Evaluating My Technology GAME Plan

Evaluating My Technology GAME Plan

I am making significant progress on my plans for integrating technology in the classroom. I am developing a classroom website using wikispaces. I have not decided yet if I am going to give all of my students access to amending the site (but that is the point of using a wiki). My website can be found at http://mcveysclassroom.wikispaces.com/. I really like the ease of use of this website. I cannot believe how quick it is to post announcements, links, a schedule, and documents. There is even a place to add discussions posts, and other neat web 2.0 tools using widgets. I am really glad that our learning community is using a wikispace because I am really familiar with what I am doing on that. I cannot believe how efficient and intuitive today’s technology tools are.

The part of my classroom website that I am most excited about is my history resources section. I basically took all of the website mentioned by Cennamo, Ross, & Ertmer (2010) in Chapter 13. I was really overwhelmed by the resources provided, this one chapter of text alone offers insights into so many effective tools to teach social studies. By placing all of those links in one place, I will have an easy place to access great resources and my students will as well. Of course, I could have used Delicious to make a list of social bookmarks maybe I will do that in the near future.

The next major step I took in integrating technology in my classroom is becoming trained on the Smart Response wireless remote system. I attended a two-hour training session and now I feel very equipped to use these tools for both formative and summative assessments in my classes. I am really excited about using them to stimulate discussions and to acquire polling and surveying data from the class anonymously. One of my favorite TV shows is ESPN’s SportsNation. The show basically blends sports and pop culture by using polls submitted by the viewers. I could really see my classroom becoming a blend of content and current events and have the students interact with both using wireless remotes to stimulate classroom and online discussion. I am beginning to think that a late night talk show method of teaching would work well. I would start with a monologue (acquire back ground knowledge, state goals, and present new information), play a few games that get audience interaction (student discussion, analysis, interpretation), interview some guests (have students role play, confer with students in groups), and have a musical guest at the end (do something at the end of class to synthesize what went on in a creative meaningful way by using music and video tools). Students (like most human beings) enjoy a well-produced, entertaining TV shows. Why couldn’t my class take elements from the talk-show template to produce an engaging classroom.

I am going to continue to develop my website and perfect the use of Smart Response remotes to make my classroom the most engaging informative learning experience it can in person or on line.

Paul

Resources

Cennamo, K., Ross, J., & Ertmer, P. (2010). Technology integration for meaningful classroom use: A standards-based approach. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning