EDUC 6714 Reflection

Currently my American literature students are finishing Tennessee Williams’ (1986) play A Streetcar Named Desire. Blanche, one of the main characters, is reminded repeatedly of her deceased husband whenever the band begins playing a polka. As the play goes on, the polka becomes louder and louder until she cannot avoid it as the polka plays throughout the final scene. This polka, in my case, has been the constant reminder that seems to permeate this course’s readings and videos that our students are all different and are unique learners (Bray, Brown, & Green, 2004; Davidson, 2007; Laureate Education, Inc., 2009a). In understanding this, I will be using technology to differentiate and allow students access to the content by way of their strengths (Howard, 2002).

Rather than integrate technology solely into my curriculum to differentiate for student learning, I am working with my English department to make substantial changes with the aid of student netbooks in how we have our students access our content. Not only will I be sharing the UDL presentation (Feick, 2011) with my peers but I plan to demonstrate how technology, through the use of its potential uses, can eliminate learning barriers for our students (Rose & Meyer, 2002).

Starting in the beginning of the next school year, I will have all of my English classes using a digital classroom such as www.mybigcampus.com, www.schoology.com, or even a ning with storage space. This online classroom will help to provide access to the content for students of different learning profiles. Information such as lecture notes, a PowerPoint presentation, or even video or audio directions, hosted either on a podcast site such as www.podbean.com or an inserted clip from http://intervu.me, can allow students who learn best visually or through audio to re-access the curriculum through their preferred learning style after class has finished. Another benefit to the online classroom is that students can engage in a discussion outside of school walls. Often students who excel in discussions are strong in interpersonal skills; however, some students need more time to think through the questions and prefer to provide strong support before answering. By posting on a discussion thread and responding to peers, students of different learning preferences can excel in discussion.

In addition to the online classroom, I will be using a personal learning network through www.twitter.com. While using www.facebook.com as a social learning network like I did for the differentiation station assignments worked well, I want to connect with even a broader group of experts in the fields of education, technology, and English. Since I started using www.twitter.com, I am amazed at the amount of technology resources and information that is filtered through my account. Even though I cannot use or even read about every piece of information or resource, I am able to locate potential resources that can provide access to the curriculum in a variety of ways.

Finally, I want to be more flexible with my use of technology. I realize that students have strengths, interests, intelligences, and learning styles that are all unique. To address this, I want to provide assessment options that demonstrate what students know without holding them back due to the mode of communication. If I develop a rubric and establish the criteria being assessed, students can mold a product that demonstrates their learning through a method that fits them. For example, when students finish Williams’ (1986) play, they will be expected to know the motifs, where they appear, and analyze how they function within the play’s context. For some students, an essay could work, but others may be more excited and engaged to show their learning through a presentation on www.prezi.com, an online poster from www.glogster.com, a mock radio interview aired on a podcast, or even through digital storytelling.

The options to differentiate through the use of technology are limitless (Laureate Education, Inc., 2009b) and through these technologies I hope to provide access to the curriculum’s content for all of my students. My new mindset of providing accessibility for students will carry on, even after this course's continuous reminders stop, that my students are all different.





 
References
Bray, M., Brown, A., & Green, T. (2004). Technology and the Diverse Learner: A Guide to Classroom Practice. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.
Feick, B. (2011) UDL: Universal design for learning [Online Presentation] Retrieved from http://prezi.com/sftzr540xgac/udl-universal-design-for-learning/
Howard, K.L. (2004). Universal design for learning: Meeting the needs of all students. International Society for Technology in Education, 31(5), 26-29. Retrieved from the ERIC database.
Laureate Education, Inc. (Producer). (2009a). Learner differences. [DVD] Reaching and engaging all learners through technology. Baltimore, MD: Author.
Laureate Education, Inc. (Producer). (2009b). What is differentiated instruction? [DVD] Reaching and engaging all learners through technology. Baltimore, MD: Author.
Rose, D. & Meyer, A. (2002). Teaching every students in the digital age: Universal design for learning. Retrieved from http://www.cast.org/teachingeverystudent/ideas/tes/
Williams, T. (1986). A streetcar named desire. New York: Signet.

Reflection: GAME Plan and Future Technology Integration

          As an educator, I want to develop my students in to self-propelled learners who not only learn the content but to want to seek out new learning opportunities, find solutions, and continue to extend their learning further. In order to develop my students in this way, I need to model self-directed learning for my students and to develop myself professionally. As a self-directed learner, I need to “take action, monitor your [my] learning, and evaluate your [my] progress” (Cennamo, Ross, & Ertmer, 2009, p. 7) in order to achieve my goals. To do this, I developed a GAME Plan at the beginning of this course to work to address two goals that pertained to two NETS-T (ISTE, 2008) standards: (1) To design digital age learning experiences and assessments and (2) To practice digital citizenship.

            The process of developing and monitoring the Game Plan forced me to be cognizant of each goal’s progress. I have always found it easy to set a goal, but actually following the goal through to fruition has always been a challenge. By utilizing the blog and knowing that others were invested in hearing about my progress, I was able to successfully perform two critical steps in the GAME Plan process: (1) self-monitoring and (2) evaluation (Cennamo et al, 2009). Walden University colleagues and to a lesser extent my peers working within my department served as a node of support (Laureate Education, Inc., 2009a). Because I had people counting on me, I felt that I need to focus on achieving my goal and it could not get set aside; instead, the goal needed to be addressed in the present. By the end of the course, despite the rush of the holidays, teaching, coaching, and graduate course work, I was able to accomplish the two goals and establish a future GAME Plan to address. This, of course, would not be possible without being held accountable by my colleagues, my peers, and myself.   

            In following through with my GAME Plan, I advanced my ability to design digital age learning experiences and assessments. Taking Prensky’s advice (2008), I am turning on the lights for my students by utilizing technology in learning and assessments. My students use technology daily outside of school, so why should we not utilize technology for learning in school. My GAME Plan specifically addressed finding ways to integrate a SmartBoard into my teaching repertoire. After online tutorials and a walk-through with a colleague, I began to frequently utilize the SmartBoard. While I am not fluent in all of the SmartBoard’s advantages (I will be taking seminar in March), I am taking a step in the right direction. In addition, I have extended my GAME Plan to learning how to best utilize www.MyBigCampus.com, a online classroom that hosts blogs, discussion threads, videos, and assignments. I am looking forward to finding ways to bring this technology resource into my classroom and becoming more fluent in its utilization.

            As for adjusting my teaching practices, I return to the concept of turning on the lights for my students (Prensky, 2008). If I quickly survey my classroom, I regularly see students silently texting beneath their desktops or behind their books, playing computer games on their laptops, plugging in to their iPods, and even, on a rare occasion, typing on Facebook.com. My students are constantly plugged in. Instead of banning these technologies, we, as educators, should welcome them and make our students aware of their educational benefits. For example, I am looking forward to seeking future opportunities to social networking or online collaboration within my classroom. However, rather than calling blogging or any other online network social, I am going to call it an educational network (Laureate Education, 2009b). An online educational network can allow students who have less confidence or shy away from in class discussions an opportunity to flourish academically and share their thoughts with their peers in a safe and comfortable manner.

            In addition, I am planning to implement my Content-Area Unit Plan as my American Literature final exam with a digital story as the culminating project. In the past, I have always assigned an essay test which had them focus on past texts, but this project will engage all students as they utilize technology to gain a deeper, more impactful understanding of the content.

            Through the integration of technology, I am seeking to advance my goal – perhaps this could become a future GAME Plan, to become life-long learners who not only understand the content but understand technology’s potential for new knowledge acquisition, synthesis, and expression capabilities.

                       

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 (ISTE). (2008). NETS for teachers 2008. Retrieved from http://www.iste.org/Content/NavigationMenu/NETS/ForTeachers/2008Standards/NETS_T_Standards_Final.pdf

Laureate Education, Inc. (Producer). (2009a). Promoting self-directed learning with technology.    [DVD] Integrating technology across the content areas. Baltimore, MD: Author. 

Laureate Education, Inc. (Producer). (2009b). Spotlight on Technology: Social Networking and Online Collaboration, Part 1. [DVD] Integrating technology across the content areas. Baltimore, MD: Author. 

Prensky, M. (2008, March). Turning on the lights. Educational Leadership, 65(6), 40-45.


Brad Feick
Walden University
HS English

The GAME Plan and My Students

Reflecting on my experience using the GAME plan over the past six weeks, I can see how important not only is it to have a goal but a method to monitor its progress. I often have curricular ideas that I would like to implement. I will record the idea and usually forget about it until the next time that unit comes up. However, it needed to be put into action earlier. Some ideas become goals and are set into action. Despite the development of action steps, it doesn't mean that the goal will be fulfilled. This time, though, I set out to accomplish the goal, designed the action steps, and monitored my progress. That is the key for me to be successful using the GAME plan. Not only am I monitoring my progress, I am also aware that I have others monitoring my progress through this posting. By having others be aware of my goal, I feel that I need to complete or work to meet my goal. The monitoring step forced me to constantly revisit and focus on my plan.

For students, I could create a GAME Plan for each curricular unit that focuses specifically on the NETS-S that students should meet. This focus would keep the NETS-S present within my curriculum and I would constantly be returning to my goal's progress.

Students, too, could develop a GAME Plan of their own. They could individually set a goal for themselves, create action steps, monitor their progress through the use of a blog, and evaluate or extend their goal. They would then be let in on the plan's production which helps students think about the learning process. In turn, they would be taking control of their own learning.

Revising My GAME plan

I feel like I have been quite productive in meeting my goals: (A) to create assessments and learning opportunities with the SmartBoard and (B) to practice digital citizenship with my students. After I located – with suggestions from my Walden colleagues – online citation tools for my students, I needed to be more diligent in my expectations of myself and my students. As for the SmartBoard goal, I have acquired knowledge and sought information from a teaching colleague. While I will continue to focus on SmartBoard learning experiences, I want to create additional assessment opportunities using technology, specifically using MyBigCampus.com, a learning site my school district has a subscription for. Blogs, discussions, and learning resources are all accessible from this site. Like the last goal, I am going to use my colleagues to create a node of support. However, for this, I don’t have another peer who is an expert in using MyBigCampus.com; instead, I am going to suggest a few other teachers who are excited to utilize the MyBigCampus.com tools to collaborate with and create these opportunities and assessments. By combing our experiences, we will be able to be one another’s support in this discovery.

I would like to continue blogging about my GAME plan. I have found that by setting a time to check in with my progress, I am must more apt to work towards its achievement.

Brad Feick
HS English
Walden University

Evaluating the GAME Plan: Synthesis

I agree with Cathi that it takes time to really develop strong lessons. Like her I often try different things with one class and if it works well, I usually use it in other classes. For example, last week, I wrote different lines of poetry on the SmartBoard. The students' tasks were to decipher whether the poetry was iambic, trochaic, anapestic, or dactylic. Different students attempted to mark the beats. If they were wrong, it was easy to erase their marks and try again. Usually I would have had to write the poems on the board, but after the first wrong marks, the lines would start to get erased. This was a much more productive way to teach the lesson and the students seemed to enjoy the interactive nature of the SmartBoard.

Brad Feick
HS English
Walden University

Evaluating the GAME Plan

By evaluating my progress on the two goals, I recognize that I have been most active in developing technology based assessments and learning opportunities using the SmartBoard. Yesterday, I might with another English teacher in my school during a prep period to cover the basics of SmartBoard technology. I found that I knew – having played around the technology – much of the basics and she was able to show me how the SmartBoard can save notes that students or I write during class. In addition, I learned how to insert video into the SmartBoard notebook. While this didn’t have an immediate connection to my students in the classroom, it did develop quickly into an engaging learning opportunity for the basketball players that I coach. I uploaded our opponent’s previous game film and was able to mark on the projected film the opposing players and movements that were taking place and what specifically to look for.

In making authentic assessments and learning opportunities, I see the interactive potential of writing fluency. Sentences or paragraphs can be pulled from students’ writing, posted on the Smart Notebook, and corrected and/or revised during class. In addition, using the “shade”, I can reveal one question for discussion without revealing everything. Then, after the discussion, I can pull down the shade to show the answer or a potential answer.

I am looking forward to attending the Advanced SmartBoard Training course in March.

As for my other goal of digital citizenship, I am now moving beyond modeling digital citizenship to expecting digital citizenship to be practiced by my students. To help students practice digital citizenship, I have created a list of citation resources – primarily www.citationmachine.net and www.easybib.com – for my students to use when they reference or use resources. While I expect students to practice digital citizenship, I rarely force students, if they do not properly cite the material, to resubmit their work. To strengthen this goal, I need to force students to resubmit work that is not cited properly. As long as I accept work without citations, they will not consistently cite their resources or practice digital citizenship.

Brad Feick
HS English

Monitoring the GAME Plan - Synthesis

After reviewing the comments that were posted this week, I noticed that many teachers strongly agree with teaching students to practice digital citizenship. Too often students freely access material online and either use the material directly or synthesize their findings into their own words. By teaching students how to properly cite their sources, they will be practicing digital citizenship - avoiding plagiarism and giving credit where credit is due. Furthermore, I will be looking into bibme.org, a site recommended by a colleague, to compare it to citationmachine.net. I want the resource that is most accurate and functional for students to use.

In addition to digital citizenship, I received a few comments on my goal to utilize the SmartBoard more effectively in my classroom. This week I meet with my colleague during a prep period, so I will be able to bring more information forward about the progress of my goal.

Brad Feick
HS English
Walden University