Monitoring My Game Plan Progress

Since last week, I took action to achieve my goals and have made some progress. Cennamo, Ross, and Ertmer (2009) mention that “you’ll need to monitor whether you are making sufficient progress toward your goals and reflect on whether the strategies you have chosen are working” (p.4). Accordingly, in this post, I will reflect on my actions and monitor my progress.

Goal of my first GAME plan was to follow and read articles from 5 different websites. After reading comments, I decided to change my goal; to form a community and discuss one of five articles in my PLC. Thanks to google, I managed to find and evaluate websites that I need. Additionally, I reviewed the school policies and physics curriculum. So far, I evaluated the websites that I mentioned last week. I found http://www.eschoolnews.com/ and http://www.sciencedaily.com/ websites very useful and bookmarked them. Additionally, I asked my school administration to subscribe to physics teacher journal, and they said that they will consider it. Moreover, I talked with my colleagues and they are interested in discussing one article per week. When I reflect on my progress, I am happy to see that I nearly achieved my goal. Still, I will need to locate two more website about educational technology and research.  Additionally, I will wait for the final answers of school administration and my colleagues and act accordingly.

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My second Game plan’s goal was learning digital portfolios. I found the information and resources that I needed. So far, I do not need to modify my action plan and goal. I learned that: “A portfolio is a purposeful collection of student work demonstrating the student's achievement or growth as characterized by a strong vision of content (Brown, 2002)" Additionally, I acknowledged that electronic portfolios are enduring, enables collaborative work,  easy to access, easy to edit and provides student voice-feelings and emotions (SMS Services Team, 2011). I read the digital portfolios- guidelines for beginners article (http://myportfolio.school.nz/artefact/file/download.php?file=187483&view=24719) and understood the basic requirements to prepare an electronic portfolio. I located several free online creative portfolio community sites such as behance network(http://www.behance.net/), Carbonmade (http://www.carbonmade.com/ ) and SHOWND (http://shownd.com). I think that Carbonmade is suitable for my students. Most probably, I will advise them to sign up to Carbonmade website, and prepare their first electronic portfolio.

I hope to successfully complete my GAME plans within a few weeks. However, my success depends on the engagement and participation of my colleagues and students. According to their response, I may modify my action plan.

References:

Brown, M. D. (2002). Using Technology | Electronic Portfolios in the K-12 Classroom. Retrieved 9 26, 2011, from Education Worl: http://www.educationworld.com/a_tech/tech/tech111.shtml

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

SMS Services Team. (2011). DIGITAL PORTFOLIOS G u i d e l i n e s f o r b e g i n n e r s. Wellington: Ministry of Education.

Carrying out my GAME Plan: Action

In my previous post, I designed two GAME plans to achieve two different goals that will help me to improve my professional skills and introduce new education tools and assessment methods to my students. In this post, I would like to share my ideas and progress in terms of carrying out my Game Plan.

Goal of my first GAME plan was following and reading articles from 5 different websites that publish articles about current physics related researches, educational technology and new teaching strategies. Additionally, one of my colleagues advised me to establish a PLC to discuss articles together. To achieve this goal, I will use the following resources;

1-      Internet access.

2-      School policies.

3-      Physics curriculums.

4-      Google search engine to locate related websites.

5-      Colleagues who use technology in their classrooms and are following technology and research websites.

6-      Colleagues who are willing to form a PLC and discuss articles related to physics.

7-      Digital tools, technology and physics related periodicals and online journals.

I will need to review school policies about subscription and membership fees for various journals and websites and physics curriculum to learn additional information. I will also need to revise REAL strategy to evaluate websites and guidelines of starting an effective PLC. So far, I used google to search and located websites: http://physicsworld.com/, http://www.eschoolnews.com/, http://www.educationworld.com/, http://www.sciencedaily.com/, http://tpt.aapt.org/, http://www.phy.ilstu.edu/jpteo/ and http://www.iopblog.org/ . I will find out more websites and evaluate them with using REAL strategy (November, 2008). Additionally, I shared my PLC ideas briefly with colleagues, and I am waiting response from them.

My second GAME plan’s goal was learning digital portfolios as an assessment tool and teaching students how to use digital portfolios efficiently. I am going to use following resources to achieve my goal:

1-      Internet access.

2-      Websites with information about how to create and use digital portfolios.

3-      Websites that offer free digital portfolio space.

4-      Samples of existing digital portfolios that can be used as a model or guide.

5-      Colleagues with experience who used digital portfolios before.

I am going to need additional information about efficiency of digital portfolios. I will also need materials that I can use to create my first digital portfolio other than Walden’s e-portfolio. Finally, I will need to review physics curriculum to prepare a portfolio template that students can use while creating their portfolios. So far, I talked with my colleagues, and found out that they never used digital portfolios. I bookmarked some websites such as http://www.educationworld.com/a_tech/tech/tech111.shtml, http://eduscapes.com/tap/topic82.htm and http://echucaelearning.wikispaces.com/Digital+Portfolios. I am going to read and follow the links. Additionally, I located http://electronicportfolios.com/myportfolio/versions.html website which compare and review portfolio service providers. I am going to choose a free portfolio site to store students’ portfolios.

References

November, A. (2008). Web Literacy for Educators. CA: The Corwin Press.

Stay Current in a Rapidly Changing World

In the past, teaching resources were limited with books, board and marker. Today, we can use projectors, smart-boards, internet, audio-visual equipments and electronic resources to teach. Nobody knows what type of teaching resources will be available in the future. Given the continuous changes to the technology and teaching resources, it is a professional necessity for everybody to follow and learn new technology to stay up to date. For teachers, digital age not only changes the education technology but also the standards and characteristics of high performing effective teachers. For instance, teachers must provide a learning environment that takes students beyond the walls of their classrooms and into a world of endless opportunities (ISTE,2011a). Therefore, everybody must develop self-directed learning skills and be ready to learn and improve themselves in terms of knowledge and skills continuously. In other words, everybody must know how to plan, evaluate and monitor their actions to become self-directed learner. (Laureate Education, Inc., 2010).

GAME plan is an effective self-directed learning strategy that people can use to learn new things themselves. In this plan, learner must design and set GOAL with considering what they know and what they want to learn. Later, learner must take ACTION and use various strategies, methods and resources to achieve the goal. Additionally, learner must MONITOR his/her progress while achieving the goal. Finally, learner must EVALUATE and reflect upon the process to determine if the goal was met and EXTEND the goal (Cennamo, Ross, & Ertmer, 2009).

After reading National Education Standards for Teachers (NETS-T)  (ISTE, 2011b), I acknowledged that I need to improve myself in terms of using technology effectively in class. I am good at facilitating experiences that advance student learning, creativity, and innovation in face-to-face environments. However, I do not use virtual environments. Additionally, I figured out that I am poor in promoting and modeling digital citizenship and responsibility. Finally, I found out that I am not engaged in global learning communities and I am not evaluating and reflect on current research and professional practice in physics teaching area.

To become a high performing teacher, I am going to furnish myself with two of the NETS-T standards. Of course, I will use GAME strategy to achieve my goals and acquire mentioned skills.

My first GAME plan will help me to meet the NETS-T Standard 4c: evaluate and reflect on current research and professional practice on a regular basis to make effective use of existing and emerging digital tools and resources in support of student learning;

Goal: I am going to follow and read articles frequently from 5 different websites that publish articles about current research about physics, using educational technology or new teaching strategies.

Action: I will search the internet and locate mentioned websites. Additionally, I will evaluate the reliability and freshness of publications. Finally, I will sign up for membership or to websites’ rss feeds if possible.

Monitor: I will monitor my progress with evaluating the quality of websites that I located and the frequency of my visits. Moreover, I will note down and check the number of articles that I read about each area.

Evaluate/Extend: I will evaluate the efficiency of following websites. Did I waste time with reading articles or did I learn new strategies and technology tools that I can use in my teaching. According to the result of my evaluation, I will either continue to follow websites or locate another one.

I am going to follow another GAME plan to meet the NETS – T  Standard- 2d: 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.

Goal: I will learn and teach my students how to use digital portfolios. Additionally, I will learn how to use digital portfolios to assess my students.

Action: I am going to find and read tutorials and guidelines about digital portfolios. I will also locate websites that students can create and manage digital portfolios free of charge. Additionally,  I will check the technology resources that I, school and students have to evaluate the possibility of using digital portfolios to assess students. Finally, I will develop a tutorial that students can use to understand and manage their portfolios

Monitor: I will monitor my progress and understanding about digital portfolios. I will also monitor the progress of students. I will spend around 15 minutes  two or three times per week to compare my goal and progress.

Evaluate and Extend: I will evaluate my knowledge about digital portfolios. I will compare my findings with my goal. If it is possible to use digital portfolios as an assessment tool, I will start using them. If I find out that there are obstacles such as technical difficulties, I will try to identify them and solve them.

I am sure that setting goals for myself will encourage me to improve my self. It is very exciting to become self-directed learner and learn new things myself.  There will be times when I might get discouraged or frustrated, but having this GAME plan will motivate and keep me focused on the big pictures which is to become a high performing teacher and offer the best learning environment and strategies to 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.

ISTE. (2011a). Standards for global learning in the digital age (NETS-T). Retrieved from http://www.iste.org/standards.aspx

ISTE. (2011b). The ISTE NETS and performance indicators for teachers (NETS-T). Retrieved from http://www.iste.org/standards/nets-for-teachers.aspx

Laureate Education, Inc. (Producer). (2010). Program Three:  Enriching Content Area Learning Experiences with Technology, Part 1. [DVD]. Integrating technology across the content areas. Baltimore, MD: Author.