GAME Plan Progress

How effective were your actions in helping you meet your goals?

• I have had opportunity to use a really great website with the students called xtranormal
• They are creating skits on math concepts that will then be turned into animated video
• This use of technology has really created a great social interaction in my classroom
• It has also sparked a lot of motivation

What have you learned so far that you can apply to your instructional practice

• The importance of multiple means of representation
• It is crucial to present the material in ways that meet all learning styles
• It is clearly just good teaching practices

What do you still need to learn?

• Strategies to use to
  
• Specific ways to make students goal setters

How will you adjust your plan to fit your current needs?

• Overall, I would like to continue on the path of my original GAME plan so I can see it out and then revise or create a new one
  

GAME Plan revisited

Overall, I have found some very interesting websites that are loaded with information on the universal design for learning. From these resources, I am trying to get the bigger picture on how to plan and implement the three principles of UDL in the classroom. I have found a few websites that give an overview of what a lesson plan should look like. I am a template person, so I will either need to continue my search for a template that fits my own personal needs and the needs of my district. If I can't find one, I will be creating one shortly that I hope will inspire other teachers in my district to enage in the use of UDL in the classroom.


I feel that I my plan is still very clear in the goals I have set and do not wish to make any plans on it for now. I did find it interesting that some of my own colleagues have no idea what UDL is or stands for. One thing I might want to add is spark the interest of my colleagues to get the ball rolling in our building. From this class and another class I am taking, I have learn a good deal of information about UDL. I think the most useful so far are the different strategies that can be used to present the information in various ways for your learner.

The only question I have about UDL is how are we going to make this work without teachers feeling the constraints of state testing to implement it into the classroom?

Carrying out Game Plan

Resources needed:

• the use of the internet sources to find articles to promote digital tools in the classroom
• technology personnel to discuss what is available at the school beyond what I already know
• colleagues willing to co-plan and implement the materials in the classroom
• trainings

Additional Information Needed

• the willingness of the other teachers in the building to incoporate technology
• what types of permissions I need to download different types of technology

Steps taken so far

• finding resources on how to make materials more accessible for all students

GAME plan:

Goals to strengthen confidence

• In the area of promoting and modeling citizenship and responsibility I would like strengthen my skills in meeting the needs of all learners in the classroom. More specifically, I would like to increase my confidence in providing students with equal opportunities to use digital tools and resources.
  
• The second area I would like to strengthen my skills in the classroom deals with collaborating with parents, peers, and students to use the digital tools and resources to support student thinking and learning.

Actions to achieve those goals

1. Locate a variety of resources: examples include articles, conferences, search engines, information technology resources in the building.
2. Ask parents to help and become educated on the resources available
3. Provide students with opportunities to share resources they have found.
4. Ask other teachers for help.
5. Search, search, search

Monitoring Progress

• Keep a journal of the resources found whether through searches, colleagues, parents, or students
• Ask for student and parent input

Evaluate and Extend your learning

• Reflections of the technologies used and how effective they were
• Parent and student input
• Attend workshops that introduce and teach about new resources
• Stay connected with teachers that use technology and share resources
  

Bottom of the 5th - Final Blog Posting for Bridging Learning Theory, Instruction, and Technology

I would have to say that the biggest adjustment I would make to my teachings and with integrating technology into my lessons is to not be afraid to explore more and to make use of the technology that is out there. Because of this class and the others I have taken through Walden, I have become much more familiar with how to incorporate technology into my lessons. Before, I felt very limited in my knowledge, capability, and awareness of how to do this on a regular basis with success. I felt that if I had my students typing out papers and completing some research using the web, I felt that I was doing an adequate job. With blogging, wikis, voice threads, photo shows, and the other various projects I have worked on over the span of seven classes, I feel that my skills on using technology with my students has greatly improved. I have also learned so much from the other students, my fellow educators, in class and through collaborating on blogs.

I really enjoyed blogging and the voice thread activities that I have completed during this class. I enjoyed seeing other voice threads that accompanied pictures and feel that this concept can be used to complete projects in social studies and science, making for some awesome artifacts.

My plan for the future is: 1) not to be afraid to explore and "get my hands dirty" with technology, realizing that having kids type papers on the computer is not incoporating technology into my lessons; and 2) to seek out other teachers, educational blogs, and educational journals for ideas and take the time to become familiar with the ideas expressed by these sources. To do this, I plan on to at least incoporate a new idea with each month. As I do this, I hope to follow through with this more frequently.

Top of the 5th: My First Voice Thread

Here is the link to my voice thread. It describes a common problem among teachers with limited access to inferior technology that does not satisfy the needs of teachers and students. Please take the time to listen and make a comment. Thanks!

http://voicethread.com/share/1046730

Bottom of the 4th - Cooperative Learning

I do not know of a teaching strategy that would better relate and be an example of the social learning theory in practice other than cooperative learning. In this week's resources, Dr. Orey (2009) describes social learning theories as students when they are actively taking part in assembling and creating artifacts that demonstrate what they are learning while engaging in educational dialogue. Pitler, Hubbell, Kuhn, and Malenoski (2007) say that cooperative learning is when students are interacting with one another for learning purposes and for forming new understandings. Through cooperation and collaboration, students can learn from one another, forming new understandings that by themselves, would not occur.



One thing that the Internet and technology does well is allow for collaboration and socialization. Because of this, cooperative learning can take on a new form other than just working together in the classroom. With proper planning by groups, multimedia projects can be produced as a culminating artifact. The Web not only allows for collaboration among classmates, but it also allows for cooperative learning to occur between students of classrooms from different parts of the world. Through sites such as ePALS, Keypals Club International, and Intercultural E-Mail Classroom Connections, students from different cultures can learn with one another and from one another. There are endless possibilities when it comes to web quests and web site designs for collaboration, as well as multi-player simulation games. Wikis and blogs, at this point, seem to be common practice for cooperative learning and collaborating among classmates.



Again, I can not think of a better way to open up doors to working with other people near and very far, as far as a person can imagine. Even when thinking about the classes that I am taking along with many other students across the globe, Walden University is an example of social learning theories and cooperative learning. The Web must be a tool that is used for these purposes.



References:

Laureate Education. (Executive Producer). (2009). Bridging learning, theory, instruction, and technology. [DVD]. Baltimore: Author.

Pitler, H., Hubbell, E., Kuhn, M., & Malenoski, K. (2007). Using technology with classroom instruction that works. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.