In this class I have learned to use the GAME plan to assist
me to plan my professional development and also to structure the preparation of
some lessons using techniques such as project based learning, collaborative
learning and learning through digital storytelling. The GAME plan is an excellent way of
promoting self-directed learning both for the student and the teacher.
In this course I developed a personal GAME plan to improve a
couple of areas in my teaching. My GAME plan goals were to:
·
Give my students the skills to reflect on their
learning and findings to improve their understanding, critical thinking skills,
planning and creative processes,
·
Become an advocate for and model best practice
of digital citizenship and responsibility with my students.
The actions that I determined I needed to complete in order
to achieve my goals were to find out more about different and new technologies
that I can use to motivate and improve the performance of my students, and I
also wanted to learn more about responsible digital citizenship.
Initially I found it quite difficult to locate new
technologies that I could use at my school as I am in quite a bubble living and
teaching here in Indonesia and relied mostly on finding out about new
technologies from new International teachers coming to the school each year. This
course along with the expertise and experiences from other teachers studying on
the program has really helped me to locate new technologies that I can use in
my classroom to improve the motivation and performance of my students. I have
learned about a range of new technologies that are freely available on the
Internet that have real applications within my subject area and really help to
motivate my students to complete particular tasks.
Some of the new technologies that I have discovered in this
course and have been experimenting with my classes have been:
·
Spiderscribe
– This is an online mapping and brainstorming tool that allows students to
share ideas and collaborate online. I have found this particularly useful at
getting students to work together to analyze a particular problem or product.
·
Flipsnack.com
– This is an excellent resource that allows students and teachers to create a
digital flipping book. These flipping books are a great way for students in my
design class to create a portfolio of their best works and share these online.
·
Pixton.com
– This resource allows students to create their own online cartoon storyboards
that can be shared with anybody connected to the internet.
·
VoiceThreads
– This resource allows students to create an online presentation of images,
comments and ‘real time’ commentary as the presentation is being watched.
Students can then share their VoiceThreads with other students and viewers who
can leave written or audio comments about the content.
·
GoogleDocs
– GoogleDocs are an excellent resource for sharing and collaborating on a
particular document. These documents can be spreadsheets, ‘word’ documents, presentations,
drawings or tables and multiple parties can concurrently work them on.
As I have learned about these new technologies and have
experimented with their use, my awareness and understanding of how I can become
a better advocate of digital citizenship and responsibility has improved. I now
understand how resources should be sourced and the reasons for referencing authors
of information or media, and I will endeavor to model best practice in all of
the resources and documents that I produce for my students in the future.
I think that the GAME plan is an excellent way of enabling
someone to think carefully about the learning and to give themselves targets
and goals that they need to achieve. The GAME plan has really helped me to
reflect on my teaching and highlight areas that I want and need to learn more
about whilst also making me think of ways to ensure that I meet these goals.
The GAME plan is definitely something that could be used with students when
completing their projects or units of work in my classes and it will also help
me to personalize and tailor my teaching to suit their needs.
Over the past few weeks I have developed some lesson plans
that use the GAME plan as an outline for structuring my thinking and
preparations for the lesson. The lessons that I have used the GAME plan to help
me design have been a project based learning lesson, a collaborative lesson and
a ‘storytelling’ lesson. These can be viewed at the following wiki: http://techwithteaching.wikispaces.com/.
Each unit for my course comprises of students being
presented with a problem that they need to analyze, research, synthesis,
design, model, manufacture and then test and evaluate. All of the topics that I
have learned about in this course can be used at different stages in this
design process and from the short time that I have experimented with these new
technologies in class I have found that they have really helped to motivate my
students to produce some excellent pieces of work that they can then share with
a larger than usual audience.
