Final GAME Plan Reflection

Overall, I am very happy with my GAME plan. It was very interested to see how the GAME plan had helped me throughout these few weeks. I also was excited to see my GAME plan in action. I brought some professional development opportunities to the staff development committee and they approved so I was able to give all staff a half-day to focus on building technology lessons. I am still in the process as I have two more groups to go! From the groups I have already worked with, I have only heard good things. One of the biggest things teachers struggle with is finding time. I have now given staff the time so they are hopefully that much more comfortable using the technology. This time has also helped me become a better teacher using technology because I am teaching teachers how to use it. I have created and built up my own collection of lessons that I am able to use. Not only have I used them in my homeroom class, but also I am able to use the technology with the after school program and with the students I tutor. My next piece of technology is bringing the wiki back. I started a wiki in the beginning of the school year and have not used it since. I have a science experiment where I want groups to collaborate on their findings. When the technology is prepared well ahead of time, it makes the class period go so much more smoothly.

GAME Plan

The GAME plan is very helpful in laying out goals and making sure they are followed each week. I enjoyed have the time to reflect on the goals that were made. It was nice to see that the goals do not need to be set in stone. As you go through and practice the goals, changes are made to help reach the goals. The GAME plan included goals, actions, monitoring, and evaluate and extend. This process has helped me grow and challenge myself to become a better teacher who uses technology. When sitting down and writing specific actions that I plan on taking gives me a place to start my goals rather than putting it off. As I am going through my goals, monitoring myself helps me reflect on how I am doing. I noticed that I was doing a good job with some parts of the goals and there were areas where I needed a little boost too. Evaluating and extending will help me continue to grow and change my ideas as needed. It is a smooth continuous cycle.

This will be a great process to layout with my students because we develop goals for our Responsive Classroom management. They have four goals in a variety of areas and I could add a fifth goal relating to technology. Once the students have their goals, we could discuss the actions they need to make that goal work while monitoring themselves throughout the year or assignment, and finally evaluate how they did. Once the students have a good grasp on their ideas, I could sit down with them individually to go through the goal they want to accomplish so I can support them in their efforts. While I continue to grow professionally and design technology lessons, the students will keep me on my toes to learn new technology to creatively bring in to the classroom.

GAME Plan Update

So far, I have learned about the SMART board Toolkit and different things I can do with it. I have also seen how I can easily bring in technology to my class. I had a graph on my SMART board that the students needed to fill out based on their information they got from their science experiment. I was able to model how to create the graph with my information. The modeling helped students understand how to do it. I have also created a “Who Wants to be a Millionaire” game on the SMART board. Using this game as a science review, helped students review in an interactive way. Next week, I am receiving training on SMART boards and will bring that back to my staff on Tuesday. I will continue to work towards using technology each week and continue to grow professionally. A new goal I want to set is bringing in different types of technology, like more Web 2.0 tools. Also, I have noticed that I keep my website up-to-date, but maybe one or two families visit the site. I want to update my website because I have families using it, so I need to find ways to get families going to the site more often. To help me reach these goals, I want to hear what other teachers do to have families use the website. I feel that the staff at our school does not have many families visiting the websites. They might be too simple and e-mail is easier for many of them. I need ideas on that.