Keeping Score

Continuing with the GAME plan framed by Cennamo, Ross, and Ertmer (2009). I am now monitoring my progress to help me reach my goals. My goals are to promoting student reflection using collaborative tools and to design relevant learning experiences that incorporate digital tools (ISTE, 2008). I had decided to do this by learning how to podcast and create wikis.

Last week I listed and defined all of the different resources I would use to accomplish this goal. This week I monitored my progress towards achieving my goals. First I will have to say that getting teachers to come into school during summer is nearly impossible even when they are your friends. For a few hours with week I meet with my technology director and a tech from our technology support. The tech was great the only problem was is that I did not speak the same language as he did. I took some time but I did start to understand the terminology that he was using and that helped a great deal. I have found and used plenty of tutorials that I found on Google. I am glad that I did this before meeting the tech at the school otherwise I would have been lost. The one resource that I will have trouble accessing will be the students. With no school there is little chance to have students experiment and share what they discover.

As of this minute I have not seen the need to modify my GAME plan. Other than not having students to use as resources I have had little difficulty. What I have learned so far working on the my GAME plan is that learning difficult material is far easier when you have a clear plan in front of you. I may do this for students every day but never have I done it for myself. The other part I have learned from working on my GAME plan is that I need to learn computer terminology in order to understand the more advanced skills needed for technologies like wikis and podcasts. They are simple enough to make and produce but are not utilizing their full potential as a learning tool. To creating more complex wikis and podcasts there is a great deal more I need to learn.

Questions?! Well there are a ton of questions that have arisen from working on my two goals. I want to know how to have an updated podcast instantly upload to an ipod? Can I tell who has downloaded a podcast? What websites allow free hosting of podcasts that can be used in a school? After a wiki has been used how can you remove all posts and pages without them remaining in the wikis history? Is there a solution to the problem of two or more people editing a wiki page at one time? These are just some of the many questions that have come up in the time I have been working on my GAME Plan. Hope you are all having as much fun as I am, now if I can only get my school to unblock wikis and lift the ban on ipods!

Kevin Kleespies

ISTE, Initials. (2008). The Iste national educational technology standards (nets•t) and performance indicators for teachers. Retrieved from iste@iste.org, www.iste.org.

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.