Still In The Planning Stage...

Since our school year is drawing to an end, I unfortunately won't get a chance to put my GAME plan into action until at least August when the school year begins. "Learning, in general, and about technology specifically, is an ongoing process (Cennamo, Ross, & Ertmer, p. 7, 2009). However, I plan on having everything in place and ready to go for when the time arises. Therefore, there are a few things that I have done in order to get ready.

First, I have spoken with many other classmates and colleagues about newsletters and have gotten numerous examples of newsletters that are used. I plan on coming up with a template that I will use for each month and just change the specific information. That will keep things consistent for both myself while I update it as well as those who read the newsletters. I have also gotten positive feedback from teachers who currently e-mail their newsletters to parents/families. One suggestion that I received was to plan to e-mail the newsletter out a week before the month begins; that way if for some reason you are behind you won't be too far behind. Another suggestion I got was to make the newsletter as generic as possible that way it can be used from year to year and all that will need to be changed are any dates that are included. All of these ideas are very helpful and will definitely be considered for next year when I begin e-mailing my newsletters.

As far as giving my students the opportunity to communicate with other students from different cultures, I have looked to ePals to help with this standard. I just recently set up an account and received an e-mail address through this site. In addition I put a posting on the teacher form seeking an English speaking class that would like to be ePals for the 2010-2011 school year. I am anxiously awaiting any responses. As I was looking around in the forum, it seems that when teachers post "ads" he/she get a lot of responses. I don't want to overwhelm myself or the kids the first year so I am just looking for one class for now. Before I commit to any class I would like to find other teachers who have used ePals with their class and speak with him/her about their experience. If you are reading this and you or you know someone who has used ePals please feel free to leave me a comment.

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.

Beginning Work On My GAME Plan

Since the school year is almost over, I am going to use the rest of this year as well as this summer to research and come up with ideas on how I can work on being more proficient in the NETS-T standards. The two standards that I choose to work on deal with communicating effectively through the use of a variety of digital-age media and formats, as well as giving my students the opportunity to connect with students their age from other cultures and countries.

When I think about what I need to do in order to begin my endeavour, there is definitely one standard that will take more research and planning. I have bookmarked the ePals website and have begun reading and looking into an appropriate class for my students. There are many different ways to find a class to join up with on ePals, that it will take some time before I pick one. I would like to find some sort of forum that teachers who have been a part of ePals have commented on their experiences as well as giving some possible tips on how to make it run smoothly. If anyone has or knows anyone who has used a website such as ePals or something similar and has some advice for me I would appreciate it.

The second standard that I will be working on is communicating effectively through the use of a variety of digital-age media and formats. This standard will not take as much work as the first one that I mentioned, however I will need to be more diligent and put myself on a schedule. This first thing that I will have to do is actively reach out to the families of my students to gather e-mail addresses that I can send to. I started this school year making a newsletter for every month. It was about February that I slacked off and stopped making them. I would like to reuse the ones that I already have made for next year but just update them. There will be some (from February on) that I will need to create. I want to come up with a deadline (the same each month) that I have the newsletter ready and e-mailed to the families by. This will not take anything more than my time and dedication to getting it done.

With a little help from other teachers, as well as time on my part, I am hoping to be successful at integrating the NETS-T standards for this upcoming school year.


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

NETS-T GAME Plan

While looking over the National Educational Technology Standards (NETS•T)
and Performance Indicators for Teachers I was rather pleased with how well I am implementing each of the standards. However, I am not perfect and I could still use a little more work on two of the standards in particular. I will use the GAME plan as described by Dr. Katherine Cennamo in order to become more proficient at each of the standards.

Goals
Actions
Monitor
Evaluate

3. Model Digital-Age Work and Learning: Teachers exhibit knowledge, skills, and work processes representative of an innovative professional in a global and digital society. Teachers:

• c. communicate relevant information and ideas effectively to students, parents, and peers using a variety of digital-age media and formats
  

4. Promote and Model Digital Citizenship and Responsibility: Teachers understand local and global societal issues and responsibilities in an evolving digital culture and exhibit legal and ethical
behavior in their professional practices. Teachers:

• d. develop and model cultural understanding and global awareness by engaging with colleagues and students of other cultures using
  digital-age communication and collaboration tools

My Actions:

3c. I want to start communicating with my students parents and families using more technology. Many of my parents have e-mail access and I thought one way to communicate with them more would be through e-mail. Many times it is easier to find time to answer an e-mail rather than finding times when both the parents and the teacher are available to speak on the phone. Another idea I have is to send my newsletters via e-mail. I currently print and copy the newsletters and pass them out for the students to take home. I will still print some copies for those families who do not have access to e-mail, but for those that do have access to e-mail I will send it to them electronically.

4d. My idea is to join a site such as epals in order to find a 4th grade class in another country. Once we get connected with another class I thought it would be interesting to learn about each others cultures and traditions. In addition, when we do the weather unit in science it would be helpful to compare and contrast the weather conditions in both regions.

Monitior:

3c. I will monitor my use of technology while communicating with the parents and families by making sure that I send one newsletter electronically a month.

4d. I will monitor my collaboration with a class from another country by setting a timeline. I will research this summer to find a collaborating class for next year. I want to find a class that will be willing to communicate. Once I find a class, I will work with the teacher to set up a timeline stating when we will collaborate with each other and how often. I want to make sure that everyone is on the same page so we know what is expected.

Evaluate

3c. At the end of the year I will evaluate myself by creating a survey to give to the parents. In the survey I will ask for their feedback about receiving the class newsletters electronically. I also want to see what they thought about communicating via e-mail rather than telephone. If the majority of the responses are positive then I will continue using technology in this manner.

4d. I will be evaluating the collaboration and my students while we are communicating with the other class. At the end of the year I will poll my students to find out how they enjoyed have epals across the country. If at the end of the year the students and myself feel having the epals was effective then I will continue the following year with my next class.

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.

ISTE (International Society for Technology in Education) (2008). The ISTE National Educational Technology Standards (NETS-T) and Performance Indicators for Teachers. retrieved from http://www.iste.org/Content/NavigationMenu/NETS/ForTeachers/2008Standards/NETS_T_Standards_Final.pdf

Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2009). Integrating Technology Across the Content Areas. Baltimore: Author.