Carrying Out My GAME Plan

My actions to reach my goal of promoting and modeling digital citizenship and responsibility will include teaching my students the importance of ownership for their work as well as recognizing others’ work. I will use what I have learned in my previous course through Walden to demonstrate how to recognize reliable websites (the importance of breaking down URL’s, qualifiers for authenticity, and how to validate information). The majority of my students are frequent users of the internet for entertainment, skills practice, and research at home and school. However, they do not know how to decide if a website is valid, and they are dependent on a given list of websites to choose from for their learning. Utilizing rubrics, charts, and mock websites, I will guide my students to become better qualified with choosing search engines, reliable websites, and valid information. I will also guide them on how to cite their sources. I try to remember to model this every time I show them something through my teacher computer, and I point out the URL and explain why the site I chose is valid and reliable. When my students create a project based learning production, they will be required to copyright their production, claiming their ownership. This should help them to recognize the importance of producing reliable work and recognizing the work of others from which they choose to learn.

My actions to reach my goal of engaging in professional growth and leadership will include using what I learn through my Walden courses, utilizing my peers, accessing the webinars offered through my state’s DOE, and spending more time to training “to go out and find the technology” and “know how to use the technology” (Ross, J., Presenter, 2009). I am required to attend training on new software and hardware through my school, but I have discovered that finding the time to implement all of it in the classroom is very difficult. My peers are a valuable resource to help me with the hands-on experience I prefer when using technology, and with sharing how they find the time to implement the myriad of different uses of technology daily throughout the curriculum. I have used much more technology to facilitate my students’ learning since starting my courses at Walden, and I can see a dramatic increase in motivation and effort when my students are involved with 21st Century Tools. I have also become very dependent on our DOE site for planning, teaching, and assessing. My biggest obstacle to overcome for my action plan is spending more time finding and using the technology that would best meet my students’ differentiated needs. This is an area which will require more collaboration with my peers and organizing all of my findings into an easily accessed portfolio that will grow as my technology skills for teaching grow.

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

Ross, J. (Presenter). (2009). Meeting Students’ Needs with Technology, Part 2. [DVD]. Laureate Education, Inc.