I have to admit that this week I have not taken nearly enough steps towards meeting my the goals in my GAME plan. I have gotten information about online communities from my peers in this class, as well as from my professor. I will need to spend some time looking over these in order to benefit from them.
I believe that I need to modify my plan by not just relying on my administration to point me in the direction of community connections. I need to find these connections and make them myself. Once I make the connections I will, of course, need to get them approved by my administration team, and hopefully this will help them see all that is out there to assist us in bettering our students learning environments.
This week I have learned that things don't necessarily come easy when it comes to technology. Not everyone is willing to learn new things and take the steps needed to improve themselves in a way that can help our students. While technology may be a great way to assist our students, many people are not willing to take the time and energy to learn the technology themselves.
The only questions that have arisen so far are how to find online learning communities and really how to benefit from them. I need to spend more time looking into these and seeing all they can really do for me.
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Hi Arielle! I teach at a technology magnet school where every teacher and every student has had their own laptop for the past four years. Some teachers have really taken the ball and ran with it, while for others it has been a painful process. It has been frustrating for our administrators for teachers to have these tools at their fingertips and not use them. There have been some drastic changes made over the past few years. Today, using the laptops for instruction is not considered a bonus, it is a requirement. Each teacher is expected to use technology in their classroom on a regular basis for instruction as well as projects. This is closely monitored by our administration as well as our district technology staff. Our teachers are also given regular technology training. They no longer have a choice, it is an expectation that they make these gains.
ReplyDeleteArielle,
ReplyDeleteHave you tried Photo Story 3?. Photo Story 3, is a free program from Microsoft, makes it easy to add music, narration, titles, and special effects to turn your photos and images into movies. Help to promote literacy skills across grade levels and content areas by becoming a digital story teller. It is easy and it is fun. Students need to bring their own digital photos or you can work with sample files that will be provided. The final product can be recorded on a CD on any other electronic device. My daughter worked in a project about the crusades and Marco Polo, was fun, also try http://www.scratch.mit.edu you’ll be surprise with students creativity. Good Luck.
Arielle,
ReplyDeleteI can totally relate to you in regards of relying less on administration and more on yourself to locate viable community connections. I have taken several steps on my own to locate effective and reliable technology tools to implement in my classroom. Last month each teacher in my district was required to have their students create a project correlating with the subject they taught. My students' projects were all technology-based (wikis, podcasts, and blogs). When I first passed the technology-based project idea past my principal he (and others) were skeptical about it. However, I convinced them that I had done the research and had the located the proper resources for my students to successfully complete the projects. Needless to say the projects were a huge success, and they even got kudos from a school district representative. Sometimes we have to step outside of the box when it comes to integrating technology in the classroom, this may inspire our students and our colleagues to do so as well.
Alicia
Hi everyone. Thanks so much for your comments! Terri, you are SO lucky that everyone at your school has laptops! We have three laptop carts which we can check out from the media center. Sadly the carts often do not charge correctly and the computer have a really hard time connecting to the internet. It is more trouble then it is worth.
ReplyDeleteJdelagdo,photo story 3 sounds amazing! I will need to look it up and use it for sure!
Alicia, I am so glad that your principal is so receptive of your project. Mine are starting to warm up to the idea of using more technology..sadly I go on maternity leave soon and will probably have to restart the entire thing when I get back!!!