Looking back at the GAME plan....

Using the GAME Plan concept helped me focus more on the software program I was learning. Usually when I try a new program, I do not necessarily make a focused effort on it as much as I probably should. Partly because of the volume of new programs being thrown at me in our one-to-one educational environment and partly because I am going a mile a minute. The GAME plan system made me slow down (just a bit) and focus a little more on my actions. I think as a teacher this was a good things because I thought more like a student than a teacher.

I plan to use the GAME plan with my students in the spring when we start our energy unit. I think it will help them focus more on how to use the new software program they chose (publisher, edublog.com and voice thread). I also think it will be a good way for me to introduce using Jing to have them demonstrate their learning/using of the website with the creation of a screen capture.

I am usually very flexable with students and wanting to use other programs but with the GAME Plan process, I aim to be less flexable and sort of force (or more push and nudge) them to use the required program. My hope is that with being more strict, my students will push through a road block or challenging part and overcome to be successful with a new software option rather than falling back and simply using something they already know.

All and all the GAME plan system is a good structure to use for both myself and my students. I can see it working as a great organizational planning tool as my middle school kids grow and prepare to be out in the "real world" without their teacher then to guide them. They can learn to guide themselves.

Preparing My Kids for Meeting NETS Goals

The ISTENETS for Students has an expectation of preparing our kids for tomorrow in their ability to communicate and collaborate. In the world we live in where social networking is a main force of collaboration it seems the worlds is preparing our kids to meet that goal.

Our job as educators is to help them know how to properly meet that goal. How to use social networking and collaborating in a beneficial educational and productive way not just to socialize and gab. With the massive size of the world, this ability to communicate with foreign countries and other states makes this world rather small.

The strategy of GAME can be a great tool in helping our students make a goal, activitly execute that goal and monitor as well as as evaluate their successed and failures. With our next unit and the focus on energy (sources and aspects), my students will be collaborating with another school to learn more, share ideas, and discuss possibilities. By helping them structure their plans with the GAME plan system, I believe they will be more successful, less like to stray off task in their collaborating and discussions.

Because GAME requires the monitoring of action as well as the evaluation of those actions, I think students will be able to find guidence in the structure. Because students (individually or in groups) will be using a blog to record their work, I can access/follow their blogs. As the teacher, I can comment and help keep them on track. Using the structure of GAME plan I can also ask them to revert back to the structure of their plan and work from where they strayed, when straying occurrs.

Using GAME plan will also help my students work at being a higher quality of digital citizens. Although they have grown up with the internet as digital natives, not many of them at their tender age of 12 to 14 know how to be good digital citizens. Like the NETS goal aims students need to be appropriate with their uses of technology as well as safe and legal. As educators, we can use the Goal and Action aspects of GAME to demonstrate and educate about the digital citizen actions. With the monitors and evulating aspects, there will be time for reflection and evaluation of how well them followed quality digital citzenship.

GAME Plan is great for Students too!

When we first were assigned the reading and GAME plan development activity, my initial thought was “what a great concept to work with students”. Then as we got started I wondered if it really could be something to use with students. It seemed like it would be a side track from my already packed science curriculum. But as we processed through it the steps over 6 weeks, I began to see how it was possible to blend in with my sciences when we set up a larger project.

In a month from now, we will be starting our last large 6 week unit on Energy. My goal with my kids outside of science content is it prepare them for high school without hand holding. I think the structure of GAME is something that middle school students can use. It will be interesting to see what “goals” my students will chose for their GAME plan.

On a personal note, though I am frequently learning and exploring technology applications, using the GAME plan structure made me more conscience and more focused on my learning process and certainly more reflective on the progress. I was also more time conscience of my work where in the past I haven’t gauged the window of time so much before. It is something that I will use again in the coming years of learning new and more technology. I can also see other ways of applying the GAME to other educational adventures such as pursuing my PhD next.

Not as Successful as Desired - But we survived...

Well the program of VoiceThread proved to be a little too challenging or advanced for some of my kids. While others tended to be successful and created some fun animations that I still don't know how to do.

We problem solved for those who were not able to handle the program. Some chose to use PowerPoint because they were comfortable and capable of using that program to create an automated digital story while some others asked to use PhotoStory.

Their favorite part was search and sorting the photos. I think that this was a successful process for them as they had to create the story line and how to organize the process. I originally looked to Digital Story Telling for me as a teacher to be able to assess what the student learned of the concept. However, now as I watched them use it I say that as students they found the creation project of the story to be very beneficial with the process of what they did to create the model as well as clarifying their understanding of the model.

I am excited tomorrow to see what they have created and their submissions. I can see later in the year, trying this again where they can be even more creative and make a more detailed science digital story. But for now, it was a good start. Practice makes perfect as they say.

Adventuring into Digital Story Telling

So tomorrow is the big day... Digital Story Creating will begin... We are only 1 day behind and that is okay. The marshmallow atom builing activity took a bit more time for some students than initally thought. Amazing some of my lower level learners did better at this activity than some of my honor students. Partly because I gave my lower level learner smaller atoms (with under 10 electrons) while my honors kids had larger atoms with 15 to 20 electrons.

The ceiling with all the atoms hanging from it looks really cool. The look actually has me deciding that for their element card (for our giant periodic table - next week's project) I am going to have the kids print a second copy so I can hang them from the ceiling in the classroom too.

Now that the kids have all their atoms built and I have taken photos of each of them with their atom and their atom seperately, they can being creating invidivual digital stories about their atoms. To help combat our shortage of digital cameras, I have taken a series of stock photos (each color marshmellow and other supplies used along with close ups of orbital rings and nucleus). This way they don't have to try to fight for camera time. It took a little brain storming with my team mates to decided how to battle the shortage of cameras.

I am also still short audio recording equipment as I wasn't able to secure 18 headsets. Though I have found an option for the same headsets for only $8 (instead of the orginal $18 each) it is too late to order. I am hoping with my observation being tomorrow too, that my Vice Principal will see the need and push my principal to buy them.

I am nervous about trying the first digital story telling while being observed for my annual evalution but I think I can handle it. My original observation was suppose to be 2 weeks ago but due to schedule conflicts it has been rescheduled. I won't change my "lesson plan" just to be observed. I feel fake doing that. The positive is that LH is coming to observe me during my best behaved class and my class is willing to let me "practice" on them for activities. It will go well. I think he will be pleased to see the kids engaged.

Sticky Atoms - Marshmallow Madness

It was a wonderfully sweet smell in my room today. I think in total we used over 7 bags of marshmallows – Big and Small – Colored and White.... I was prepared for the “can we eat them” and “oh why not” but I was not prepared for the volume of tooth picks we used nor the shear “how do I do this”. For such a fun creative just about anything goes activity, there was a lot of “what next Ms. Y” today. I did not expect to need to “hold their hand” so much. It turned out to work alright and once a few students started making progress other’s quickly caught on. I am a firm believer in not providing too much of a model or all they do is copy the model without being creative or thinking on their own.

Some other challenges were 1) how to store the partially completed atoms (space is very limited in my room) and 2) the fairness of who got what element to make their atom of. Improvising with old unused large waxy papered envelopes from yearbook helped with storage. As for balancing easy (small atomic number) vs hard (larger atomic numbers) it came to teacher discretion. Some needed “selling” on why they had such a large atomic number. For others they were happy to have the challenge. It was good for the IEP and ELL students who needed the application but on a basic level. The range of element on the periodic table made differentiation easier.

The biggest challenges we are still facing is the sticky fingers and using technology. The other big challenge is the limited digital cameras I have access to. The science department “video cameras” that we can get photos from are booked out for the next month. I luckily have access to 4 cameras from yearbook. The Tech Academy (our school within a school) had 5 more cameras but no memory chips. Fortunately I have tons of memory chips from yearbook. So in the end I did secure about 10 digital cameras but I have 32 kids per class.

As a solution, I have decided to take a series of “atom” and “marshmallow” photos for the class to use. Sort of like stock photos. I can provide them in my virtual workspace for students to select from. Then tomorrow during class students can take photos of their finished atom. This way when the work with VoiceThread on Friday and over the weekend, they can have enough photos to create a good digital story.

A student offered up solution to our recording challenge. My principal was unable to come through with the headsets I requested. AJ mentioned that we have a program on our laptops that you can type in your words and the computer will read it aloud for you. Another student suggested doing that and then having the VoiceThread record the computer reading. I was impressed with the team/classroom problem solving.

I still have some challenges ahead particularly with VoiceThread. I personal found the program easy to use but I also put time in “tooling around” on the program. I had a few groups test pilot the program and they wanted me to more show them “how”. It took a little work to push them to explore on their own. I am concerned with an entire class wanting me “show them how” rather than explore and try on their own. The recent attempts with the Avatar Voki activity helped to stimulate their sense of exploration so maybe that will bleed over?