2008Standards/NETS_T_Standards_Final.pdf.

After reviewing the NETS for teachers, I found that I have some experience in all of the areas. However, some are stronger than others. The two I would really like to develop more are: design and develop digital – age learning experiences and assessments and engage in professional growth and leadership. These two really struck a chord with me and sparked an interest.

In the past I have had my students use PowerPoint, Excel and a drawing program to create projects and presentations. A goal I have for myself is to have my students design and use a variety of technology tools. Some that interest me are podcasts, wikis and blogs. By having this goal I hope I will be able to share my excitement for these technologies with my students. With this goal I hope to implement a blog for my class as a way of communicating both with my students and my parents. By having a blog, it would help keep in touch with the families as well as be like an online newsletter. This would not only be more engaging but at the same time environmentally friendly. As I implement these things, I hope to monitor the usage and participation of my students especially on the blog. I have to get them excited and experienced on such technologies in order for them to be effective tools.

The other one that interested me was about professional growth and leadership. I am currently at a school with limited technology tools. A goal I have for myself would be to get a committee started again to get more technology involved and purchased for the school community. By getting teachers more involved with this aspect of learning, it will become contagious and transfer to the students themselves. They in turn will get excited about the various technologies that are in their classrooms or being taught to them and bring them home to use as well. A monitoring tool for this would be to make sure that students were made aware of these technologies and taught how to use them. They need to be explicitly taught so they are not misused. With proper safety guards in place and experience, students will become well versed in these technologies and allow them to become a natural part of their learning.

Technology is an exciting aspect of technology! The more I go through my masters program the more excited I get about the endless possibilities that are out there. By just getting the information to these young minds, a lot can happen with these great tools!

References

National Education Standards for Teachers (NETS-T) located at http://www.iste.org/Content/NavigationMenu/NETS/ForTeachers/2008Standards/NETS_T_Standards_Final.pdf.