Application 4

I took a look at Moodle, which is a course management system, that can be used by teachers in classrooms. I created a PowerPoint to show the benefits and share resources related to Moodle.

Moodle in the Classroom

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Education 6714 - Reflection

I have gained a wealth of new knowledge through taking the course Education 6714. I am excited to use some of the learning in my classroom to help differentiate my instruction for my students.

I have many new tools that I can take and use in my classroom right away. I think that one of the biggest changes that I will make to my teaching would be incorporating the inventories and surveys at the beginning of the year to learn more about my students and how they learn. After looking at many different surveys that are on the Internet, I created my own survey using technology that I will give to my students. I think that using these surveys and inventories at the beginning of the year are so important because they will guide the instruction for the rest of the year. Another change that I will be making in my classroom right away is the use of all of the tools that were shared by both myself and my classmates. It was so helpful to have classmates that were willing to share their ideas and tools that they found to benefit all of us. There are many websites and programs that I will be incorporating into my lesson plans. These websites will give my students choices and another way to learn certain concepts.

I know that when I integrate technology into my classroom, it will only benefit my students. By allowing them the chance to be creative, give them choices in their learning, and individualizing their learning, my students will show growth in their knowledge of important concepts and will be ready for their futures.

Reflection

I have learned so much from this course on ways that I can incorporate technology to help my students to become successful. From creating my GAME plan, I have been able to learn about important technology tools that I can use in my classroom which will help me to create meaningful lessons to help my student to be creative. Creating my GAME plan has also helped me to find the best ways to teach my students these new technology tools through monitoring and evaluating my plan. I believe that reflection is a large part of teaching and learning, and this course has given me a chance to do just that, while also helping me to find ways to help my students to do the same through the GAME plan creation.

One large change that I see in my teaching from taking this course is that I will be incorporating more technology in my classroom. By creating my unit plan and having discussions with classmates, this course has helped me to create new activities with the use of technology. I am excited to try out all of the ideas that I have in my classroom after the holidays.

Using the GAME Plan Process with Students

I think that using the GAME plan in my classroom will help my students to understand and show proficiency in the NETS Student technology standards.

To introduce the GAME plan and standards, I would like to go over each standard individually and discuss what they each mean. Then, I would like to show them an example of a GAME plan that I have for myself. By modeling the steps, hopefully the students will see the importance of each step and why they are necessary.

Finally, before starting different projects, I will have my students set goals for themselves related to the NETS-S standards. I will have the students think about what they hope to gain from the project. As we complete the different technology activities, we will work together as a class to practice the steps of monitoring and evaluating. We will also discuss what happens when we monitor and realize that we are not meeting our goal, or something needs to be changed.

When students are older, they will need to set goals for themselves while also reflecting and evaluating as they go along. I believe that by using the GAME plan with my students, they will be able to begin to practice this skill. At time same time, students will be gaining new knowledge of technology based on what is important to them.

Revising My GAME Plan

I feel as though I have learned a lot so far that I can use in my classroom based on the goals I had for myself. My first goal was related to facilitating and inspiring student learning. This course has given me many tools and techniques that I can use to motivate and benefit my students. Also, my second goal was related to modeling digital age work and learning. Focusing my time on completing these goals and taking these courses has given myself the opportunity to practice using many technology tools that I would not normally know how to use. I do believe that these two goals that I have for myself will be ones that I continue to work towards. I will continue to look for new ways to teach my students using technology and will continue to become an expert in those tools before teaching my students.

A new goal that I have set for myself is the goal of creating some lessons to teach my students about digital citizenship and responsibility. I think this is an important part of using and teaching students to use technology. I think that all students can learn something about safety no matter what age level they are at. I have gotten some great resources from colleagues and I will look into them a little bit more to plan some lessons for my students.

I am excited to reflect on the learning and progress I have made towards my goals and am pleased with my knowledge and growth.

Evaluating my GAME Plan

I have been working to follow through with my goals in my game plan. Creating this game plan helped me to focus on integrating technology into my classroom in a way that will benefit all of my students.

My first goal was to facilitate and inspire student learning and creativity. To meet this goal, I have been completing some searches online to try and find some student projects that the students could create which give them the opportunity to think creatively and to create excitement in my students. I have also been working with my second grade team to come up with math assessments that do the same. We have completed assessments for a few units. I have learned that students show more knowledge when they are able to think creatively and put more effort into their work. Creating problem-based learning activities will help me to continue to meet the needs of my students. I need to continue to always look for new ways that I can teach topics to my students.

My second goal dealt with modeling digital work and learning. As I continue to work to meet this goal, I will need to reflect on the technology tools that I have learned about and used in my classroom. If there is a new piece of technology which I feel will benefit my students, I will also need to learn more about it so that I can become an expert before teaching my students. Also, as I thought about what my students know about the computer, I realized that some are not familiar with some of the basic tools that they need to use to create digital work. For example, saving a file and shutting down the computer are two things that we only sometimes do and are things that I believe my students need to know how to do in order to use the computer for problem-based learning projects. I realized that I need to spend more time with the basics before I jump into the different programs. I believe that these things are an essential first step of completing digital work and need to be learned.

Monitoring My GAME Plan Progress

In order to meet the goals of my GAME plan, I need to make sure that I have found all of the resources I will need and I need to make modifications to my plan as needed after thinking about what has went well or has not.

For my goal of facilitating and inspiring learning and creativity, I have realized this week that technology can be used for assessing, while still giving students a chance to use creativity and continue to be motivated in the classroom. I have been talking with my co-workers to try to create some project-based assessments that students can complete to show understanding of the subjects that we cover, while also giving students a chance to complete their project using technology and creativity. We are hoping to create some projects for math and are in the beginning stages of the planning. I have not gotten enough time to do many searches yet, but I also plan to do some more searching on inspiring creativity in the classroom and will hopefully be able to share some websites soon.

Modeling digital age learning and work was the second focus of my plan. In order to be able to teach my students about the technology programs that I would like to incorporate into my classroom, I need to learn more about them first. I have started with blogs and I have become an expert in them by completing the blog for our master’s courses and by creating a classroom blog for parents to see. My next step is to begin teaching my students about the blog and having them add weekly posts for parents to see about our weeks of school. One question that I do have is what are some important things that I need to make sure to share with my students about blogs? Is there anyone who has started to incorporate blogs with their students and realized something important that you had not mentioned to your students? I realize that even when I try to learn something new, things can still happen and I would appreciate any tips that anyone may have about using blogs with their students.

I feel that my progress on my GAME plan has gone well so far. I will continue to reflect on the steps I have taken to make sure that I am meeting my goals.