It's all fun and games until I touch a computer

     In the early morning hours on the dairy farm I often ask the reticent Farmer, what he is thinking about. His universal response almost always includes that he is trying to get together a game plan for the day. Working with temperamental livestock, aging machinery, fleeting daylight and unpredictable weather makes even the most carefully laid plans precarious at best but within that framework is not only the initial goal and plan of action but some sort of monitoring and evaluation to determine whether the current course of action is still the best one for the situation at hand.  I have found that much of what I have learned on the farm has served me well in the class room as well.  As an educator it is important that each day I too have a GAME plan. Dr. Katherine Cennamo outlines this in the Self-directed Learner presented by Laureate Education (2010b) when she states that the goal setting and action phases take place when we create and teach our lesson plans and that the monitoring and evaluation phases revolve around not only student learning but teacher effectiveness.

     As our world and the learners in it change we are realizing the need for educators to be more digitally knowledgeable and that if these digital skills are to be incorporated into our content areas effectively teachers must not only have the knowledge of the technology but they must also be confident in how they are using it states Dr. Peggy Ertmer in the video resource, Content Area Learning also presented by Laureate Education (2010a).  If we are to prepare our students to be more digitally connected in a global society then educators must have resources with which to develop these skills and standards by which to measure them. Enter NETS or National Educational Technology Standards.  According to the International Society for Technology in Education or ISTE, using NETS improves higher order and critical thinking skills around student centered and project based learning. The result is students that are more prepared to be competitive in a changing global society. NETS for teachers revolves around the specific technology skills and knowledge that we should be using in our class rooms.

     Lest you have any questions as to the status of my own current technology skills I need only direct you to the title of this blog above.  With that in mind I am still committed to increasing the amount of technology I am using on my class room. I was encouraged by Biology teacher Tim Best that the use of technology should not be contrived but that it should fit the content we intended to deliver in the first place (Laureate Education, Inc., 2010). That makes me feel like I have some choice in how, what and when I use technology.  Perhaps the greatest NETS challenge I have is in knowing how to effectively use the actual technology to develop students thinking skills ((Standard II, Indicator A). For example I am writing this blog entry but to date I am not sure how I could use this particular technology resource in an actual lesson plan or activity for my students. One goal is to incorporate some new technologies like a wiki page or student blog responses into already established content.  However not only am I unsure of the actual science content I would marry it with but I am not sure how to mechanically make it happen.  I think that I would benefit from looking for support from more knowledgeable colleagues and also seeing some lesson plan examples of exactly how other teachers used this type of technology.  There is the action part I suppose but if I am to turn this into a true GAME plan then I must monitor and evaluate student learning and since I cannot determine how I would do this then perhaps I am not ready to use this particular technology yet.

     Meanwhile I can try to find sources and resources that support the required content of my area while using technology ((Standard III, Indicators A and B)Standard III, Indicators A and B).  For Biology there are many interactive web sites as well as those that use animations, video and music to illustrate key concepts.  My goal is to include more of these and the action needed to make this happen will be a combination of planning and organization. I will need to look ahead in my lesson plans to know what sites and activities match which key concepts and follow up by making sure I have the technology resources such as computers, pre-loaded media and interactive white boards ready to be utilized.  Student engagement and feedback should be an indicator that learners are connecting with the content effectively which should be evidenced by improved test and quiz scores as well as higher pass rates on the HSA tests. Monitoring performance on these would lead me to be able to evaluate if the technology was helping to improve student learning.

Ultimately I understand the need to extend our own learning as educators if we are going to effectively model technology skills for our learners so I suppose the best first step is to let the GAME begin! Can I be the banker or at least the race car token?

References

Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2010a). Enriching Content Area Learning   Experiences with Technology, Part 1

Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2010b). Promoting Self-Directed       Learning with Technology.

NETS-t retrieved from http://www.iste.org/docs/pdfs/nets_for_teachers_2000.pdf?sfvrsn=2 on 5-15-13. (2000).