Moodle

Moodle is a Course Management System. This is my presentation over Moodle and its educational effectiveness.

http://voicethread.com/#q.b2080577.i0.k0

Week 8 reflection

Over the past eight weeks in the course Reaching and Engaging All Learners through Technology, I have gained some insight on how to differentiate instruction with technology and how to create a universal design lesson. Technology has improved education a great deal. Teachers are able to reach students of all learning types from visual learners to auditory learners to tactile learners. Also, teachers are able to advance students who are at a high learning level and to remediate those struggling students who may need a little extra to understand the material. This course has giving me some resources that I can use within my classroom to make sure that I am differentiating the correct way to maximize students participating and learning.
Some of the adjustments that I may make after this course is completing a learning profile that I will be able to reach all learning types within my classroom. I already present the information in a wide variety of ways like having students read the material, listen to classroom lectures and discussions, and write down notes using teacher made graphic organizers and fill in notes from an interactive whiteboard. By presenting the information in multiple ways, I am engaging the student's interest and reaching maximum learning. Once of the adjustments will be providing students with a learning profile questionnaire to see what types of learning style. Learning the different styles is key in creating a differentiate classroom.
Another adjustment that I can make after this course is maybe providing different types of presenting and sharing the information. With blogs, Wikipages, Facebook page and even my own classroom web page for my classroom becoming an 21st Century classroom, I would creating one for my classroom because I am able to out to my students in multiple ways rather than just in the classroom. With these new techniques, I am able to open new ways of communicating with each student individually and creating the experience of an open line of communication bet wen my students and myself.
Technology paves the way for new and exciting methods of presenting and assessing students. Smith and Throne (2009) states that technology helps students become lifelong and independent learners (Smith and Throne, 2009) and this course provided me with many different resources that will help in creating a fun and exciting environment where all students of different learning styles can learn and become successful.

Smith, Grace and Stephanie Throne (2009). Laureate Education, Inc. DVD

Final Post

Throughout my GAME plan within this course of Integrating Technology Across Content Area I have gain lots of knowledge from my classmates and NETS-T and NETS-S. My goals were integrate more technology with my students and to share my thoughts and technology usages with my faculty. My faculty members have shared some new technology each week within our PLC meetings. When I receive ideas for new technology, I try to incorporate it with upcoming lessons to see how the students react. I believe the more that technology becomes a larger part into education relying on others will be important. Students need to use technology so that they can relate the use of technology in real life situation. Technology can make learning easier and active for students because it is around them at all times with IPODs, cell phones, and laptops. I am encouraged that my GAME plan will become closer to reaching my goals each time I meet with my PLCs at my school.
My new learning experiences is how to incorporate more technology within my lesson plans. I have gain knowledge of new technology like Moodle, video, PowerPoint. The new ideas and thoughts over how to use PowerPoint, video, and pictures within the lesson is more than I had before. Technology can be used in all situation. The more ways I use the new technology I have gain through this course the more effect I can be with my students.
Within US History, I can incorporate more video of what we are learning. I do not need to show the entire video but mini clips to allow students to see like WWI or WWII. There are movies that show US History through discovery to recent history of Iraq. I am excited about how my US History class will change with this course. I am always looking for new ways of incorpating technology in my class. This course has encouraged me to always keep looking for the new and popular technology trends with education.

GAME process with students

In looking into the NETS -S the standards are similar to the teachers. One of the standards that I can incorporate into my lessons is the second one about communciation and collaboration. When students work together on projects, they will be able to produce orginial artifacts or solve problems (NETS-S, 2007). Also, within this standards, teachers can have students use a variety of methods to show how they understand the information (NETS-S 2007). If creating a PowerPoint, Excel page, digital storytelling, or a poster, students will be collobarating together to reach a common goal set within each lesson or day. Technology helps students become confident in their work and develop artifacts that can be shown on Youtube, Wiki pages, or any other media used for collaboration.
The second standard that I can use is research and information fluency. Students will have to develop skills necessary to become efficient using technology. I can instruct my student to become better at searching for topic or articles posted on the internet. With technology at the forefront of education, researching and problem solving seems to be a click away. With the appropriate teaching and understanding, technology can be students best way to problem solve, learn other cultures and become a more rounder students with the ability to find all the information.

NETS-S (2007).

Revising GAME Plan

I am still working on both of my goals. My first goal is to facilitate and inspire students learning and creativity. How am I working on my goal? I am still learning how to find ways of inspiring my students to be creative using technology. Creating problem-based lesson plans give students the ability to work with the community and develop higher order thinking skills. Problem-based lesson plans can show their creativity by developing a problem, compiling research and work collaboratively with other students to develop an outcome that can be useful and be related to their real life situations. Also, finding ways to incorporate social networking and online collaborations, helps with students learning and creativity because they would be able to share information with other students around the country and world. The students would be exposed to different cultures and backgrounds that would help them be able to relate their learning to real life situations.
I am still working on my set goals. The way that I can extend them is to allow students to become more active with the technology available. Try to incorporate blogs, wikis, or other social networking to get students collaborating together outside of the school. By giving students the opportunity to develop social networking and online collaboration, their work would be available for all to see and to connect with other peers around the country and world. Before setting new goals, I would like to be able to try to incorporate some more usages of technology to enhance student's creativity and the willingness to learn more about a specific topic.
Some of the new learning approaches that I would like to start in my classes is the blogs or wiki pages for student to be able to gather information and media to present in one place of what they are learning about in history class. By helping students create blogs and/or other social networking accounts, they are going to receive a continuous feedback from their teacher, classmates, and others who have access to their blogs or wikipages. This will helps student become better at collaborating with others by displaying their thoughts on their social networking sites, receiving or giving feedback from others, and applying the suggestions to their life and assignments. Technology is expanding the way students can gather information and how to present the information in a way that they can relate to in some way.

Davis, Vickie. 2009. Spotlight on Technology. Social Networking and Online Collaboration Part 1. Laureate Education, Inc. DVD.

Ertmer, Peggy. 2009. Spotlight on Education Problem-based learning. Laureate Education, Inc. DVD.

Evaluating My GAME Plan

In evaluating my GAME plan this week, reaching my goals that I have set are within reach. Within my professional learning meetings, some of the teachers discuss some different types of technology or ways they integrated technology within their lessons. My actions for this week was to discover new types of technology and how to use them effectively. Some of the new technology tools was Moodle, using video streaming within lessons to paint the picture, and teaching how to use search engines to complete research projects. Meeting with other faculty member helps gain knowledge of what other types of technology other teachers are using for their student.

I have learned that I need to incorporate more little types of technology or media to help student relate to the idea I want my students to learn. One teacher that I work with tries to relate music and music videos to learn different literary terms and/or vocabulary. It is a great way to bring in something interested that students can relate to. They are becoming active learners when students can relate to and see a video or movie clip to further enrich the topic.

Some of the questions that I have develop is how to incorporate the different types of technology in all my lesson plans. In conducting research I believe that I will be able to find any type of technology that I would need. Collaborating with my co-workers to see what different types of technology or software that helps their student become successful. Some of my new questions are what type of technology would work best for my subject like US History or British Literature. I have found that not all types of technology may not help students relate to the material and may becoming a barrier for learning.

I do not need to make many adjustments but the ones I need have be able to link back to my goal of using technology with my classroom. Some of my adjustments is try to understand what type of technology will work and some that do not. I need to be comfortable with creating blogs or webpage before I give the assignment to my students. For the media to work, I would have to make sure that all the students know the background behind the usage of technology. I am excited that I have all new views and suggestions on what type of technology will work within my US History class and my British Literature class.
Michael Thomas

Monitoring my GAME Plan

In revisiting my goals that I have set within my GAME, I see that I am on the right path of monitoring them. The first goal in my GAME plan is inspiring and to facilitate my students to be creative and think for themselves in real life situation. I feel that I am finding resources that will help me reach this goal. Some of the findings that I have found is how to incorporate performance-based assessments for each of my students. Cennamo, Ross, and Ertmer (2009) states that performances can very quickly extend beyond the demonstration of rudimentary skill and can require students to demonstrate very complex behaviors that may exhibit choices based on personal values and creativity (Cennamo, Ross, and Ertmer, 200). Researching performance-based assessments will help students become creativity and displays skills that are more than just the traditional pen and paper. This a way that I have been finding research needed to achieve my goal in my GAME plan.
I do not think I need to modify my GAME plan because by conducting my research and meeting within my professional learning committees at my school, I am able to gain valuable information about alternative ways of getting my students to perform at a high and knowledge level. Within these PLC at my school I am able to ask and see what type of technologies other teachers are using to help their student develop an understanding of how to relate school assignments and assessments to real life.
I have learned with my PLC that there are multiple of ways to evaluate student's knowledge of standards. Some things that have been mentioned by my PLC are some of the ways that Cennamo, Ross, and Ertmer mention. For example, having students create a journal using a word-processor, journaling software, and even blogs (Cennamo, Ross, and Ertmer, 2009). Others are project-based assessments like creating concepts maps, Powerpoints or video presentations. Some new questions that have risen is how to incorporating all the different ideas that I have gain from my PLC. Technology has made education more accessible and flexible because there are more and more ways to demonstrating mastery of a particular area rather than pen and paper. I am excited about how my GAME plan is being developed and carried out.

Resource:
Cennamo, Katherine, John Ross, and Peggy Ertmer. 2009. Technology Integration for Meaningful Classroom Use. Cengage, Ohio.

Carrying Out My GAME Plan

Carrying out my game plan would require me to research and discover what type of technology do I have access to so that I can better serve my students and to further their education. Some of the technologies that I need to carry out my GAME is the SMARTBOARDs in my classroom, the computer labs so students can access the internet for research assignments, websites that will help them better understand the material like virtual fieldtrips, movie clips, pictures. With the help of these technology I am able to challenge my students to become active learners and make learning fun and exciting.
Additional information that I may needed for carrying out my GAME plan is help from outside resources. Dr. Ross (2009) that utilizing local, regional, and state organizational websites, attend conderences and training, and knowing how to use the technology is how to use assistive technology within the classroom (Ross, 2009). To carry out my action in my GAME plan, I have to be able to rely on others who may be able to guide me in what type of technology will help students become successful and/or teach me on how to incorporate the different types of technology within my lessons. Reaching out to others is a great way to build a collaboration within schools and communities becuase ideas can be shared among the group to better inform others who may have the same questions or problems.
At our school, we have small group meetings that are meant to build up collaboration within each department. These meetings help with bouncing off ideas to other teachers to see what they may have tried within a particular lesson to see what works and what can be improved. Also, we have a faculty meeting where other teachers can share success stories of how and what type of technology help with their students. Sharing and listening within these department and faculty meetings, helps with my growing understanding of what type of technology works and which ones that I may need to spend a little more time researching.

Resource
Ross, John. (2009). Meeting Students' Needs with Technology. Laureate Education, INC. DVD.

Developing My Personal GAME Plan

In looking at the teacher's standards within the website International Society for Technology in Education, I notice that I can relate to all of them. I have narrowed down the five standards to two standards that I want create my GAME plan around.

The first standard states "Facilitate and Inspire Student Learning and Creativity" (ISTE, 2008), that is my goal is to inspire and facilitate my student to be creative and think for themselves in real-life situations. My GAME plan is to create opportunities for my students to take advantage of the variety of technology for them to be creativity and solve real-life problems. Other goals and/or actions is to collaborative with co-workers to discuss the best plan for integrating technology into lessons plans that will help with all learning types of students in my classes. By collaborating with co-workers, more ideas will be presented and developed for students to use technology for assignments. The more I can stay actively involved with using technology in my lesson plans, the more my students will become confident in using the different types of technology.

The second standard that I need to incorporate within my GAME plan is "Design and Develop Digital-Age Learning Experiences and Assessments" (ISTE, 2008). This standards involve students becoming self-directed learners because they are able to set a direction for their goal, look and research ways to achieve their goals, to monitoring their progress of reaching their goals, and the appropriate way of evaluating the progress of students (Cennamo, 2009). Incorporating technology is a great way for teachers to develop digital-age learning. My goal within this standard is to creative different ways of assessing students learning rather than the traditional pen and paper. Becoming familiar with the different types of technology available for students, teachers are more flexible on how to assess students. The GAME plan is to assess students that allow students to develop, create, and present the information. Katherine Cennamo (2009) gives several different mindtools for example database,concept maps, wikis, simulations, to enable learners (students) to represent, manipulate, or reflect on what they know, rather than to reproduce what someone else knows (Cennamo, 2009).

My goals are simple for both standards, to allow students to use technology within the classroom with confidence and develop a support group with co-workers to share ideas for improving my GAME plan.

Resource:

International Society for Technology in Education Standards of for Teachers. (2008).

Cennamo, Katherine, (2009). Technology Inegration for Meaningful Classroom Use A Standard-Based Approach. Cengage Learning.