My instructional practice has changed drastically as a result of my GAME Plan during this course. I have completely changed the way that I assess my students, moving away from traditional paper based tests towards more technology integrated formats of assessment. As a result of my GAME Plan I have familiarized myself with a new assessment tool, Activotes, and am so comfortable with this tool and confident in their use that I am gearing most of my formative assessments towards using this tool. The immediate feedback that I receive using these tools has proven to be a vital tool in my instructional planning and has provided me with valuable knowledge about my teaching practice, what works, what needs work, and what to focus on for future lessons by showing me where “there are obvious gaps in understanding” (Cennamo, Ross & Ertmer, 2009, p. 145). I am confident that I am on the way towards meeting the performance indicator of providing “students with multiple and varied formative and summative assessments aligned with content and technology standards and use resulting data to inform learning and teaching” (International Society for Technology in Education, 2008). This summer, I will continue to develop this new tool so that I am utilizing it throughout my entire curriculum.
As a result of my GAME Plan, I have also reached a new realization that all GAME Plans may not go exactly according to plan. My second performance indicator focus was to “demonstrate fluency in technology systems and the transfer of current knowledge to new technologies and situations” (International Society for Technology in Education, 2008). I planned to demonstrate this ability by using my SMART board software instead of the software that I was more familiar with, Promethean software. As I set out on this venture I was met with quite a few challenges, and finally came to the conclusion that perhaps the Promethean software I was familiar with was really the better choice for my instructional practice. This demonstrates my ability to be flexible as a creative learner (Laureate Education Inc., 2009). Indeed, digital technologies are more flexible modes of teaching; however, some technologies at the end of the day will prove to be more flexible than others, as the Promethean software has proven to be (Laureate Education Inc., 2009).
The GAME Plan process has been a successful, systematic approach to my own professional development. I plan to continue to use this model in the future. This model will fit nicely into my new endeavor, which is incorporation online collaboration and digital story telling into my curriculum more frequently. I will also teach this process to my students so that they may apply it to their own learning situations.
References:
Cennamo, K., Ross, J. & Ertmer, P. (2009). Technology integration for meaningful classroom use: A standards-based approach. (Laureate Education, Inc., Custom ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning.
International Society for Technology in Education. (2008). National education standards for
teachers (NETS-T). Retrieved from http://www.iste.org/Libraries/PDFs/NETS_for_Teachers_2008_EN.sflb.ashx
Laureate Education, Inc. (Producer). (2009). Promoting creative thinking with technology. [DVD].
Baltimore, MD (Author).
Laureate Education, Inc. (Producer). (2009). Meeting students needs with technology Part 1.
[DVD]. Baltimore, MD (Author).
Promethean Interactive Whiteboards. (2011). Promethean Interactive Whiteboards and Classroom Technology. Retrieved from http://www.prometheanworld.com/.
Smart Technologies. (2011). Smart Board Interactive White Board. Retrieved from
