After taking some good advice from my classmates, I am re-investigating course texts from this class, previous classes, and my undergrad course work. These texts are providing me with an almost overwhelming amount of technology ideas I would like to try in my classroom. I have found that with an increasing bank of ideas that I need a way to organize what I am finding. I have devoted a notebook to my GAME plan. In the notebook I jot down ideas and a brief description so that I can refer back to it later. I will also include if I know of a location to find information/resources. When I have more free time at my disposal I plan to explore and possibly reduce/refine many of my new ideas.
For this month, I plan to look into software that sends reminder messages to students. While my initial goal was to implement 2 new devices/programs/technologies into my classroom, I am finding this undertaking to be rather time consuming. As well as programs, I am looking into district policy and formulating a permission letter. This undertaking is worthy of an ample amount of time because I feel this could be very beneficial to my students and their parents. If you implement something similar to this in your classroom I am curious to know the logistics involved!
Amy,
ReplyDeleteThe notebook to write down all your ideas is a great way to stay organized with all the technology you could use with your students. Why not make it a digital notebook? I was thinking more like an Excel spreadsheet where you could make headings for all your ideas. The spreadsheet may be easier to see all the ideas in one place and you would not have to write them all down but to type them would be faster. The headings could be title of the resource, URL or location, brief description, and grade level or best used with. You could even organize the spreadsheet based on different learning abilities or preferences.
Comment cont.
ReplyDeleteI think you would know the best way to organize it based on your instructional practices. It sounds like it could be a very useful tool for you and your colleagues throughout your teaching career. I have been typing up resources that I have found or have used during my graduate courses. They are not organized in any way but are just listed and when I look back at it, it doesn’t really help me in finding what I might need or want to use right away. I have to take time to skim and search for the resources and then what it is, which can be time consuming as well. Thanks for the notebook idea!
HanNa Chung
Amy,
ReplyDeleteI do wish I kept a list of all the resources from previous courses like HanNa did. I can imagine how time-consuming that must be not even to mention, where to look. Hopefully you will find what you need.
If I was looking to create a question of concern or for something to consider would be when you go about finding software that will send students a reminder. Do you have something in mind? I only ask because I haven't heard of such software. That doesn't mean it doesn't exist. My concern would be that once you find it, would your school allow access to this software. My school is so limited when it comes to software and programs.
Good luck with your goals. Your plan has got some wheels turning for me as well. I really would like to create a list of resources so that I don't forget everything I have learned.
Charlene
Posted on behalf of Casi
ReplyDeleteAmy,
First, I love your idea of keeping a notebook for all of the technological
activities you hope to implement into your classroom. I, too, am going to
begin doing this. Additionally, I will “re-scour” my Walden resources to
assist me in this endeavor. I believe I will organize it by technology tool or
grade level, as I teach three different grades.
Another resource to pursue for collecting technology ideas is to search for
“technology in education” blogs. I found a site dedicated to the top 100
educational blogs: http://oedb.org/library/features/top-100-education-blogs.
On this particular site there are at least 10 weblogs listed pertaining to
technology-assisted learning and online learning among dozens of other topics.
I notice you allude to needing some sort of district permission policy. I
looked back at your older posts, but I am not entirely sure what type of
permission letter you are looking to compose. I am surmising it is for
Internet use, publishing on the Internet, communicating with others via
Internet, etc. I obtained a copy of my middle school’s Internet Use Policy for
you to examine and alter for your purposes. I hope it gives you a jumping off
point, as it is generic enough to encompass email, research, blogging, wikis,
etc. I am ashamed to say that I did find a couple of grammatical errors in it;
I will definitely point them out to my administrator. Due to the length of the
policy, I will email it to you.
Good luck on your collection of ideas!
Casi
I do like the idea of having a digital notebook. I think I would like whatever resource I use as a digital notebook to provide journal type entries that are keyword search-able. Being able to search somethings by different categories would allow me to have easy access to everything I have saved. I wish I had paid attention when my high school teacher tried to teach me how to compile databases!
ReplyDeleteI have found a great resource to send text reminders to my students and their parents. http://www.mygroupreminders.com/ is a free website that allows you to send text and email reminders to groups of people. The service is free, but I still need to find out if this is something I am “allowed” to do in my classroom. The issue that is complicating things is that students who do not have sufficient text messages under their plan would have to pay to receive reminders. Standard text messaging rate apply, so they would essentially have to pay for them.
Miss Hampton,
ReplyDeleteI think the idea of keeping track of using technology and meeting your game plan goals. It will really allow you to see all of the progress that you are making towards your game plan. I have also found that talking to people with expertise in the technology realm to give you pointers on what things you can do. I was talking to the technology guru at our school, and he helped me to form a plan on how to build a web page with my students. This whole week my kids researched and were able to each put together a web page for a historical figure in the development of the atom. I was surprised how well the kids adapted and were able to put things together. The technology coordinator even had his advanced digital media class assist my class. It was really cool, and to think that I was nervous about it.
Jeremy