REFLECTION-WEEK 8 EDUC 6715-FINAL BLOG POSTING

I cannot believe that this will be THE final blog posting for this program here at Walden! It seems like so long ago that I began this program and was not really sure what I would get out of it. Now that we are almost done, I am so glad that I enrolled in this program. I feel that I have grown both personally and professionally, in the areas of technology, but also in many other areas as well. Throughout this program, I have realized the importance of being able to reflect on my own work and the work of my students, as well as learning how to reach all types of diverse learners. I have learned many techniques to engage my students and enhance their learning. I have learned so much about today's technology that I do not believe I would have had the opportunity to learn about any other way.

I have learned that in order to make a change in the way that teachers approach technology and use it to best benefit the students is a role that I can greatly influence. By taking these courses I have learned a wealth of valuable information on technology, such as the impact that it plays on student achievement and all of the twenty first century skills that technology addresses so perfectly. I have been able to experiment with technology such as Voicethread, Moodle, MUVE's, Glogster, Wiki's, etc... Before this course I had no idea these items ever existed!

In weeks six and seven of this course, the assignment was to create a learning activity and implementation plans for the use of some type of technology. I chose to create a learning activity for a MUVE, even though I was not extremely successful when experimenting with virtual environments. But it just seemed like such a great way for students to explore so many different ideas while immersing themselves in an artistic learning environment, not to mention having fun! When I began writing the plan, I did not expect for it to cover so many different curriculum or technology areas, but as I wrote and thought about it, the plan became larger and more advanced. I am really excited at the possibility of actually creating the ideas that I put into the plan. It has become my next goal when this program is over to complete.

This program has introduced me to so many new and valuable resources. I know that I cannot sit back and expect the information to be given to me, because by that time it is old news. I need to be constantly searching for the latest technologies and reading up on what the emerging technologies are. The Horizon Report is one resource that I will be sure to keep an eye on, as well as many others. I have many valuable blogs that I now subscribe to that give me the most up to date information on technology in education as well as many websites that I never knew existed before.

I have become a greater advocate for technology in education since taking this course. In most of my lessons, I attempt to incorporate some type of technology into each one. As time progresses, I hope to have some type of meaningful technology incorporated into every single lesson that I do teach. I want to expand the walls of my classroom for my students out into the rest of the world and open up possibilities to them that did not exist before, such as being able to talk to other students and artists from around the world and share their artwork and thoughts with others.

I know that I still have much to learn about technology and that it will take time to be able to become really good at it, but now that I see the value and potential to my students I know that it is a very worthwhile endeavor. And I plan on sharing everything that I have learned and will continue to learn with other educators so that they may be able to use technology to give their students a greater education.

Congratulations to everyone!
Susan

Reflection-Week 8 Reaching and Engaging all Learners Through Technology (6714)

As we near the end of this course at Walden, we are asked to reflect on what we have learned during these past eight weeks and how it will affect the way that we teach in our classrooms.

When we first began to learn about Differentiated Instruction and Universal Design for Learning, I was not really sure what it was and I was a bit worried that it would be hard to implement in my classroom. As I discovered though, I was already implementing many of those same techniques into my classroom already. This course has allowed me the opportunity to take a closer look at how technology can be incorporated more thoroughly into a DI classroom to help all students. The many different resources that I have read about and had the opportunity to try have been very valuable to me. Through the CAST website and others that I came across I have been able to compile a pretty large list of strategies, techniques and new technologies to use. The Differentiation Station social network that we created through Ning was also a great resource. We could share the websites that we found as well as learning about others from our group members that we may have not had the opportunity to come across. For example, I would not have personally looked up any sites dedicated to DI in a History classroom since I teach art, but since a member of my group did, I looked at it and actually found ways that I could change a few things and implement it into my class.

Because of this course, I have decided that I will definitely use technology more to try to differentiate instruction for my students. Many of today's students are more comfortable with technology and using it to help those who need it is a definite goal that I would like to achieve. I also plan to use the surveys that we researched to help students to understand their individual learning styles. This course has been very valuable because it has shown me many ways to adjust my teaching style to help my students achieve more.

Good Luck to everyone with their last course!
Susan

Week 8-Final Reflection

As I look back on what I have accomplished throughout this course, I realize how important it is to set goals for myself and my students. It is also important for me to remember to set small goals in order to reach the bigger ones, otherwise I become overwhelmed with the pressures of trying to attain them.
I believe that this course has allowed me to focus on actually implementing the technology that we are learning about into my classroom instruction. The unit plan that we created for our portfolio was such a valuable resource for me. Through the unit plan I reached most of the goals that I created with the NETS-T and NETS-S Standards and I will be using this GAME plan when we return from break. I have become more confident throughout this process in incorporating technology into my classroom.
Susan

Using the GAME Plan Process with Students

Over the past few weeks, it has been very helpful to me to write about my GAME plan and my continuing efforts to achieve my goals. It has kept me focused on what I needed to do to obtain my goals for integrating technology into my classroom. Creating a GAME plan for my students to develop proficiency in the NETS-S would probably help them to become more focused also.

First students need to set Goals that correlate with the NETS-S standards, so sharing these with them would be the first step in the plan. After reviewing the standards, we would brainstorm ways together that students could begin to take Action in the plan: what ideas do they have? what projects would they like to do? what types of technology do they already know how to use proficiently? what types of technology would they like to learn more about? how can we incorporate these ideas into our projects? Next, after we have figured out what we want to do and how we would like to do it, we will need to make sure that we are following our plans. Students will Monitor their plan by evaluating their progress on each project. Students will figure out what they are having problems with and what they need to do in order to succeed. Lastly, students will Evaluate their progress through completed projects and through speaking with me and other students.

I believe that there are a lot of ways that I can help my students to attain these goals. Finding the right projects that are interesting to the students and that are fun is the key to helping them to succeed. Also, having the students to become a part of the learning process and gathering of information will definitely help students. Having students become the teachers to others is another way for them to work on these goals. I can definitely be their student, since most already know more about technology than I do and catch on much quicker.

Susan

Revising my GAME plan

The application assignments that we have been working on for our portfolio have actually helped me to get further in my GAME plan. I have thought of some great ideas for implementing technology into my classroom. I have two major projects that will allow my students to become members of the global community. For one, my students will be using blogs to record and reflect on their projects. Also, students will be creating a VoiceThread in order to get the word out about their project to their friends and family in order to raise money for the project. (We are doing the Memory Project-students will be creating images of orphans from Lima, Peru and sending them back. It is $15 per photo to participate in the project. We are going to fundraise for the money). For the next project, my students will be creating a video of a project that they will be working on. I am really excited to begin my ideas. I am really hoping that everything will work out.

I also talked to my Tech dept. a few days ago to ask about getting (at least) Photoshop installed on my student computers in my room- and they said OK! But, how dumb did I feel when he came down to do this and he told me I already had it on the computers.....oops! So, that is something that I learned this week. Now I need to get some lessons together that utilizes Photoshop. One thing that I am unsure of is knowing what the difference is between Photoshop and Photoshop Elements. I have Photoshop Elements, which from what I understand is the simplified version. Hopefully, it will work for the projects that I intend to use.
Susan

Evaluating my GAME plan progress

I am a bit disappointed in my GAME plan progress to this point. I do not feel like I have gotten any further than last week. I have attempted to ask our Tech Dept. about possibly getting PhotoShop installed on the art room computers, since I know that it is installed elsewhere in my school, but of course they haven't gotten back to me about it. So that aspect of my plan is on hold until hopefully next week. (It is a busy week for them-progress reports come out next week and we use edline, which is all online, so there are always issues right before grade time). I did create a PowerPoint presentation to use to introduce a lesson this week-I know it doesn't sound like much, but if you knew how technologically challenged I am,this was an accomplishment for me! I am really interested in adding video and sound to my presentations though. It seems as though PowerPoints are yesterday's news already.

Here are two of those sites that I talked about last week. They are about using SmartBoards in the classroom. The first is a wiki page, but there are a bunch of resources on it. The second is nice because you can look up your individual state standards and find lessons. Both are really nice. I hope someone can benefit from them.

http://melissaenderle.wikispaces.com/SmartBoard

http://exchange.smarttech.com/index.html

Finding an available SmartBoard has been a little hard for me also at this point, but I really need to have a little bit of training on it before I attempt it and as I commented before, time is not something I have too much of these days.
I am looking forward to completing the application assignments over the next few weeks, because I hope that I can incorporate technology into these plans and use my lesson in the coming weeks. I hope that these will keep me on the path of GAME plan progress.
Susan

Monitoring my GAME plan progress

I must admit that I have not gotten very far this week in my GAME plan. I did do some research this week concerning how to incorporate SmartBoards into the art room. I was very surprised to find huge communities of teachers who post stories and great ideas for how to use SmartBoards into their classrooms. There are even communities just for art teachers who use SmartBoards. I was amazed!

I do need to consider monitoring my GAME plan a bit. Getting software for my computers for this school year is probably not an attainable goal at this point. I would like to do more research of available materials out there and possibly try to obtain a grant to purchase the technology. I definitely know that our district will not be able to help with these costs.

I have realized that the only way to get any of this accomplished though, is just by doing it. I tend to "overthink" things and am a perfectionist, but not in a good way. It tends to get in the way of accomplishing anything. Kind of the thinking of "I can't do it until I know exactly what I am doing and everything is absolutely perfect, because I don't want to look like an idiot!" I just need to jump in and learn as I go and not worry about not knowing everything beforehand.

There are always new questions that I have about so many things...I don't even know where to start. I think that right now my biggest question is "What exactly am I trying to accomplish and what is the most important thing that I want to accomplish right now?" I know that this is what our GAME plan is about, but I feel that right now I need to focus in on one particular thing and go from there-little steps rather than large ones at this point.

Have a great holiday everyone! Don't eat too much tomorrow!
Susan