My Reflection on Integrating Technology Across the Content Areas

Throughout this course, I have learned a lot about myself as an educator. I have had the opportunity to reflect on the ways that I am introducing technology to my students, and set goals to enhance my students’ learning through the integration of problem-based learning, collaboration and communication, and digital storytelling. Each week I blogged about my personal GAME plan, to enhance my use of the NETS-T standards, by setting two goals. I wanted to inspire student growth and creativity, and engage in professional growth and leadership. Through the actions I took, and monitoring and evaluating of my goals, I feel that I was successful in making progress towards these two goals. Through the technology-based lessons that I created in this course, my students are able to express their creativity and grow in their knowledge of the standards and technology tools. As a professional, I have been taking a leadership role to share new web 2.0 tools with my co-workers and help them find useful ways to integrate technology into more of their lessons. I have also had a discussion with my principal about starting a Technology Club next year for interested and inspiring fourth and fifth graders. I hope that the students will take interest in this and there will be a growing number of students interested in learning through technology.


Through the GAME plan process, I have learned the importance of setting goals and how to appropriately carry them out. Now that I have a deeper understanding of how to apply the GAME plan to my learning, I feel confident in my ability to use it for helping my students set learning goals for themselves. Since I am still teaching Pre-K, I will still find ways to integrate technology into my lessons that does not require reading. I have been looking into online picture stories and creating them through my SMARTboard software. I also plan to continue to create lessons and units for upper grade levels, in hopes that I can share them with other teachers and improve technology integration throughout my school.

Implementing GAME Plans with Students

Since I have now had the opportunity to develop my own GAME plan and carry it out, I feel confident that I will be able to lead my students to create their own GAME plan. Basing their goals on the NETS-S standards will help them develop proficiency in the technology standards and indicators. Before the students start to develop GAME plans, they must have a basic understanding of what the standards are expecting them to be able to do. I would first go through each of the standards and indicators with the students to clarify and questions or misconceptions that the students might have about technology and the NETS-S standards. I want the students to understand how the new standards can help them develop new knowledge and gain a deeper understanding of their content standards.


After my students have an understanding of the standards they are working to meet, I will ask them to decide on one standard that they feel that they need to improve on. Because I teach elementary school and this will be my students’ first time creating a GAME plan, I think starting with one goal would be best for them to actually be able to carry out the plan. I would ask them to closely look at the standard they have chosen as their goal, and explain why that is an area they would like to improve on. Using the vocabulary in the standard to plan their goal will help to ensure that they are continuously reminded of the purpose of their goal as they put their plan into action and monitor their progress. Blogging is also a web 2.0 tool that I have been introducing my students. I feel that blogging about my Walden GAME plan experience has helped me to keep track of my progress and continue to effectively carry out my plan. Therefore, I would probably use blogs to help my students carry out their personal GAME plans. As my students carry out their GAME plans, I will continue to create, teach, and guide lessons using technology. This will allow them to put their technology GAME plan into action and see how they can apply the NETS-S standards to their learning to meet the content standards as well.

Revising My GAME Plan

As I progress through my GAME plan, I have evaluated how it has been going, and there are a few changes that will be helpful in meeting my goals. The goals I had set for my GAME plan were to facilitate and inspire student learning and creativity, as well as engaging in professional growth and development. Throughout my Walden course, I have learned many new tools and strategies to integrate technology into my classroom. I have created lessons to use problem-based learning with my students, which will allow them to express their creativity. I have also read several articles to learn more about the future of technology in classrooms, and taken a serious look into continuing on to receive my Specialist’s degree. After reviewing the expectations and content that I would be learning through this degree, I have realized that this is definitely the direction that I want to go in with my career, and I will be able to grow as a professional through this goal. Since I still have two courses left to take for my Master’s degree, and as I will always be striving to develop as a professional, I consider this goal to be life-long.

After reviewing the NETS-T performance standards, I have set a new goal to design and develop digital-age learning experiences and assessments. All of the new strategies that I have been learning through my course have given me the confidence to create learning experiences for my students that will really be meaningful and educational for them. This goal will also help to support my current goal to inspire student learning and creativity. As my students learn through problem-based projects and experiences, they will be able to use technologies to creatively share what they have learned in a format that is comfortable to them.

In the future, I will try attending workshops and professional development classes to learn new ways to integrate web 2.0 technologies. There are so many tools available through the internet that students can use to express their creativity and learning, and I want to learn more about them so that I can also integrate them in my classroom. I have enjoyed my courses at Walden, and I hope to be able to continue learning new teaching strategies as I further my own education in the future.

Evaluating My GAME Plan Process

Reflecting back on the progress I have made in my personal GAME plan, I feel that I have gained much more knowledge about how I can integrate technology into all content areas of my classroom. I have read articles to learn about new technologies that have been effective in other classrooms.


Since my students are currently only four years old and cannot read, they obviously cannot do project-based learning independently. Yet, I have started making large group problem-based learning activities for us to solve as a class using our SMARTboard. I am sure that introducing higher grade level students to technology will be a learning experience in its own. My future steps are to set up a timeline to progressively introduce technology skills to the students. When I am able to put this plan into action with a group of students, I will be able to adjust how much I can teach them based on how quickly they learn and understand how to use the technology effectively. I have also been looking into setting up a class blog and using ePals or another social network for my students to be able to communicate what they are learning with students around the world.

I still have two and a half courses left to finish my Master’s program at Walden University. That means nineteen more weeks of learning how I can integrate technology into my classroom. By the end of May, I will be able to make a final decision about continuing my education to get a Specialist’s degree. In the mean time, I am working on developing professionally by working one-on-one with my colleagues to suggest ideas for technology use in their classrooms. I am also still learning new strategies that I can share with them. I have received a lot of positive feedback about the new strategies that I have suggested to teachers. Overall, I feel that the actions I took to carry out my GAME plan were effective in gaining personal knowledge and helping to develop the knowledge and learning capabilities of my students.

Monitoring My GAME Plan

After setting my goals to improve student learning through technology and growing professionally, I collected information and worked on developing ideas to accomplish these goals. Through this Walden course, I have continued to learn new ways that I can integrate technology in my classroom. I am currently focusing on how I can also use technology to assess students. I must first become confident in my abilities to integrate technology in all areas before introducing it to my students. I have continued to read articles in the Walden library and find helpful resources on the internet. The professional development training that I have been taking at my school has taught me how to use new tools, such as SMARTboard clickers, to assess my students using technology and use the quick results to direct my instruction.


I feel confident that the action plan I have in place will help me to meet my goals. The strategies that I am using are helping me to learn new ways to increase student motivation and creativity, as well as feeling more confident in my abilities to grow professionally and work with other teachers to encourage technology integration in their classrooms.

Thus far, I have learned what motivates students in 21st century learning and what skills are necessary for them to be able to learn 21st century skills. I have gained knowledge of the tools that students can use in the classroom to communicate their knowledge and how I can assess them based on this work. To personally grow professionally, I have been looking into pursuing a higher degree after my Master’s. I have gathered information about how long it will take to complete a Specialist’s or Doctorate, and started to get a better idea of what I would like to get a higher degree in. Walden offers an Education Specialist degree in Educational Technology. This seems to be the direction that I want to go in to develop professionally and continue to learn ways to integrate technology into the classroom. With this new knowledge, I will become more prepared to work towards my goal to become a Technology Integration Consultant.

Now that I have taken action towards my goals, I am still working on planning out how I will introduce new technologies to my students. Because many of my students have not had access to the technologies that I am introducing them to, I am questioning what they do know and how long it will take to introduce new technology concepts to them. I am also still collecting information about the higher degree that I am looking to pursue. I am questioning the time that it will take to complete this degree and how this will conflict with my life outside of school. I feel confident in my development towards meeting my goals, and I know that I am on the right path after evaluating my actions towards them.

Carrying Out my GAME Plan

In my personal GAME plan, I explained my desire to inspire student growth and creativity, as well as personally engaging in professional growth and leadership. In order to meet these goals, I will need resources and information to learn how I can help my students. By learning more about the interests of my students and the types of technology that can be integrated into my classroom, I hope that my students will have more of a desire to learn and I will be able to make a professional impact in my school and community through the integration of technology.


To carry out my goal of inspiring my students, I must continue to become knowledgeable of the different Web 2.0 technologies that are available and safe for students to use. In order for educators to teach 21st century skills, we must master the skills first. I will need to explore the internet to find new tools to help my students communicate their thoughts and ideas. I will also ask collect information from my students to find out what types of technology they enjoy using and help them learn the most. To incorporate virtual environments and online learning communities, I can explore blog sites and virtual field trips related to the content I am teaching. Thus far, I have discovered many resources for using technology and inspiring creativity in students. I have been slowly integrating different types of technology into my lessons and observing my students to see what interests them most.

To work towards my goal of engaging in professional growth and development, I will need to use a wide variety of resources to research the best practices for technology integration. Throughout my Walden course work, I have been reading about the best classroom practices, and I will continue to do so through my course text, videos, and library articles. I am still in the process of gaining information about workshops in my area focused on technology integration. I will rely on the feedback of my colleagues to see what areas I can help them with.

Through my continuous research to gain more information about technologies and consistent communication with my colleagues, I will be able to find the resources and information that I need to meet my goals. Feedback and research will prove to be my most informative form of resources and information.

My Professional GAME plan

When reviewing the National Education Standards for Teacher (NETS-T) created by the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE), there were two standards that I identified which I would like to improve upon. To strengthen my confidence and effectiveness as an educator, I would like to focus on facilitating and inspiring student growth and creativity, and engaging in professional growth and leadership. In order to do so, I will follow the GAME plan outlined by Cennamo, Ross, & Ertmer(2009) by setting goals for myself and my students, putting a plan into action to meet my goals, and monitoring and evaluating the process of my development in the integration of technology.


To set goals for my students, I will promote more self-directed learning. Through the use of collaboration in the classroom and virtual environments using technology, students will be inspired by each other. Their creativity will be influenced by the world of resources available to them, which will create meaningful experiences to improve their growth of knowledge. To professionally grow as an educator and leader, my goal is to continue on to receive a higher education after completing my Master’s degree at Walden University. I would like to either work as a professor to educate new teachers in the use of technology in classrooms, or work as a technology specialist to teach teachers all of the Web 2.0 tools available to them and their students.

To put my plan into action, I will include technology integration as a part of my daily lesson plans. I will need to make sure that my students are knowledgeable about using Web 2.0 technologies and use these tools to assess the students. I will also begin using virtual environments to expand the creativity of my students. We will take online field trips and explore webcasts and other online communities. For professional growth, I will stay current on new developments for technologies in the classroom. I will research through library articles and attend workshops and seminars to learn more about how I can inspire my students’ learning. The ISTE standard for professional growth and leadership expects teachers to, “exhibit leadership by demonstrating a vision of technology infusion, participating in shared decision making and community building, and developing the leadership and technology skills of others” (2008). To meet this goal, I will share my professional development findings and what I learn with my colleagues. I will also begin looking into Specialist and Doctorate programs.

To monitor my students’ learning and creativity, I will assess them frequently to see if their learning is growing and they are creating meaningful experiences. From these assessments, I will be able to modify my lessons based on the students’ achievements. When we receive our benchmark results, I will evaluate the impact that the technology integration has had on my students. I would like to gather their opinions and find out what they liked using and what helped them learn. To monitor my professional growth and leadership, I will communicate with my colleagues often to offer assistance or ask about their progress in integrating technology into their classrooms. I will evaluate my own professional growth at the end of my Master’s program and make the decision of which direction I would like to go in my career and education. With my students’ progress results and my constant individual professional development in integrating technology, I will be able to modify my instruction and inspire more creative student learning.

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.

International Society for Technology in Education. (2008). NETS for Teachers 2008. Retrieved November 10, 2010 from http://www.iste.org/standards/nets-for-teachers/nets-for-teachers-2008.aspx