Online Learning in K-12 Schools

Reflection

Reflection can mean many things. An image of something that is reflected from a mirror. How many times a day do we take a look in the mirror? The next time you look in the mirror, really look at the reflection being shown back. Now take that same concept and apply it to your teaching practice. As you teach, look at the image that is being reflected back.



Throughout this course, we have developed, changed, adapted and now reflecting on our GAME Plans. When we were first presented with the GAME Plan, I was not really for it or against it, I just was not for sure how it was going to work for me or my students. Now after having been through it and seeing the possibilities of the GAME Plan, it is really something that everyone does at some point in their life. This is just an actual way of writing it out and putting it into action. When coming up with my goals for the NETS-S, it was quite easy after reading through them and seeing where my strengths and weaknesses were. After the GAME Plan was wrote and put into motion, I had issues with getting the initial involvement I needed to reach my goals. My main issue was with the parents of my students. Most of them were not interested in getting involved in the classroom, so I needed to adapt and change some things up.

The biggest thing I take away from the GAME Plan is when we set goals and set out to accomplish those goals, our path my go in a different direction then we first anticipated. We have to be ready for a curve ball or ready to adapt at any time. This is something I have always tried to do, but honestly I have to admit that I fail at this a lot of the time. I tend to get frustrated and upset if things do not go the way I plan, and really hit my head against the wall--not really--but still try to get them to work the way I want them too. So from this I realize I have to adapt and overcome the obstacles that are placed in front of me by taking a different route around those obstacles.

I have learned some new ideas and ways for technology to be integrated into my classroom. In reading our course text and looking at the different content areas, I have been "reborn" in a sense of becoming creative in my lessons and looking at different ways to collaborate with other teachers in other departments. Immediate adjustments that are being made to my instructional practice is the continuing process of utilizing new and advancing software and digital tools. I want and need my students to be able to know how to use the latest digital tools because it will only help them be better in their chosen field. I also am going to continue to show my students how the GAME Plan can be effective for them with their goals.

Reflecting is an important part of every one's lives. As we look in the "mirror", we need to really think about what we see and if we actually like what we see. If not, it is time to change things and make them better. We need to be examples for our students and everyone else around us. For me, I need to let my students see me being a lifelong learner and continuing down the path of learning. Here is a quote I thought I would share about being a role model for your students.

"You are in charge of your feelings, beliefs, and actions. And you
teach others how to behave toward you. While you cannot
change other people, you can influence them through your
own behaviors and actions. By being a living role model of what
you want to receive from others, you create more of
what you want in your life." -Eric Allenbaugh-


So remember, someone is always watching and paying attention to what you are doing. The question is, Do you have your GAME Plan ready?

GAME Plan and Students

The GAME Plan is a great tool to use, not just for ourselves, but to have our students use too. I can see myself having my students create GAME Plans for each unit we do. When we switch gears and start a new unit, I give students an outline of what exactly is going to happen and what they are going to learn. At this point, I believe it would be beneficial for my students to create GAME Plans. Students can create their goals around what they want to learn or what they hope to do with technology.

Over the entier GAME Plan process, my favorite part if the Evaluation. I really get to reflect at this point. It really helps me to look at everything and to see what I can continue to do to make the goals a success. This is definitely something that I want to instill in my students.

The NETS-S are very important for educators to continue to look at and learn about. Not only should we focus on them, but our students need to know about them as well. I have already shown my current students these, and plan on doing this with future students.

Revising Your GAME Plan

So here we are, another week at accomplishing our Goals and completing our GAME Plan. I must say that I feel great about my GAME Plan(s) and am prepared to continue them out to their completion and to start some new ones. Looking back over the
NETS-T standards/goals, I feel pretty confident in the other areas. I really feel that I meet those standards/goals and can appreciate them for what they are. The two that are in my current GAME Plan(s) I feel need my attention the most and I really need to keep working at them.

Some new developments have occurred over the past week or so. While I was away on Spring Break I had some time to go back to some home roots and really look into my family history. One of my goals is: I would like to collaborate with students, peers, parents and community members using digital tools and resources to support student success and innovation. (NETS-T 3b)(International Society for Technology in Education, 2008). I started thinking about different ways my students could look into their family histories and how we could incorporate families and community members into this project. There is a TV show on NBC called 'Who Do You Think You Are'. I started with that title for a collaboration project. Students would interview family members about their family history. Get back stories, find names of people generations back. I looked at how much money I had left in my budget, and I have enough resources to be able to get my students an account with ancestry.com. I talked it over with my administrators and they were excited about it and really wanted to be a part of this adventure. So I said they could do this project with us too. A letter was sent home to parents asking if they would like to collaborate with their child on a family project. I have received a great amount of support and willingness to do this. Students are to research as much as possible through the use of family interviews, pictures, videos and with the help of ancestry.com. Students will then put together a multimedia presentation/project of everything they have found. I am really excited about this because it really will help to support and fulfill my goal.

I have learned that no matter what, learning is an ongoing process. You hear the term Professional Student or Lifelong Learner, and honestly that fits every single person. There is not a moment when we do not learn, I even find myself reflecting and learning as I sleep. In terms of setting new goals, I am going to stick with these goals, at least until the end of the school year. At that point, I am going to reflect on all the NETS-T standards and look at what ways I can improve on all of them. From there I will set some learning goals for the next school year. As I learn, I realize I need to lean on the shoulders of my colleagues, peers, and students. They really help me to look at all different aspects and to appreciate the information I have and do not have. Bouncing ideas and thoughts off one another help to open new views that I had not thought about before. Reflection has been a big part of these GAME Plans. I will continue to do that as I complete these goals and go on to other goals.

References
International Society for Technology in Education, Initials. (2008). Nets for teachers 2008. Retrieved from http://www.iste.org/standards/nets-for-teachers/nets-for-teachers-2008.aspx

Evaluating My GAME Plan Progress--Week5

As I inch closer to my goals, I feel pretty good about how I have developed my GAME Plan and continued on with it. Growing up, I was always told that every action had an equal or opposite reaction. The actions that I have taken to help meet my goals have been successful, helpful and at the same time frustrating. I have been able to talk with my mentor teacher and other colleagues about different assessments that they use in their classroom in regards to technology. They have really helped me and furthered my interest in learning new software that will help aid with that. With my second goal, collaborating with students, peers, parents and community members, I have had some struggles. Some people are interested and others just simply are not. Those that are interested do not have the time right now. So I have kind of stalled out for the time being. After my spring break, I am going to contact some schools in the state and ask if they would like to collaborate on a project.

I have learned a great deal. I think the biggest thing that I take away from this, is that when we set GAME Plans into motion, we need to prepare ourselves and be ready to adapt and change the GAME Plan when it is needed. New questions have arisen throughout the process and have led me to different areas that I did not think about before.

I feel that I still need to learn that this takes time and is a process. I am a person who generally likes things to happen as fast as they can. When I set a goal, I am pretty determined to make that happen, especially when it comes to education. Unfortunately sometimes things do happen--collaborators not having the time or people not being interested in collaborating--and I just need to remember to take some time to think things through and evaluate when necessary.

At this time, I feel that my GAME Plan for collaborating with others will probably not take place until next year. To fit my current needs, I need to focus on getting plans in place and being prepared for that. My goal for varied assessments does not really need to be adjusted; I need to put all my learning and research into action-using it in the classroom.

So from everything that has happened so far, the most important thing is to be prepared. Here is a link to a video that will remind you to Be Prepared.

Monitoring My GAME Plan

When I make goals, the hardest part for me is actually completing the goals. I would say that I average about 50-70% completion of all my goals throughout my life. Just to show you here are some examples of completing goals:

Soccer Championship
BPA Officer
BPA Scholarship
High School Diploma
Acceptance to The Ohio State University
Getting my Bachelors Degree with a teaching certificate from OSU
Getting married
Having a baby--who is now 2.5 years old

Now here are some goals that haven't been reached/completed

Lose the baby weight
Give up Pop
No sugar
Any New Year's Resolution




So it's not always easy completing goals that we set. In terms of My GAME Plan, monitoring the GAME Plan is the most important part to completing my goals. Information and resources have been abundant for my goals. Most of those resources are for providing varied assessments for my students. For this particular goal, I have learned that I still need to work on my knowledge of assessments and work at it to get it to the level it needs to be. I feel that I need to modify the GAME Plan for this goal, so that it includes more of me learning about Assessments in general and the concepts of it. Then being able to delve into the different assessments available and beginning to implement them into the classroom.

For my second goal, collaborating with students, peers, parents and community members is going so-so. I am getting great support from colleagues and administrators. They are helping me find resources needed and providing me with details on how to form collaborative partnerships with schools and businesses in the area. I am finding it harder to collaborate with parents. I knew this would be an area of challenge. Most parents are busy with work, raising other children, children's activities, and then their own personal lives. So I am trying to figure out if there is a way to schedule or get around these issues with the parents. Of course one parent did contact me and explain that she felt very lacking in knowledge and did not feel comfortable with using technology but would love to help out in other ways. The thought occurred to me that maybe we could invite parents and some members of the community to an Evening of Learning--hosted by the students. Students would be able to teach those who did not feel comfortable with technology. This could included--internet, email, skype, Microsoft Office and even get into some of the bigger software that my student's use--photoshop, premiere, etc.

For both of my goals, things are falling into place, there are some issues that have come up. When that happens, I just need to refocus and reorganize. It is important to be able to adapt and look at the bigger picture.

Now I need to go back and start on those goals that I have yet to complete....

Resources for GAME Plan

In order to carry out my GAME plan, I need to utilize various resources. For my goals, I would like to provide students with multiple and varied formative and summative assessments aligned with content and technology standards and use resulting data to inform learning and teaching; and I would like to collaborate with students, peers, parents and community members using digital tools and resources to support student success and innovation, to be achieved I need to talk with various people. The people I need to resource are: parents, colleagues, school administrators,mentor teacher, other community members, and most importantly my students. I am going to need to do some research as well, and I need to utilize the Internet, read journal articles, magazines and some books. When it comes to the use of digital tools, I really need to learn about the different tools and actually work with--getting to know the ins and outs of those tools.

I have taken some steps to accomplishing my goals. I started talking with my mentor teacher about different assessments that they use in their classroom. I sent out a letter to parents asking them to fill out a survey that I created--asking them about ways they could collaborate using digital tools that would support student learning. I have a meeting set up with school administrators to discuss implementing collaborative partnerships with local schools, businesses and giving them an idea of what I am hoping to do with the collaborative partnerships.

To accomplish my goals, I need to get the resources needed and to get involved with and in these resources.

GAME Plan

GAME Plan 1

Goals: I would like to provide students with multiple and varied formative and summative assessments aligned with content and technology standards and use resulting data to inform learning and teaching. (NETS-T 2d)(International Society for Technology in Education, 2008)

Action: I am going to talk with my mentor teacher and ask about how they provide students with multiple and varied formative and summative assessments. I will also do some research on the different types of assessments I can provide for my students through online research.

Monitor: Did I talk with my mentor teacher? Did the mentor teacher provide me with answers for how they implement different assessments? Did I research different types of assessments? Do these assessments fit in with the curriculum I teach? Are these assessments going to be effective for my students?

Evaluate & Extend: Determine which assessments will work best in my classroom and which assessments fit in with each lesson plan. Discuss my findings with my mentor teacher and show them what I plan to do to incorporate these assessments in my classroom.



GAME Plan 2

Goals: I would like to collaborate with students, peers, parents and community members using digital tools and resources to support student success and innovation. (NETS-T 3b)(International Society for Technology in Education, 2008)

Action: I am going to contact peers, parents and community members and ask for them to meet with me and discuss different ways we can collaborate to support our students through the use of digital tools. I am going to research schools across the nation that has collaboration partnerships and see how they support their students. Setup collaboration partnerships that will allow my students to utilize community members to help support their success and innovation through the use of digital tools. Talk with school administrators and discuss the implementation process of a collaborative partnership.

Monitor: Did I meet with peers, parents and community members to discuss ways of supporting our students? Are these supporters willing to commit to supporting students? Do we have the resources available to support our students? What types of things do the supporters bring to the table? What are other schools doing?

Evaluate & Extend: Determine if there is a strong support system ready to go and in place for my students learning. Continue to talk with supporters about other ideas and options we have available to us. Continue to research digital tools and how they can be used in collaboration with supporters of students. Discuss with school administrators all of the research I have looked at and the information I have gathered from the supporters.

References
International Society for Technology in Education, Initials. (2008). Nets for teachers 2008. Retrieved from http://www.iste.org/standards/nets-for-teachers/nets-for-teachers-2008.aspx

Reflection

This course has taught me a lot about the new literacy skills. These literacy skills—Questioning, Searching, Evaluating, Synthesizing and Communicating—are extremely important for our students to learn and understand.

At the start of this course, I felt I may have had an advantage over others. I felt that I provided my students a really good understanding of what these literacy skills are and how to use them. As we went through the course material, I came to a striking revelation—I might be teaching my students the new literacy’s, but not necessarily in the best way. I struggle the most with assessing my students and checking for understanding. I do assess my students, just not always the way that were suggested by Kuhlthau, Maniotes & Caspari (2007). Having gone through my lesson plans and looking at the way these new literacy's are used, I have edited my lessons and made them to give the students better understanding, but to also allow me to assess my students better.

I have learned about these new literacy’s and have developed ways to teach these to my students and be able to assess them on these. From here on out, I will have a better understanding of these literacy’s and be able to give my students all the necessities to be a 21st Century Learner. As I continue to teach, I am going to look at my lessons thoroughly. I want to really make sure things are planned out and then when I actually do the lessons I am able to reflect and edit them to make them even better. As time goes on, these literacy's will become old and newer ones will be developed. It is important to stay current with what is going on, so that we are not left behind or out of the game.

Professional development is key to being able to continue to learn new things and to develop your skills and knowledge. There are several things that I would like to do that will help to expand on these new literacy skills, but also technology skills. The first goal I have is to attend a summer workshop on technology in the classroom. This event has several speakers coming in to talk about different things that are taking place with technology and what I can do as an educator with those things. I have already signed up to be in it and have cleared my schedule for this to take place in June. The next goal I have is to complete my Masters Degree with Walden University in September 2011. Having been through several courses that have helped develop my skills in education and technology, I feel the courses that are to come will only help to make me even stronger. I have also started talking with some colleagues of mine about what we can do to implement these new literacy’s into our classrooms, but also get them into classrooms throughout our district. As a group we have talked with our administrators about the importance of these literacy’s and providing our students with the opportunities to become better 21st Century Learners. We are currently in the stages of putting together a presentation that will be given to the districts educators in May. The information I have learned in this class, and from the research we have done, I feel that educators will be impacted by this and ready to implement these into their classrooms.


Kuhlthau, C. C., Maniotes, L. K., & Caspari, A. K. (2007). Guided inquiry: Learning in the 21st century. Westport: Libraries Unlimited.