Thursday, September 30, 2010

Monitoring My GAME Plan



Monitoring my GAME plan

In the last week I have made quite a bit of progress in my first goal: To communicate relevant information and ideas effectively to students, parents, and peers using a variety of digital tools. I am adding new ideas to the website daily and the students and parents are starting to check it out regularly. On the class blogs I have posted some math cartoons that students can give their interpretation of the cartoon’s meanings for extra credit. Any time I mention extra credit my students are anxious to try something new. As more and more students become comfortable posting to the class blogs, I will make responding mandatory. To help communicate to parents and students in my geometry classes I have a link to an explanation of their final project for the year. I want parents and students to know that if students don’t keep up with their digital portfolios though out the year, they will not be able to create a quality presentation for their final.

My second goal: Facilitate and inspire student learning and creativity by promoting student reflection using collaborative tools to reveal and clarify students’ conceptual understanding and thinking, planning and creative process, is also progressing. For their final this year my honors geometry students are creating a presentation to relate the concepts they learn to the real world. As we finished the first chapter I gave the students some time in the computer lab to find real life examples of points, planes and angles. My
student’s creativity continues to amaze me. I am really looking forward to seeing what they have to present at the end of the course.

I have learned that technology should be used as a tool and not as an end goal. Technology should be used to give students options in how they learn. It can help students show their knowledge in different ways. I have learned that not every new technology is appropriate for my classroom. I should not try to fit technology into what I'm teaching, but rather, use technology to aid what I am teaching.

4 comments:

  1. Nancy,
    I am impressed that you seem to be attacking technology integration on several fronts. It sounds like each of your classes has a separate blog; is that right? So far, I have been making most of my Web-dependent assignments voluntary, offering comparable alternatives to my students who do not have convenient access to the Internet at home, or have been scheduling computer lab time for them to complete assignments (as most teachers in my school do not have computers for students in the classroom). As you make blog postings mandatory, do you have any concerns about whether all of your students have access, or have you taken steps to ensure that they do?
    I really respect your assertion that digital technology is a tool, and should not be forced into instruction for its own sake.

    -Dug

    ReplyDelete
  2. Dug,

    The first day of school I had my students take a survey on their availability to the internet at home. All of my students have internet access of some sort. The last few weeks I have reserved one of the computer labs for the first fifteen minutes of class on Tuesdays and the last fifteen minutes on Thursday. This gives students with dial up at home time to read the posts on Tuesday, think about it and write a response by Thursday. Students that have posted from home can use the lab time to play some of the math games on pre-approved sites. The students love getting out of the classroom. The math department is trying hard to get five computers in each room just like all the other classrooms. For some reason the administration over looks the fact that students need to do research for math project-based-lessons.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Nancy,
    After reading your post I realized that our class has grown so much as individuals and it is a refection of the communication we are doing through applications like these blogs. Your passion and dedication to your students' learning shows through in your most recent post. They have many opportunities to grow like we are.
    I like the idea that you have with integration of technology into your classroom where you give your students a choice to use a blog as a response tool for class assignments. When they all begin using it, I would like to know how successful it is and how you are planning on assessing them. Will you use a rubric online or still a paper form?
    Wendy

    ReplyDelete
  4. Nancy,

    You are making great progress towards your goals. I love the idea of posting explanations for projects so parents can view. Many times parents would help their children if they just understood how to help them. Did you create your own website, or does your school/district provide the web address etc?

    Hayley

    ReplyDelete

Followers