Developing My Personal GAME Plan

When examining the ISTE’s NETS-T and Performance Indicators for Teachers, I can see that there are some areas in which I am very proficient in and others in which I must put in more effort to become confident and comfortable in doing. While I feel as though I do a good job in modeling digital-age work and learning and engaging in professional growth and leadership, I struggle in promoting and modeling digital citizenship and responsibility, as well as certain areas in facilitating and inspiring student learning and creativity, primarily, engaging students in exploring real-world issues. In my kindergarten classroom, I spend much of my time exposing my students to technology, but I don’t often take the time to discuss and model safe, legal, and ethical uses of digital information and technology or digital etiquette. Furthermore, while I believe strongly in developing student creativity, I don’t spend much time exploring real-world issues using technology. Therefore, I have developed a GAME plan to help me in developing my own use of technology and my ability to demonstrate the NETS-T.

The first step in developing my GAME plan is to set clear goals that will allow me to gain the knowledge and confidence needed, as described by Dr. Katherine Cennamo, to better integrate technology, engage students, and increase learning in the classroom (Laureate, 2009). My goals to address my shortcomings in the NETS-T standards are as follows:

1) Model proper and acceptable computer and internet use by creating a set of technology guidelines and rules with students in order to develop strong ethics in the use of computers in school.
2) Choose 1-2 real world issues that are relevant to my kindergarten aged students to research over the course of the school year with the use of the internet and online collaboration projects.

The next step in developing my game plan is to decide what actions I must take to reach my goals. In pursuit of my first goal, I will first consult my school's acceptable use policy and technology plan in order to determine my district’s requirements. Because our acceptable use policy is typically left to the parents and students to discuss, I would plan to spend several computer lab lessons discussing each point on the policy and working with students to determine the value of such rules. To reach my second goal, an action I plan to take is to research and choose a collaborative internet-based project for my young students. Another action I can take is to talk to my students about things they are interested in or things that they’d like to learn about. My students very often have questions about things they’ve heard or seen, so I believe they could be my biggest resource in determining which real-world issues we should pursue. Cennamo, Ross, and Ertmer (2009) agree that asking students might be a worthwhile action.

The third step in the GAME plan requires that I monitor my progress and reflect on chosen strategies, as outlined by Cennamo et al. (2009). I will do this by observing my students as they use technology on a daily basis in the computer lab. Are they following the rules and expectations? Have I had to deal with any issues involving unethical or unsafe use? To monitor my progress in my second goal, I must examine our collaboration in our online project. Are we meeting deadlines? Are we discovering answers to our questions? Are students engaged? For both goals, I must also ask myself if I need to modify any actions that seem to lead to dead ends.

The last step in my GAME plan is to evaluate and extend my learning and the learning of my students in meeting our goals. Cennamo et al. (2009) suggest that reflection at this point is necessary to determine whether or not my goals were met successfully. Modification may be needed if my goals were not achieved, or ideas for extending my goals might be in order. For example, a next step I could take is to develop further goals that will allow for school-wide rules and expectations to be developed, or to study and collaborate in further online projects.

Cennamo, K., Ross, J., & Ertmer, P. (2009). Technology integrations for meaningful classroom use: A standards-based approach (Laureate Education custom edition). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.

Laureate Education, Inc. (Producer). (2009). Program 3. Enriching content area learning experiences with technology, part 1 [Motion picture]. Integrating technology across the content areas. Baltimore: Author.

National Education Standards for Teachers (NETS-T) located at http://www.iste.org/Content/NavigationMenu/NETS/ForTeachers/2008Standards/NETS_T_Standards_Final.pdf