Monitoring Your Game Plan Progress

The progress of monitoring the game plan seems to be going at a slow pace since I hardly have time to implement anything new in my class. Students and teachers are very busy preparing for tests so I cannot impart any new ideas just yet. However, I believe I can have a great start at encouraging students to be digitally responsible by allowing students to send me emails. I currently have a 9th grader who initiated a double-entry journal with me called a kokan notebook. Inside the book are entries made by myself and the student. Frankly speaking, I am learning as much from this student as much as she is learning from me.

The next step is to encourage the student to create the digital version of the kokan notebook. I have also asked the Japanese teacher of English to inform students that I am available to assist them with oral communication skills. It is at this point I will need to use my camera to take small video clips of students having dialogue with me in English. The purpose of the videos is to help students build the confidence they need to speak more English in the most natural form. I believe this game plan will is ongoing so even after this course I will still be working on the plan and adding to my professional development.

I realized that sometimes educators become too overly ambitious about implementing a new concept or plan but then these changes will gradually materialize over a period of time. Although it is difficult to get my students to participate in any programme outside of class because of their busy schedule, I will not be discouraged.

Carrying Out Your Game Plan

To date, I have only had the opportunity to use the digital camera to take pictures of items at school that would be used to teach a lesson on “Whose ~ is this?” Also, I was able to incorporate audio messages of Japanese teachers speaking English in the above mentioned lesson. Believe it or not, the students did not expect the here their principal or their home economics teacher speak English. In fact, they seemed more intrigued with being able to identify the teacher than anything else. At this school, the English department is yet to incorporate the use of the Internet or videos let alone to incorporate instructional software to facilitate learning. So the assumption that many people have that most Japanese classrooms are fully furnished with sophisticated technology, is only a myth. However, some institutions are way advanced in its effort to be technologically advanced. Naturally, educators can continue to be innovative in the classroom as it is not the technology that will make our students successful but our students are responsible for their success with teachers’ assistance.

The resources I will need to support my game plan would include digital camera, video, colleagues at work and at Walden, online resources, and CD player. I would like to learn more about how to incorporate technology into the classroom to facilitate all learners. As I improvise I could take creative idea and modify them to maintain the same level of challenge for students but using the simplified version. Learning is not static so I should be flexible to explore how to facilitate learning by using new educational games that are highly stimulating with varying levels of difficulties.

It is my hope that my colleagues at work can accommodate some of the new learning styles that would require the use of technology to enable students to enjoy the same satisfaction as if they were outside of class. I would like to know more about how to incorporate technology in my lessons with disabled students. I wish I were responsible for my English classes then, I would have had more leverage to spark more discussions among students by using a variety of resources to promote and model digital citizenship and responsibility.

Kerry-Ann’s GAME Plan!!

For this week’s blog, the focus is to develop a GAME Plan based on the National Education Standards for Teacher (NETS-T) which was taken from the Web site for the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE). I have high expectations for achieving these goals and would like to identify ways to improve my professional development as much as I intend to impact the lives of my students.

 The two goals that I would like to set based on the indicators
from NETS-T include:
(1) To promote and model digital citizenship and
responsibility

(2) To design and develop digital-age learning
experiences and assessments

 The actions I would like to take to achieve these goals are:
(1) to ensure that as a teacher-librarian, I need to keep abreast with current
trends in digital technology in so far as literacy development is concerned.
(2) to develop a keen interest in the various kinds of educational resources
that Japanese teachers use in different institutions.

 I will monitor my progress by recording anything innovative whether by
digital images or by documenting descriptions from my observations and or interviews with various resource personnel.

 I plan to evaluate and extend my learning by cross-referencing with other teachers, and librarians in Jamaica and Japan to synthesize how I can recreate my future classroom or learning center with great influence from digital technology.

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