Reflection on another completed course

This will be my last post on my current class Integrating Technology Across the Content Areas. Throughout this course I learned more than I thought I would. I love to use technology in my classes so this course helped me out a lot with ideas for my classes.
The biggest lesson I learned in this course was about how to use a GAME plan. I have covered the GAME plan method a ton in my previous blogs so I won't cover those details again. I have learned that the GAME plan can be a great tool for teaching new technologies. In my classes I use lots of new technologies like Google Earth and Sketchup.
On that note Google Sketchup is a new technology that I barely knew before this class. Now I know how to use this technology and how to use it in my classroom thanks to my GAME Plan and my fellow students' ideas. This week actually I am starting a unit with one of my classes using Google Sketchup. Then I have a test on their Sketchup skills where I have designed a 3D canyon that my students will then have to design a bridge across. The spatial reasoning, math, and critical thinking skills that Sketchup teaches are invaluable to my students and my classes.
Another technology that I have learned to use in my classes is this one I am using now: Blogs. Before this class I had only used blogs a little bit and had not used them in my classes. After having to blog every week and developing a learning community using blogs I now realize that this tech is a great tool for digital citizenship and literacy. Blogs can be used in more ways than I realized before so now I want to use them in my classes. I have not decided how I will use blogs yet but now and in the future I will be able to find the right place to use them.
In all, I am very happy with all that I learned in this course. I love that I learned new technologies and how to use them in my classes. I also learned how to better teach new technologies using the GAME plan. So when I have to teach new techs to my students that can more easily learn them and have a greatly depth of knowledge. This was a great class that will help both me and my classes.

Luke

GAME Plan for my students

Throughout the last few weeks I have been keeping you guys up to date on my own GAME Plan. Now that I have come so far and am reaching the end of my current course I want to start thinking about how to apply the GAME Plan process to my students. To remind you all, a GAME plan is an action plan to learn a new technology or skill. GAME stands for Goal, Action, Monitor and Evaluate. This is a pretty good method for students to be able to learn something new. In my class I like to teach my kids new technologies so that in the future when they need to learn a new technology they know how to do it and a GAME plan is perfect for that.
The two technologies that I teach that are the hardest to learn are Google Earth and Google Sketchup. Both of these require spacial thinking skills and the ability to learn new software characteristics. If I teach my students the GAME plan method before they begin these new techs I think they will learn the skill of learning new techs much faster. I want to put together a short lecture and PowerPoint on the GAME plan method like the one in "Promoting Self Directed Learning with Technology" (Cennamo, 2010). Just 10 of 15 mins of how-to use a GAME plan should help my students organize their thought processes and give them more patience with the new tech.

Luke

Update

Here is another update on my GAME plan:
What have I done that I can apply to instructional practice? What goals am I still working towards?
This past week I have been learning more and more about how to use Google's Sketchup. The new quarter at my school starts this next week and with it starts my Technology Education class where we delve into a lot of engineering concepts. Sketchup is the perfect tool to combine the ideas and skills we learn about in the classroom with technology. My favorite part of the program is how user friendly it is. I can show my students how to use it in about 5 mins and then they can self teach the rest. Once they are done with their plans they can print out images of their structure from multiple angles or they can e-mail it to me through our Google Apps school account.
What new learning goals will I set for myself?
I do not think I will set any new goals right now because I am still working deeper into my current ones. I have new classes starting with the new quarter so I want to find more new techs to use with these classes. Also I have a possibility of going to another school and doing a professional development training with them that would fit perfectly with my PD goal.
How will I extend what I have learned so far?
I need to work out plan with this new school's principal so I can get into his school. I know I have the skills to teach his teachers and they need to know what I can teach so we need to work it all out. Then I need to come up with a plan for what I am going to teach and work out the logistics.
For my new technologies goal I am going to be looking for new techs and ways to implement them into my new classes this quarter.
What new learning approaches will I try next time to improve my learning?
I think that in the last couple of weeks my progress towards my goals is really speeding up so I don't really want to change anything. With the new quarter I am naturally looking at improving my classes so that will push me even more. I have found a few new things that have a lot of promise in the last two weeks so I want to follow through with these and then keep finding new leads because my GAME plan is working really well right now.

What I have learned

Another week, another update on my progress towards my GAME Plan

How effective were your actions in helping you meet your goals?

My actions in my GAME plan were the only thing that helped me accomplish what I have so far. If I stuck to my normal routine I probably would have never set these goals or taken any actions to complete them. Without me taking specific and purposeful actions I would not have learned the things I have so far.
What have you learned so far that you can apply in your instructional practice?

One of the things that I have learned and want to play around with more before using in my classroom is SketchUp. I just found it on Google for free and what to use it in the coming weeks for my class. Has anyone used this program before? Its kind of complicated and I would love some help.
What do you still have to learn? What new questions have arisen?

I still would like to do more with wikis, Google Apps and blogs. I know a fair amount in each of these techs but I would like to know more about how to use them in my instruction. For example, I would like to use blogs but don't have a good way to get everyone to subscribe to each other or how to get them all signed up because they don't all have e-mail. this is where I would like your suggestions. Does anyone use these in your instruction?
How will you adjust your plan to fit your current needs?

One thing I have really learned is how a community of educators can be helpful in reaching my goals. Originally I just decided to reach my goals with webinars and helping do more professional development at my school. But I have found that all of my readers and fellow students are a great resource for new tech and its uses. So keep the ideas coming!


Luke

www.google.com/intl/en/options
shetchup.google.com/intl/en/

Half-time of the GAME Plan

For this week's post I wanted to update you guys again as to my progress with my GAME Plan. Just a reminder that my goals for my GAME Plan are focused on doing more professional development for my fellow staff mates and to find new technologies to use in my classroom. I have four questions that I will use to updates you.
Are you finding the information and resources you need?
For my professional development goal I have tons of stuff that I want to share with my colleagues. I wish I had more formal opportunities to share them because then I feel I could make a big difference. As for finding new technologies for my classroom I have been experimenting with a few new ones but I have not found one I want to use for sure yet.
Do you need to modify your action plan?
I think my action plan is going well right now so I don't want to tweak it right now.
What have you learned so far?
This last week I learned that I can do more professional development at my school one on one. A secretary was struggling with how to communicate some weekly events with the other staff. I then spent the next 30 mins showing her how to use her Google Calendar better and how to create events to send out. She was so happy with what I had to share that I want to find new opportunities to do one on one trainings.
What new questions have arisen?
One question I have for all of you to help me out with is any technologies you have learned about that are good to use for education. I know most of my readers are in education so any suggestions would be great. Thanks!

Keeping up with the GAME Plan

As follow up to my GAME Plan post from last week I will give you an update on how I am doing. To guide this post I will use the following three questions:

What resources will you need to carry out your plan (video, reading, experts or colleagues, etc)?

The main resources I will use are Dicovery Educators Network (DEN), ISTE, and my school's Tech Committee. I have signed up for a webinar coming in the following weeks with DEN. The webinar is on all the updates to the DEN and to Discovery Education streaming. I am excited about this because both resources are really cool and they always make lots of updates during the summer. For my professional development plan I am working with my Tech Committee to develop a training on Google Apps. We have a training staff meeting scheduled for Monday, Sept. 27th. At the training I will be teaching how to use GMail as an educator.
What additional information do you need?

The webinar I have signed up for is something I can't really prepare for or need anything for. The Tech Committee training though I need to prepare a lot for. I personally use GMail for my e-mail and know lots of tricks including themes and labs. I will be watching the Google Apps for Education training videos though to learn new tricks. I actually meet the lady this summer that designed these training videos so I know they have lots of good ideas. Then I need to make a plan for my part of the presentation. Does anyone have any tips for GMail or any other Google Apps?
What steps have you been able to take so far?

So far I have been able to sign-up for the webinar and see an brief description of what will be going on during the webinar. For Google Apps I have been using several of them for years so I have lots of background information to build on. This prior knowledge will be great to teach to my fellow teachers so that they can be more effective at their job.

NETS-T

As part of my latest class Integrating Technology Across the Content Areas I had to look into International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) and National Education Technology Standards (NETS). I have know about ISTE for a while through my colleagues and this summer I had the chance to go to their national conference here in Denver. There I learned more about their NETS program and how they set standards for different levels. As part of my class I have chosen two NETS for teachers that I would like to advance my skills in. The first NET-T I choose was #1 facilitate and inspire student learning and creativity and the second was #5 engage in professional growth and leadership (ISTE.org, 2010).
To promote my learning in these NETS-T I will follow the Goal Action Monitor Evaluate method (Cennamo, 2010). My goal will be to find new technologies to use in my classroom to promote creativity and my second goal is to take more of an active role in my school's Technology Committee. My action to achieve both of these goals will be to take part in several webinars to find new ideas to use. Next I will monitor my goals by doing monthly self reviews. Lastly I will evaluate these goals by using my school's librarian to pitch my ideas to. If they are good she will let me know.
In all taking part in webinars will help me become a better teacher by fostering creativity and help my school by bringing new ideas to our Technology Committee.

www.ISTE.org
Cennamo, Katherine. "Promoting Self-Directed Learning with Technology." (Walden University, 2010)

Relection on Theory, Instruction and Technology

This week marks the end of another Masters class through Walden University. I am very excited to say too that I am at the end of this week half way done with my Masters.
The current course I am in is called Bridging Learning Theory, Instruction, and Technology. The class started out talking about education theories and I have to admit that I was sceptical of the class because I am not a huge fan of theory. However as the class went on found that I had a lot in common with two of the theories: social constructivism and social learning. The social constructivism theory focuses on making concrete things and the learning that goes on in the creation of the project. This theory is the one theory that I immediately identified with but as I learned more theories I found the social learning theory. The social learning theory is all about working together with others so that we can all learn from each other. I believe that putting these two theories together will make a powerful learning environment.
To accomplish a class where social learning and social constructivism work together I have made two goals. First I want to have a project a month where students work together to create something original with technology. I do know though that I will get push back from parents and students when it comes to students working together since obstacles can come up in groups. My second goal goes hand in hand with my first: make my projects as student/group friendly as possible by doing things like having class time to work together and making projects online. If I can do more with technology I know my students will like the projects more and the students will have easier access to each other through the use of technology. For example, I want each of my classes to make wikipages since they can be worked on anywhere and any time as long as there is an Internet connection. Another technological activity that I would like to do in my class is a game called Making History. The idea to play Making History came from Pitler, Hubbell, Kuhn and Malenoski (2007). In their work it talks about a history teacher using the game to teach WWII politics and history to his students. The teacher had great success playing Making History. He did a study on the academic performance of the students that played the game and found that they learned the concepts better than a control group of students that did not play the game. Both of my goals can be accomplished in projects/activities like these.
In the end I really hope to make my classroom a better learning environment by combining the social learning theory and the social constructivism theory. By combining these theories with technology my students should be able to learn and understand more of the content I am teaching.

Pitler, H, Hubbell, E, Kuhn, M, and Malenoski, K, (2007). Using Technology with Classroom Instruction that Works. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.

Cooperative Learning and the Social Learning Theory

I do not think there is a more controversial topic with parents, students and teachers than group work. I have had parents and students absolutely despise me because I assign group work. Some teachers will not even assign it because it is so controversial. Personally when I was a student I hated group work or any time I had to work with others. It often was difficult to find time to meet outside of class and everyone had the same grade but not everyone put in the same amount of work. However in the educational world we find lots of research, theory (social learning theory) and requests from businesses that support teaching our students how to learn and work together. As I grew in my teaching I too realized that group work is needed. I always try to think of what my students need in life when they turn 18 and without a doubt they need to learn how to work with a group. If you go into any business or organization you will find people working together on projects, boards, co-ops, councils, committees, and so on. Therefore if I am going to prepare my students for life I need to prepare them to work in groups.
Students also can learn from each other. The social learning theory tells use that students learn from each other. While I think there are many ways to learn I do believe many students can learn by working together because others can provide a different perspective or set of knowledge.
Now that you know why I think group work is important I also have to say it is often times flawed. To limit or prevent these flaws groups need to be well regulated by the teacher, everyone needs to be accountable for their contributions and communication needs to be easy and appropriate. In Using Technology with Classroom Instruction that Works (Pitler, Hubbell, Kuhn and Malenoski, 2007) you can find many mediums for communication and cooperation. However these need to be monitored so students do not abuse them by sending inappropriate material or messages to each other.

Constructivism in the Classroom

This week's theory of study is constructionism aka constructivism. The theory is very big on the students finding out the information for themselves through experimentation, creating strategies and hypotheses and so on. The theory can do great things for students in their creativity and enthusiasm for school but it can be time consuming so it is not practical for every day classroom use in my mind.
Two strategies that were introduced by Using Technology with Classroom Instruction that Works Pitler, Hubbell, Kuhn and Malenoski (2007) are using Excel to make data sheets and playing games that require strategy and critical thinking. I really like both of these strategies because I can use both in my class. For my Business class my students have to make personal budgets for each stage of life so Excel is critical in planning out a budget and calculating needs. For some of my other classes the games can be really fun and educational. My favorite of the example games was the WWII strategy game that is online. The kids have to come up with a strategy and then test it in the game. The teacher who originally designed the game tested the effects of the game on his classes. The test scores and enthusiasm in the class with the game were overwhelming. Both of these strategies work well with constructionism and will be used in my classes.

Cognitivism in Practice

This week in my masters' class I am learning about cognitivism and how to use cognitivism theories in the classroom. The readings for this week were really interesting but the best part was the practical ideas for lessons in the classroom. From Using Technology with Classroom Instruction that Works Pitler, Hubbell, Kuhn and Malenoski (2007) I really learned how improtant concept mapping is. Concept mapping is plotting ideas on an area but in a non-linear way. Therefore you can have multiple paths or strands to follow. This is much more like how people think rather than linearly like in writing.
I will use concept maps more in class after reading this text because I do a lot of writting activities which are not reaching all of the learning styles in my class. If I add in some concept maps for both assignments and notes it should help my students. The reason I think this will work is because the cognitivism theory says that we need to do more work with how the brain works and learns rather than the ways we have always done. So my hope is cognitivism will work in my classroom by doing helping my students learn better with concept mapping.

Behaviorist Learning Theory and Instructional Strategies

This week I have been learning a lot about the behaviorist learning theory and how it works in the classroom. This week I also learned about two different instructional strategies that fit under the ideas of behaviorist theory (Pitler, Hubbell, Kuhn, & Malenoski, 2007).
The first instructional strategy is reinforcing effort (Pitler, Hubbell, Kuhn, & Malenoski, 2007). In this strategy the teacher makes sure that the student is putting forth their best effort. As a middle school teacher I can say this is the biggest challenge I face. My colleagues and I have often said in middle school students are not graded on how smart they are but if they do their work. Those students who work the hardest are guaranteed at least a B while other really bright students get F's because they don't try at all. The main tool used in this strategy is getting the students to realize how much effort matters in their success and how much effort they are putting in. From a technology stand point the best way I saw to do this was to track grades and a self-survey of effort through excel. The students can then make a graph that represents their grade and their effort and see how they are related. From a behaviorist stand point this is great because the students get to see how their behavior is effecting their learning and hopefully changed their behavior.
The second strategy is homework and practice (Pitler, Hubbell, Kuhn, & Malenoski, 2007). Every teacher knows that we can not teach everything in the class. Therefore we assign extra practice outside of school we call homework. This home is great because it gets students to reinforce what they are learning in class. Again from a technology point of view practice is essential. Almost no one can do something on a computer once and be able to do that again and again forever. We all need to practice skills before we can master them. The part of this strategy that stands out to me as being behaviorist is the fact that students always need feedback on their practice. Then they can change or continue what they are doing so they can be more successful students.
Both of these strategies are useful for the classroom and both work well with technology. One can also categorize these strategies as behaviorist because they show students what is good and bad and allows them to change their behavior based on that analysis.

Pitler, H., Hubbell, E., Kuhn, M., & Malenoski, K. (2007). Using technology with classroom instruction that works. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.