Tuesday, October 12, 2010

Revising my GAME Plan

As I have concentrated these past five weeks on integrating two technology indicators, # 2. Design and Develop Digital-Age Learning Experiences and Assessments and # 5. Engage in Professional Growth and Leadership into my classroom, I have learned many things along the way. First of all, I have had to start small and work my way up. As a teacher in a new performing arts school with many technology tools available sometimes it is true what they say, “less is more.”

I was ready to jump right in with integrating flip videos, slide shows on the projector, blogs, and my new mimio board. Trying to do all of this at once often left me with quantity in presentations, but not quality. Taking a step backwards and just working with one tool at a time has seemed to prove more efficient for this process. These tools were not available to me last school year and so although I was eager, I was not always successful in what I was trying to accomplish.

Recently, I have been working hard on getting my class blog up and running for our art room (http://facaartroom.blogspot.com/). I have been taking digital images and adding them to various tabs while also writing about what is going on in our classroom. I also started to really promote our blog in our school newsletter so that parents and students could start to follow what we are creating and what is happening in our art room. I would love to have students start authoring certain portions of our blog in the future. This is my next goal.

Some learning approaches that would improve my steps towards meeting my goals are having patience with my integration process. I have big ideas, but not always enough time to do everything I want to with my new tools. I have to remember that many teachers build their resources over time and this process reminds me much of starting as a first year teacher and building lesson plans and files. I now have to begin again with what I have and integrate technology a little at a time.

My second goal will help me with this process because I now have a strong support system at my school of newly hired teachers who are also eager to integrate technology. We have formed a committee to set goals for our building and their endeavors in doing this.

Resources:

www.iste.org

5 comments:

  1. Robyn,

    I think your blog is coming along well. I think doing one thing well versus having your hand in a bunch of different endeavors at once is the better way to go. These tools will be waiting for you and pacing yourself to learn quality, not quantity, as you said will pay off.

    Joel

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  2. Robyn,

    I absolutely agree with Joel. Being able to successfully integrate one or two new technological skills in your classroom is much more effective than implementing five or six new skills, half-heartedly. In time, you will get comfortable implementing more, but do not overwhelm yourself. I find that when I do this I end up scrapping all of my ideas and going back to lessons that I feel the most safe with, and that is just not where I want to be anymore.

    Jennifer

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  3. Robyn,

    I too am starting out small and treading the digital waters carefully. Could you tell me a little about your mimio board. Is it like an interactive white board?

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  4. Hi all,
    Thank you for the feedback about my blog and starting small. Julie, the mimio is alot like a smartboard except for it is clips directly to my whiteboard and projects sideways across. From what I know they are very new and require you to calibrate your mimio, lap top and projector into one wavelength before you can interact with it.

    Robyn

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  5. Robyn,
    I could not agree with you more about the "less is more" comment. I almost got pulled down the slippery slope when I wanted to implement everything I was learning in class immediately. It took me quite some time to realize I was doing a disservice to the students if I did not fully understand the functionality of the applications. I'm glad you are realizing this early and you will be effectively demonstrate to the students how to work the Web 2.0 products.

    Best of luck!

    Jordan White

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