As I continue to muse on my GAME plan, several crucial factors stand out as being urgent and important.
My first major concern is the availability of resources and information that I need to accomplish my goals. I have already bookmarked websites that will provide me with learning and teaching strategies that can understood and adopted by my students as they learn to identify their learning styles. I have recently included the CAST website as another tool that can assist me in “customizing and personalizing” learning for my students. It has provided additional websites that can readily be incorporated in my lessons, especially as it relates to integrating technology.
Apart from these sources, the resource of time is my only other concern. I foresee myself spending a lot of time on the computer, particularly the Internet, learning about these resources. This does not include the additional time needed to learn how to use the resources so that I can, in turn, instruct my students on how to use them, as well as how to implement the materials appropriately in my lesson plans. Most of the Internet materials are readily downloadable, free of cost, free and available to all, and needing only an Internet connection.
My main learning strategy is that of discovery learning and the computer will be the means by which this will be facilitated.
I have been rationalizing the steps that I need to take to carry out my goals in my mind. What I know that I need to do is to begin organizing the websites in rank order of most helpful to the least helpful. I also need to have my curriculum plans in place to appropriate the respective resources to the content that needs to be covered on a termly/semesterly basis.
These are just a few considerations that I need to address as best as possible.
References:
CAST (2008). Universal design for learning guidelines version 1.0. Wakefield, MA: Author
Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2009). Integrating technology across the content areas. Baltimore: Author.
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Hello, Jewel.
ReplyDeleteI agree that organizing the information we find on the web is an important challenge. This may be a place where you could use a bookmarking site like Diigo. You can create your own tags for the sites you bookmark, so you could probably use some sort of ranking tag.
Time to organize all the information is one of my biggest concerns also. Our tech department is very cooperative, but some things I just have to figure out for myself, and that takes time. If it hadn't been for my Walden classes, I know I wouldn't have tried so many technology options.
Good luck with your GAME plan.
Becky
Jewel,
ReplyDeleteDo you use Delicious when bookmarking sites? I found it to be so helpful to use. When I find a site I like, I bookmark it, and whether I am at home or school I have access to it (as opposed when I used to just 'favorite' a site, and only had access to it on that computer). You can also organize with tags. I think we talked about the Delicious site two classes ago.
OK, I just saw the post above mine and she also mentions a bookmarking site (Diigo). I guess great minds think alike?!?
Good luck with your plans!
Toby Abrahamsen
6th grade L/A
Jewel to Polzin and Toby,
ReplyDeleteI do have an account with delicious which I created from the previous technology class. I have been bookmarking, but I have not been using the site to tag and order them for me. Thanks for seeing ahead the tedious task that awaited me in going back continually to my menu bar when the aggregate site would have done it much better for me as well as provided me with other options from others.
Thanks for the reminder and a push in the right direction.