My GAME plan is running smoothly to
some degree. We have encountered a handful of issues, but I have been
discussing what has been happening with other teachers in my department. I
believe I have discovered some ways to cope with certain issues and replace
others.
There are two modifications that I
just realized I will need to make this week. The first pertains to student
blogging. Blogs for individuals, such as those we create for Walden, are
excellent tools for students to use in developing their own voice. The major
issue, however, is time management for me. If I use the format that I
originally intended, which was modeled after the classes I have been taking in
this program, I will have over one hundred separate blogs to visit. If I add
the component we use in this course, which is to have students submit a
separate file with their posts and responses, I will create a huge rift with my
students. Many are not to that level responsibility and maturity yet, and I
believe much of the work with the blogs would not be done well if done at all.
I must also take some of the blame. Teachers must prepare the technology, make
sure the correct resources are available, and are working properly (Cennamo,
Ross & Ertmer, 2009). I did not do this, and instead relied on what I
thought I knew from my experience last year. Therefore, I have decided to
create a single blog for each of my three senior classes. I have gathered each
student's school Gmail address, and I will send them all invitations to the
blog. Doing this, I can have the writing prompt as the initial post on the
blog, and their responses can be placed in the comment section. This will allow
for a number of things to occur. Students will be able to see what others are
writing which can help clarify the purpose, open up new possibilities for
understanding through collaborative thinking, and develop conversation on the
topic we are engaging.
The second modification is very
similar to the first, yet it pertains to wikis. I believe we would have had
more success with the group wikis in the classroom, but I would have still had
at least a dozen different projects to evaluate. If I am to address both
individual and group learning, it will be difficult to judge at this time as I
am still wrapping my mind around this process. As my understanding evolves, I
can broaden the scope of future projects. For now, one wiki per class will
allow for student creativity and collaboration without developing a difficult
monitoring situation for me. The pieces of the wiki can still be divided among
smaller groups, each with their own group leader. These could be the students
with editing rights to the blog. This would be even more powerful in that these
group leaders could also be a group, perhaps made of students that on the
higher end of the ability spectrum. If there are students who are ahead of the
game, then adding in a layer of responsibility that will push their thinking
can account for that differentiation piece that will be important to keep them
engaged.
All the information and resources
are at my fingertips. The biggest struggle has been using the technology tools.
Each student has been assigned a Netbook, but our corporation micromanages web
access to the point that we are never sure what we will be able to do from day
to day. For example, YouTube is available to all on some days, only teachers
with their school account on others, and there are even days when it is blocked
completely. Our LightSpeed software, which is the Internet security software we
have pre-installed on all computers in the corporation, is excellent when used
correctly, but if people are not careful, it could hinder access to the point
that students no longer want anything to do with the provided technology due to
absolute frustration. I do have options, and the first one that I intend to
look into is developing a list of need sites for my class. I have been told
that if I do this, I should be able to make sure that the sites we need will
not be blocked at any point.
The biggest lesson I have learned:
Nothing is as simple as it originally seems, and the worst thing I can do as a
teacher is start out with a big idea and not break it down into manageable
pieces. I have some amazing ideas sometimes. But I have to make them manageable
or they are merely unachieved dreams. In the future, I have much to do to
improve. It is important that expectations are clear from day one, all
objectives are stated along with the evaluation methods, and students need to
be actively involved in the development of their learning (Han &
Bhattacharya, 2001). I have the tendency to think things are obvious, and I
omit things that are necessary. In addition to tackling the issues with
technology, I must be more intentional. If I am, I believe I will find greater
levels of success and so will my students.
References
Cennamo, K., Ross,
J. & Ertmer, P. (2009). Technology integration for meaningful classroom
use: A standards-based approach. (Laureate Education, Inc., Custom ed.).
Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning.
Han, S., and Bhattacharya, K. (2001). Constructionism,
Learning by Design, and Project Based Learning. In M. Orey (Ed.), Emerging
perspectives on learning, teaching, and technology. Retrieved September 29,
2012, from http://projects.coe.uga.edu/epltt
Cooper,
ReplyDeleteI guess you can say that one of the new questions, that have arisen with your GAME plan, is “How can I institute a collaborative technology, with so many roadblocks set up by the school district?” It seems that your district is more concerned about not getting sued than provided the tools to learning. Technology is definitely a double edged sword. There are a lot of great things, but a lot of damaging things, also. When it comes to students, it is no surprise that we have both observed our districts take the side of overly cautious, rather than learning.
If I may make a few suggestions, you need to contact your media specialist and your information technology agent with in your school. I went to my media specialist, Joni Gilman (personal communication, September 9, 2012), and received a list of approved blogs, wikis, forums, and tech tools approved by my school district. Cennamo, Ross, and Ertmer (2009) want to provide a lot of choice to our students, because it encourages and motivates them to learn. However, if their choices are causing your netbooks to lock up, I think that you will need to give your students a list of approved sites in which to do their research and create their artifacts.
Contacting your school’s IT agent will allow you and him to come up with a game plan (no pun intended) to achieve what you want to do with your classroom. He may be able to set up special passwords, in order to allow your students more internet freedom. This “Monitoring” (Cennamo, Ross, & Ertmer, 2009) phase is to check and see if you are making enough progress towards your goal. It seems like you are not making the progress that you want. In order to change that, it looks like you need outside help.
Remember, the ultimate duty of both the media specialist and the IT agent is to provide services for the students. I think that they would jump at the challenge to help you.
References
Cennamo, K., Ross, J. & Ertmer, P. (2009). Technology integration for meaningful classroom use: A standards-based approach. (Laureate Education, Inc., Custom ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning.
Steven,
ReplyDeleteI believe that you have hit the nail on the head, and I am glad that your advice lines up with some moves that I have already made. Let me catch you up to speed as I am sure you will find the same humor in this that I did. My corporation has its own agreement with Google, and all students have been provided a school Gmail account. Their account username and password are the same as the information they use to log onto their school provided Netbooks. This is where it gets funny. You would think that Blogger would be on the approved list as it is a part of Google, and it does work on some of the student Netbooks. However, there are some that are given an "invalid entry" error when they try to log on and create a blog. This seems to be an issue of individual computers as students have been able to work with a different PC and complete the task. It gets even better. My teacher computer cannot, I repeat cannot, access Google. We have four different networks that I know of in the building. There is the wired ethernet, a guest wifi, a student wifi , and an admin/teacher wifi. I tried accessing each of these to see if there was possilby an issue with an individual network, but it is actually my computer. I contacted our school tech, and she has no idea what to do. I sent a message to our corporation techs, and the response I received was "it has to be user error". Aside from being a little insulting, it was telling of the system that is currently in place. I have a background in computer information systems, and I have enough knowledge to find my own solutions. But I would like to be able to do as you suggested. Our media specialist has already been a great help with other class needs, and we have a department at corporation level that does technology professional development. This group, the ICATS, is actually where I would like to work someday, and I think they could provide me with some options as you have suggested.
I found this recently as I was looking into student motivation. Affective learning involves "attitude, motivation and values"; student attitudes are "learned or established predispositions to respond" (Miller, 2005). My students are so frustrated with the technology they have been provided that some simply choose to not use it and are missing out on great learning opportunities. It is not even just an issue of my classroom. I have ears throughout the corporation, and the message has been the same. Mistakes were made. Our corporation was in such a hurry to be leaders in technology integration that its starting to be obvious that corners were cut and money deals were considered ahead of quality tech. We had a chance to get classroom sets of Macbooks, but instead we developed a deal with Dell for each student to receive a Netbook for their own use. It sounds good, and it looks great in the newspaper. The reality of it is that technology for technology's sake is a bad plan. I am not without hope, however, as I can make adjustments and bring this technology train back on track, at least within my classroom.
Blogging is such a great forum for sharing ideas, and it is also a great place to vent aggravation. Thank you for the ear.
References
Miller, M. (2005). Teaching and Learning in Affective Domain. In M. Orey (Ed.), Emerging perspectives on learning, teaching, and technology. Retrieved September 29, 2012, from http://projects.coe.uga.edu/epltt/