Blog Assignment: GAME Plan: NETS-S

The GAME plan process which consists of setting goals, taking action to meet the goals, monitoring progress toward reaching the goals, and evaluate whether goals were achieved or not and extend learning to new situations (Cennamo, Ross, & Ertmer, 2009 p. 3) is very useful in helping my students be proficient in the technology standards. I will begin by teaching and guiding my students to set realistic and measureable goals. I will try my best to have my GAME plan posted in somewhere in the gym every day they come in. All of the 6 groups of the technology standards for students is going to be very important for them to become proficient in.

Once my students have set goals they are going to have to start taking action and listing steps they can take in order to start working towards achieving their goals. Once they have listed the steps I will encourage them to start working on the steps they wrote down so they can become proficient in all 6 standards and their sub parts. Throughout the semester they will have to turn in paper explaining where they are and what they have learned and achieved of their goals and which goals they need to modify or new goals that need to be set. It is important for students to know that this will be a never ending process and they should continue working towards their goals and setting new goals because this is going to help them in the future. The last and final step in the GAME plan is to evaluate and extend. At the end of the semester they will evaluate and explain to me whether or not their goals were achieved and if they did achieve goals how these goals will help them become and develop into better students and how by meeting the standards will help them in the future.

GAME plan Week 6

GAME Plan Week 6:
I have learned many new and interesting ideas of how to apply technological tools and ideas into my teaching. I am going to start using some online collaboration in my classes. I think these are a wonderful idea and a great way to students to see what goes on outside of Macon, Ga or in Weaver Middle School. I think it would be interesting for them to see or speak with other students from other physical education classes to see what kind of activities they do. I am still working on my goal of meeting all my students’ needs. I am still finding myself praise and lean more towards the more skilled or athletic. I have given my students a survey to see what they would think of going to the computer lab sometimes and mentioned some of the possible activities that I have learned from this class to see how they would respond. I was not surprised when I saw the athletes against it, but my non-athletes very much for it. So I feel that may be a way to reach all my students which is one of my goals.

I do not feel that I have reached my past goals to my fullest, so I do not think I am ready to set goals. I feel as if there is plenty more I can do and try to reach my other goals. It is very hard to incorporate some of the activities but I am still going to try and step out of my comfort zone, which is something I struggle with daily. I still believe that if I could find and find time to attend workshops and participate in some online collaboration tools that I will improve in my teaching and my creativity. I really am going to try harder to attend and find some workshops to help increase my knowledge with other physical educators.

Week 5: GAME Plan

Week 5: GAME Plan
I believe that I have started taking action in reaching my goals for learning about technology and technology resources. Especially after reading the chapter in the book this week by Cennamo, Ross, and Ertmer, I feel even more confident is using technology into my physical education classes. Before this week’s reading I was struggling on trying to find the tools that would help me and benefit my students the most. Some of the technology tools that were listed in the course text I knew about, but there were many that I did not and am very interested in trying to incorporate these into my teaching. I have learned so far that even in a non-classroom environment such as a gym where technology is very limited, that with a little encouragement and by taking risks you can turn the gym into a technology friendly environment.

There are still a lot of things I need and want to learn. My main question which is still very relevant to me, is how to engage my students and get them excited about using these different types of technology tools, without taking away the required time that we are to give students in physical education away? Some new questions that have come to me, is what do you do when you work in a title 1 school and the money that is given to your school is geared more towards academic classes and getting technology tools for them, how do you persuade your school to give some money to physical education and health classes? Today there is so much emphasis on math, reading, etc, because that is what students are tested on at the end of the year and the schools future depends on those test scores, many classes such as physical education, art, music, etc. are pushed under the rug and all the focus is on those academic classes.

I do not think my plan is going to need much adjustment; I just need to do more research and figure out more ways and innovative ways to incorporate technology into my teaching. I also, due to the lack of funds, am going to have to find ways to be innovative and use what little technology tools we do have to incorporate that into my classes.

Monitoring my GAME progress:

I am ashamed to say but with the holidays upon us I have been kind of slacking on taking the necessary steps to meet my goals I stated earlier in the course. The few searches I have done, I am still struggling to find ways to integrate technology. One idea I do like is the use of a digital camera or video camera (Cennamo, Ross, & Ertmer, 2009 p. 146). This is a great tool for me and my students. I can use these tools in a variety of ways to help my students and athletes reach success in my classes and in their athletic events.

I do not think I need to modify my action plan, I just honestly need to get motivated and start searching a little harder since technology is such an important part of today’s’ education and the success of students. I have learned that there are many ways to incorporate technology into my physical education classes, it is just a matter of figuring out what is going to work and what is not going to work with the diversity of my classes. I have thought of one question that keeps coming to mind is how to incorporate technology with a class of 40 students and then with three other classes in a small sized gym? Another question is how to get my students motivated in using technology without them feeling as if there P.E. time is going to be taken away from them? P.E. is one class that they really like and it is such an important class I would hate to turn them off from P.E. I am still looking forward to getting back to researching and figuring out solutions to all my questions and integrating technology into my teaching, as usually any suggestions would be appreciated.

References:
Cennamo, K., Ross, J., & Ertmer, P. (2009). Technology integration for meaningful classroom use: A standards-based approach. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning.

Resources Needed to Achieve my GAME plan

After reviewing my GAME plan I realized that I am going to need many different resources. I have found that I am not doing all I can do to help prepare my students for the future, by integrating technology into my teaching. The first resource is going to be asking and receiving advice from those who are more proficient and more knowledgeable. I have had many coaches who I work with who have taken classes on technology integration, and I need to come out of my comfort zone and ask them for help and some ideas. I also need to attend workshops that are deal with technology even if I am unsure if they will benefit me. The more I expose myself to the integration of technology into physical education and health, the better I am going to become as a teacher. I also think that since computers are such a valid technological tool that I need to become more familiar with the computer. I know a lot, but I need to know more on how to apply the computer and computer resources to my profession and into my classroom.

I have already begun to discuss how fellow teachers I work with integrate technology into their teaching and classroom. I have also gotten on the internet and researched some ideas and options that I could use within my physical education classroom. I think I could really benefit from joining in on a chat room with other physical education teachers and getting their ideas and sharing my ideas with them. That is going to by my next step and what I am going to begin doing in the coming weeks.

NETS-T Standards for Teachers

As a physical education teacher I am sad to say that I believe I could work on all of the NETS-T standards for teachers. I really do not feel comfortable with any of the standards, except I feel a little comfortable with standard 1 which is “facilitating and Inspiring Student learning and creativity” (ISTE, 2008). I do know that I do many activities within my physical education curriculum which requires critical and creative thinking among my students called cooperative games or activities. I would like to become more proficient in the area of engage in professional growth and leadership as well as promoting and modeling digital citizenship and responsibility since I do teach a diverse community of students.

My first goal that I will try to achieve is providing learner centered activities and meet the needs of all my students and not just the athletes or more skilled individuals. My second goal is to try to implement more communication on my ideas to students, teachers, and parents by trying different digital media and formats.

My plan of action is to try to attend workshops and classes that are offered throughout the year to increase my knowledge on how to meet the needs of all my students, and to try different activities that I have in the past been hesitant to try because of the different skills levels among my students because I do not want to set them up for failure. I will also try to use digital tools such as the smart boards, and taking students to the computer lab and use the virtual world to show students what is being done in other parts of the country and around the world. Secondly I will talk to colleagues and other people in my field of work for ideas and suggestions on how I can achieve this goal.

I will monitor and evaluate my actions by keeping record anytime I learn or experience some new type of digital tool or technology. I will try the new tools with my students and then get feedback from students as well as parents to see if my action is benefiting them or not benefiting them. I want to ensure they are receiving and retaining the knowledge that I want to them know and understand. I will check myself, checklist and students feedback every month to see my improvement in my teaching.

Reflection 8: New Literacy Skills for the 21st Century!

During this course I learned how much broader the definition of literacy is today. In the past it was referred to the ability to read and write, now however now there are new strategies associated with literacy. The new literacy strategies that we as teachers must teach our students these days consist of “questioning, searching, evaluating, synthesizing, and communicating” (Laureate Education, Inc. 2009). I was very surprised at how much literacy is evolving and me being a teacher and teaching the people of the future how I could not know this? I realized that these skills are going to have to be taught at a young age and continued throughout their entire schooling. I was surprised as well at how much I learned from this course and how are we as teachers suppose to be teaching this without the assistance and guidance of background information in order to teach our students properly. I realized that using these skills as much as possible is the best way to ensure knowledge and understanding is by doing, doing, and doing more.

I will definitely as a teacher try to incorporate these skills as much as possible. AS a P.E. teacher it is going to be a little harder than say a math, English, or Social Studies teachers, but if I am given the chance I am definitely going to enforce and incorporate these skills to my students, because I do not want my students to be illiterate.

I would really like to increase my knowledge in the area of these new literacy skills in the 21st century. I would also like to plan a project that incorporates all these new literacy skills and make it a yearly project. The steps I will take to do this is to use each year as a learning year and to improve year after year. I will first have to think of an interesting project which will not make my students upset that they will not be doing physical activity in physical education. Once I figure that out I will then being to setup process and getting all necessary materials so I can be fully prepared when I do start the project, as well as allow enough time to complete the project thoroughly and get and learn the new skills, without taking away too much physical activity time. I believe that once I become more familiar with the skills I will be better able to communicate the skills to my students and help them understand why they are so important and in order for them to be successful in life they are going to need these skills, and just not the reading, math, and writing.

Reference:
Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2009). Program one. Skills for the Future
[Motion picture]. Supporting Information Literacy and Online Inquiry in the Classroom.
Baltimore: Author.