Evaluating MY GAME Plan Progress:

Overall, I am feeling inspired to set more goals for myself in relation to my teaching career. I feel silly for putting some of my ideas and desires on the back burner because I felt like my goals were not as important as the other responsibilities I am juggling right now. I have experienced the complete opposite over the course of the past couple of weeks—I feel more accomplished than ever before, and I am more excited to try even more new “adventures” as a result. My positive experiences have also crossed over into my instructional practices—mostly because my students are directly benefiting from the accomplishment my goals (the goals are student related). Since one of my goals was to take more of a leadership role on my team, I have also affected the teaching practices and student experiences of within my colleagues classes.

I have decided to adjust my plan and add to my goals as I am accomplishing my others. I want to further my technological skills—especially in the area of Smart technology, so I am attending a course offered at my school this Thursday (during an in-service). I am excited to see what else I can offer my students—our school recently acquired a classroom response system (clickers) that I would love to incorporate into my classroom practices. I am learning though to balance my goals with my other responsibilities. How many is too many goals? Is there a limit? I do not want to reach a point of frustration, but I want to continue setting and achieving my goals.

Monitoring My GAME Plan Progress:

Monitoring My GAME Plan Progress:

My goal of taking on more of a leadership role on my team is progressing slowly, but it is still progressing. I am scheduled to teach my team how to use our Edline (classroom webpages) next week. Our team schedule is hardly flexible with parent conferences almost every Thursday and RTI (response to intervention) meetings every Monday and Tuesday. The only day that we ever have any flexibility is Friday. I am excited to share what I know about the technology available through Edline—and I know my colleagues are anxious to start using what I show them. I recently showed them how to use Excel to make review Bingo cards, and one of my teammates used the program today to review with his class for the quarter assessment. I am getting more comfortable with speaking up and sharing the multitude of technological talents. These courses have helped me develop my voice and confidence to share.

My other goal of learning more about and possible implementing lessons around online learning communities has hit a roadblock. I am finding information, but many of the learning opportunities that connect to what I am currently studying are not available right now. I am finding that this takes more pre-planning and forethought than I expected. I am starting to bookmark ideas for projects next year—that should allow for plenty of planning time—to match the project with the unit of study.

I am continuing to work on both goals—even though one if going more smoothly than the other. I never expected the process to go perfectly, but things are actually moving along faster than I could have ever expected. I am enjoying the GAME plan experience because I am accomplishing things that I have put off for a while.

Carrying Out My GAME Plan

For my first goal: to broaden my knowledge and comfort level with both local and global learning communities available for educators, I will need to spend some time online research the available resources. I could also look in to professional development opportunities in the area of online communities. One of my colleagues hosts a technology tutorial in the mornings, and he takes suggestions about the direction of his lessons. I could suggest he teach a class about both local and global learning communities and their applications in the classroom. I believe he has experience with the application in his classroom as well. I need to use the resources that are readily available in my school. I tend to get stuck in my classroom, in my own little bubble. I need to make time to leave my “bubble” and see what other teachers are doing in their classrooms. I am sure some of my colleagues are doing some very technologically progressive lessons. I have already begun discussions with my team about what they are doing with technology in their classrooms, and they have some great ideas.

To my colleagues in this course: Have any of you utilized online learning communities in your classroom? If so, what are some of the resources that you found helpful?

For my second goal: to become a more active member of my teaching team at school in the area of technology—more of a leader in the applications of technology in the classroom. I have already taken some initiative in my team—I scheduled a time to teach my team how to use their own homepages (with blogging, message boards, posting documents, homework turn-in, and posting grades securely). They seem excited and were happy I offered the lesson. The website is most definitely one of our untapped, valuable resources. I also joined a new committee at school because my team leader felt she was spread too thin—I took her place on the committee.

Developing MY Personal GAME Plan:

The area I feel is the weakest for me personally is the “Engage in Professional Growth and Leadership” standard; more specifically the following two indicators represent areas where I need to focus energy and time:

1. “Participate in local and global learning communities to explore creative applications of technology to improve student learning

2. Exhibit leadership by demonstrating a vision of technology infusion, participating in shared decision making and community building, and developing the leadership and technology skills of others (ISTE, 2008).”

My personal GAME plan consists of the following:

Goals:

Setting appropriate goals is important—making sure to set an attainable goal is vital so that I do not enter a state of frustration. I tend to set lofty goals and end up quitting before I reach them because they are simply unrealistic.

1. My goal is to broaden my knowledge and comfort level with both local and global learning communities available for educators. I have a sense of fear about them because they represent an unexplored area of technology.

2. My second goal is to become a more active member of my teaching team at school in the area of technology—more of a leader in the applications of technology in the classroom. I teach on a team with two language arts teachers, a math teacher, and a world studies teacher, and none of them are comfortable with using all of the technology available to us. I want to become more of a resource to them, and possible inspire them to complete some of their own explorations. It would be amazing to be able to share ideas with my colleagues.

Actions:

1. In order to achieve goals, I definitely need to take more initiative to explore and conquer some of the fear of the unknown that I am harboring. I need to just jump in and complete a test run—maybe with one class period to begin with at first. The learning communities and the opportunities available online seem like amazing learning experiences for students (and me)—I do not think I can get over the fear unless I make a commitment sooner rather than later.

2. I also plan on speaking to my team leader and asking if I can run a couple of meetings to both answer technology questions and share the ideas and methods I am currently implementing in my classroom. I know they have the desire to utilize the technology that is available—they simply do not feel comfortable using it because they do not understand it.

Monitor:

1. I will monitor my progress in a couple of ways. First, during my exploration of local and global learning communities, I will create an annotated list of resources (linked to my delicious account). The list will be used as a resource to ease my fears and increase my comfort level—So when I begin my experimental, test run I will have my list to return to in case I run into problems. The list provides me with a way to gage my own understanding of the material and application of this technology.

2. I will monitor my progress with my team through discussion and through my colleagues’ experiences with technology that I introduce to them.

Evaluate/Extend: I will evaluate my learning in much of the same way as a I plan on monitoring my learning—through discussion and the level of success my students and my colleagues’ students experience as a result of the implementation of the new technologies. The students definitely will act as the best gage of learning—if I can teach my students what I have learned, I know I understand what I was exploring.

Resource:

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