Final Reflection

Over the past eight weeks, I was able to establish a GAME plan focusing on two main goals: incorporating blogs and wikis whenever possible into instruction and establishing a classroom website to increase communication. I have learned that even with a well-designed plan, adaptations must occur and the ability to be flexible must remain a constant reality. I was notified a few short weeks ago that my county was eliminating blogs from the technology department and focusing on wiki communication for all students. My GAME plan has been altered and the technology teacher and I are meeting this coming week to discuss the switch from blog communication to wikis. We have a tentative plan to switch our assignments over to wiki format but this will take several planning sessions and a great deal of flexibility when it comes to our students. My classroom website is coming along quite nicely. I found out that my website must be linked though my school's website and I have developed a trial site that I plan to have approved after returning from winter break. I feel that this website will increase communication with my parents and also allow me to keep my students up to date while they are outside of my classroom. I look forward to implementing both of my plans by the beginning of the second semester so that I may continue to challenge myself as well as increase the level of learning within my classroom.

Many people are surprised at the amount of technology integration that occurs in my physical education classroom. After completing my most recent graduate course, I plan to continue to increase my level of technology integration and look for additional creative ways to infuse technology into my program. I have learned that technology should not be forced into a classroom, but rather utilized when appropriate in order to achieve a high level of student success (Laureate Education, Inc., 2009). I plan to increase the amount of contact with our partner school in England by communicating on a monthly basis via wikis. I am also interested in creating more problem-based learning activities and opportunities for my students to communicate through social networking devices. My goal is to take these plans in moderation and limit the overwhelming sense that technology often brings to a classroom by remaining organized and focused on achieving short term goals. Finally, I pledge to remain educated on the most recent technology advances so that I may give my students the best possible environment to succeed in the 21st century.

Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2009). Integrating technology across the content areas. Baltimore: Author.

The GAME Plan and My Students

Over the past several weeks I have been incorporating the GAME plan model into my weekly schedule of events. As noted before, the GAME plan focuses on setting a goal, taking action, monitoring the goal and process and evaluating for success. My personal GAME plan focused on creating a classroom website and utilizing blogs and wikis whenever possible in my classroom. After changes made by my district, I was forced to make some changes with my plan but so far, things are still progressing toward my goal.

After reading over the NETS-T and the NETS-S I soon became familiar with the similarities that exist for both teachers and students in the area of digital expectations and overall technology use and examination. I feel that students need to understand where they are in terms of understanding their own knowledge of technology including strengths and areas of improvement. I know that my students complete a technology survey but in the future I would like to meet with our technology teacher and design the survey around the NETS-S . By doing this, I could gain a more accurate response as to where my students are in terms of their technology use, understanding and digital citizenship.

I think that the GAME Plan is an excellent model to use in the classroom with my students. Even at the elementary level, students must understand what it means to set realistic goals, take proper action, monitor progress and evaluate the overall process. Students can apply this process to just about any content area when working on a long term project or research assignment. The GAME Plan provides students with a clear understanding in terms of their own personal ideas and allows them to progress toward their goal in a constructive manner. I plan on using this method in the future with my students to demonstrate organization, management and an overall simplistic way to accomplish a task.

Reflecting on My GAME Plan

I was thrown an unexpected curve ball last week when I was told that our school system was no longer using blogs and that my classroom website had to be attached and linked with our school website. Prior to finding this out, my fifth grade students had been collaborating online with one another through the use of blogs. I have decided to convert the blog format into county approved wikis. I have started to research the easiest and most convenient way of performing this task due to the fact that this will effect 200 hundred of my students. I sent out a county-wide email to all elementary physical education teachers to find out how many of them were effected by this change. It turns out that 31 elementary school teachers were using blogs and were now faced with my same dilemma. We have set up a meeting with our area technology director who will be teaching us the best methods of moving blog posts into various wikis.

I have also continued to experiment with my classroom website and have started to construct a brief outline of the ideas and concepts that I wish to include on my page. The music teacher and I are meeting with our technology teacher to see first hand how he sets up and makes changes to our school website. This will hopefully allow me to see a "behind the scenes" look at how online projects can be set up and maintained in a simple format.

I plan on sticking with my GAME plan, despite these recent set backs. This may take more time then I had expected but I am willing to put forth the effort if it will benefit my students. I look forward to my upcoming meetings and will hopefully gain some understanding as well as a sense of confidence in terms of carrying out my GAME plan.

Changes Within the GAME Plan

As mentioned last week, the GAME plan philosophy, stems from the idea of establishing a goal, taking action on that particular goal, monitoring progress and evaluating the goal and its' effectiveness (Cennamo, Ross, & Ertmer, 2009). I was able to meet with my technology teacher today to discuss my GAME plan, and was informed of a meeting that took place yesterday after school which directly relates to both of my goals for my plan.

My technology teacher told me that my county is completing doing away with blogs as a usable resource for students within the schools. The county has decided to use wikis instead, due to the fact that they are much easier for the teacher facilitate and maintain. I was told though that the county will be purchasing a license for every student and this change will go into effect starting January 1, 2010. While I understand the philosophy behind this change, I am now faced with transforming my students' work from blog format to a wiki. Some of my classes were able to already create their own wiki, but I will need to seek more information on licenses and finding the time to establish user names and passwords for my intermediate students. I am fortunate to still have the ability to use wikis as a form of communicate between myself, students and parents. Wikis will allow my students to "work individually, in pairs, or in teams to post or respond to postings" (Cennamo, Ross, & Ertmer, 2009, p. 98).

In addition to changing my blogs, I will also need to make changes to my plan for a classroom website. At the same technology meeting that was held yesterday, the county discussed classroom websites and determined that a private classroom setting outside of our domain would no longer be permitted. As a result, I will have to add my classroom information to our school website in order to adhere to county policy. I still plan on using Microsoft Front Page to design links and organize my classroom information. This change will also force me to make changes to the idea of having students complete homework online, due to the size limit of 20MB. This change will also go into effect on January 1, 2010.

Over the next few weeks I plan to continue to research these changes and develop new ways to put my GAME plan into action. I would love to hear if anyone else has experienced this dilemma and if so how it was handled.

As always, thanks for your feedback.

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


Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2009). Integrating technology across the content areas. Baltimore: Author.