Developing My Personal GAME Plan: The NETS-T

Reading over the National Education Standards for Teachers that ISTE has developed, it is difficult to narrow down things that I feel less confidant or proficient in as there appears to be so much overlapping. The NETS-T, as they are listed, seem to be a bottom up approach to me. The professional development occurs first, followed by the design and the facilitation of learning that involves technology, creativity, and innovation. During the course of the instruction, the teacher models how the students are to engage in digital-age work and learning. Through discussions as the work and learning are taking place, digital citizenship and responsibility are taught.

That having been said, my challenges, then, are to equip myself with the tools that I need to move my students into the digital-age. As stated in the NETS-T Goal of Engaging in Professional Growth and Leadership, I need to participate in local and global learning communities to explore creative applications of technology to improve student learning. Setting my goal to improve my skills on one new tool for the upcoming unit in Science allows me to focus my planning on how I will utilize the tool best. Whether it is using Audacity to create a podcast, learning how to better mix the different sound channels and add music or to create a WIKI and learn about how students can create and edit the content, focusing on just using one technology will allow me to grow in meaningful increments. In order to do that, I plan to participate in the forums for Audacity to utilize the global community of Audacity users. On a local level, I plan to collaborate with a teaching partner that is already utilizing Audacity to create podcasts to showcase his students’ writings. My progress will be monitored and measured through submitting my podcast at each step of production for review. The final product will be put up for downloading on a website or through iTunes. The podcast could be a review of the topic covered and an evaluation could be in the grades of the tests after having students use the podcast for a study guide. Extending my use of the podcast and my learning leads into my next goal.

Having always taught, for the most part, in the confines of my own classroom, collaborating with students, peers, parents, and community members using digital tools and resources to support student success and innovation , as indicated in the NETS-T Goal of Modeling Digital-Age Work and Learning, is an area that I see as a challenge. Certainly not with my own students, as I am always in contact with their growth and learning. I also have a great working relationship with my peers on a local level. The challenge, as I see it, is to expand that collaboration to the parents and community. Using blogging to establish dialogue on a global level would seem to be a good place for me to start. Knowing how to create a podcast, posting it on a blog and inviting comments and additions from other students, parents, and teachers from around the world would help me to grow as a teacher. It would help my students become better digital citizens through practicing etiquette in social networking situations. To achieve this goal, I will have to explore the viable options that are available in my county to create a classroom blog. Participating in global classroom projects will help me to learn how to structure my own units by seeing the strengths or shortcomings of other projects. Monitoring my progress would be done through a series of steps. The first step is the creation and development of the blog. The success of my utilization of the tool, then, would be measured in the number and quality of the responses of my own students to the topics presented in the blog. The extension of my learning would be through presenting the blog and webcast to the global community through websites that aggregate teaching projects from around the world. Collaborating through writing and posts on the blog, learning from listening to podcasts that others develop on the same topic, and creating a global dialogue on our shared experiences, my students and I will both grow as responsible and involved digital learners as we explore real-world issues and solve authentic problems. As always, the success of my learning is measured through the success of my students through their engagement and achievement across the content areas.

References

Cennamo, K., Ross, J., & Ertmer, P. (2009). Technology integration for meaningful classroom use: A standards-based approach. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning.

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