Monitoring My GAME Plan Progress

          This week I got further in carrying out my GAME plan, based on standard 4. d) develop and model cultural understanding and global awareness by engaging with colleagues and students of other cultures using digital age communications and collaboration tools (International Society for Technology, 2008).  My goal was to connect with another English speaking 2nd grade class, somewhere in the world, via www.epals.com.  I set up my classroom profile and it is approved.  Next, I created 26 accounts for each of my students.  All of the emails will go in and out through my inbox.  Then, I looked through the descriptions of the registered classrooms.  I found a 2nd grade class in Spain that might be a good fit for us.  The teacher of this class wants to expose her students to other cultures, and so do I.  The children can speak Spanish and English, so communicating should not be a problem.  I sent the teacher of this class an email today, and I will await her response.  I will continue my search through all the descriptions of classrooms and their locations.  There are so many classes all around the world to connect with.    

            The next standard I was working on for my GAME plan was 1. a) promote, support, and model creative and innovative thinking and inventiveness (International Society for Technology, 2008).  I signed up for the website http://edu.glogster.com. This website came highly recommended to me by several teaching professional, and is endorsed by Discovery Education and ISTE.  This website will enable me to set up my own multimedia poster to model for my students what they can do.  The first project I plan to do is an interactive poster about the Pilgrims and the Native Americans, back in 1620-1621, leading up to the first Thanksgiving.  Another website that also came highly recommended to me by many teachers was www.edmodo.com.  This is a network for teachers and students to connect outside of the classroom.  I signed up, started a profile, and created a group to use with my current 2nd grade class.  There seems to be so many great innovative ways to use this website.  I can create alerts to my students, assignments, a quiz, or even a poll.  I am excited about using www.edmodo.com with my students, and look forward to being better connected to all of my students.

            I would appreciate any other recommendations of resources for virtual field trips.  Scholastic.com had the exact virtual field trips I needed for a current lesson on the Pilgrims and Native Americans.  If you have certain websites that are your favorite for virtual field trips, I would love to hear about them.  

Reference List

International Society for Technology in Education. (2008). National education standards for teachers (NETS-T). Retrieved from http://www.iste.org/docs/pdfs/nets-t-standards.pdf?sfvrsn=2

Carrying Out My GAME Plan

A Productive Week 

             The International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) has National Education Standards for Teachers (NETS-T), and I chose two of them for my GAME plan.  To review, I chose 1. a) promote, support, and model creative and innovative thinking and inventiveness and 4. d) develop and model cultural understanding and global awareness by engaging with colleagues and students of other cultures using digital age communications and collaboration tools (International Society for Technology, 2008).

  In order to carry out my GAME plan, I will first need to locate websites with computer tutorials, WebQuests, interactive graphic organizers, and virtual field trips.  Next, I will need to talk to my colleagues about websites they use for concept mapping and mindtools.  Then, I will explore all my options, and keep track of what I particularly like and why.  After that, I will start using these tools in my classroom, and ask my students for feedback on what technologies they each prefer.  To evaluate the effectiveness of these various technologies, and how I incorporate them, will be reflected in the final project of each student.   

            Already I have located wonderful websites for WebQuests, and virtual field trips.  This week I am beginning a small unit on the Pilgrims, Native Americans, and the first Thanksgiving.  The website I like best for WebQuests is www.webquest.org.  I found many WebQuests by typing in The Pilgrims, but one in particular works for what I have in mind.  My partner and I are going to have our students do a compare and contrast of the Pilgrims’ life style to that of the Native Americans, during the time leading up to the first Thanksgiving.  The WebQuest called A Day in the Life of a Pilgrim/Wampanoag Child gives a list of website for children to use for researching both the Wampanoag Native American Tribe, and the Pilgrims.  Next, I found fantastic virtual field trips on www.scholastic.com/scholastic_thanksgiving/.  I found four virtual field trips to actual recreations of the Pilgrim village, Wampanoag homesite, and the Mayflower ship.  This recreation is in Plymouth, Massachusetts.  There are videos, great photos, text, and narrations of the homes, gardens, clothing, and so forth.  Actual people reenact the Pilgrims and Native Americans from the year 1621 in these recreated villages.

            I went to a conference a couple of weeks ago, and a presenter recommended an interactive graphic organizer on the website http://edu.glogster.com.  This website is endorsed by both Discovery Education and ISTE.  I will need to sign up to use it, but it comes highly recommended.  This same presenter, Carin Brenner, also recommended Animoto.com for producing unique video, text, and photo presentations.  It was one of her top twenty websites for educators to use.  I may end up using Animoto, as well.

            The ePals program seems straight forward and easy to operate.  I have signed up on www.ePals.com, and all I need to do now is create a permission slip for the parents of my students to sign.  We will soon be connected to another English speaking 2nd grade class, somewhere in the world.  However, I am taking webconferencing off my GAME plan.  I think for now, it is enough for my students to write to children in another country via email.  Webconferencing is way out of my comfort zone, and incorporating all of these new technologies is all I can handle for now.

            I would appreciate any other recommendations of resources you might have.  Teachers are a wealth of information.  If you have ever done webconferencing I would love to hear how it worked for your class.

Reference List

International Society for Technology in Education. (2008). National education standards for teachers (NETS-T). Retrieved from http://www.iste.org/docs/pdfs/nets-t-standards.pdf?sfvrsn=2  

Developing My Personal GAME Plan

       The International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) has National Education Standards for Teachers (NETS-T).  I reflected on these standards and decided upon two indicators to set a GAME plan for myself.  The first standard I chose to strengthen my confidence and proficiency in is the following:
       1. Facilitate and Inspire Student Learning and Creativity:
       a) Promote, support, and model creative and innovative thinking and inventiveness (International Society for Technology in Education, 2008).
       My goal is to learn more about computer tutorials, and computer mindtools, and how to use them to help develop creative and critical thinking skills.  Specifically, my goal is to model for my students at least one new tutorial, WebQuest, interactive graphic organizer, and virtual field trip.  The action I will take is to find computer tutorials on the various subjects I currently teach.  WebQuests have numerous computer-based tutorials which contain sound instructional design components, and I need to explore these (Cennamo, Ross, & Ertmer, 2009).  There are websites that can help my students to create graphic organizers, which will serve as a visualization tool in helping my students organize information.  I use www.Spiderscribe.net right now, but I know there are more interactive graphic organizers that I have not tried yet.  My colleagues have websites they currently use for concept mapping and mindtools.  I will explore their recommendations, along with the expert advice of our computer lab teacher.  The world of virtual field trips is new to me, and I will do research in this area to try to find virtual field trips that can apply to our 2nd grade curriculum.  Next, as I explore the many options available, I will create a rubric or table of my assessment of what tutorials, virtual field trips, and mindtools I particularly like and why.  I will start incorporating these new computer tools in my classroom, and evaluate if they really do help my students to develop better creative and critical thinking skills or not. 
       The second National Education Standard for Teachers that I need to strengthen my confidence and proficiency in is:
       4. Promote and Model Digital Citizenship and Responsibility:    
       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).
       My goal is to learn how to operate and set up ePals.com, and learn more about webconferencing.  I want to use ePals as a way for my students to connect with other 2nd grade students in another country, so they can compare and contrast their cultures.  Webconferencing would be an extension of our communications with their ePals.  The action I will take is creating accounts for each of my students, getting permission from their parents, and then initiating the contact with the ePal website so they can connect us with another 2nd grade class on the subject of Social Studies.  Webconferencing is new to me, so I will need to learn how it operates, and the many uses for it.  All of the ePal mail will come through my inbox, so I can monitor for appropriateness and to protect my students.  This may be an enormous project, or it may run smoothly and not take a great deal of time to monitor.  I will evaluate the effectiveness of both technology tools to see if they really help to promote global awareness and cultural understanding, in this digital age.

Reference List

Cennamo, K., Ross, J., & Ertmer, P. (2009). Technology integration for meaningful classroom use: A standards-based approach. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, Cenage Learning.

International Society for Technology in Education. (2008). National education standards for teachers (NET-T). Retrieved from http://www.iste.org/docs/pdfs/nets-t-standards.pdf?sfvrsn=2