My Personal GAME Plan

National Education Standards for Teachers

          As technology increases in leaps and bounds, more and more responsibilities are placed on teachers’ shoulders by both society and the school system. As many people have rightly expressed, this is actually a very fun time to be a teacher because of so many activities and events that are brought to the fore front of education debates. This however depends on which part of the spectrum you are, no matter which part you are, one fact is incontrovertible, and that is technology has come to stay, irrespective of whether we like it or not, we have got to work with it. As it was expressed by NETS, (n.d.) the incredible advances in technology are making and putting more and more demands on teachers, there is no aspect of our lives that is not affected by the development and advances in technology, even the way we think and speak, we think in gigabyte and speak digital language. After reviewing the National Education Standards for Teacher, I find myself right on target at many of the indicators, I am practicing many of them, trying to improve my proficiency, and always searching for ways of improving myself through practice and reading. However, I need to improve on my ability in some of them and get better in the ones I am currently practicing. While I find myself comfortable in encouraging students in exploring real-world issues and solving authentic problems using digital tools and resources, as well as designing and adapting relevant learning experience that incorporated digital tools and resources to promote student learning and creativity, I still need to cultivate the habit of doing some of the items mentioned in the indicators.

Indicators That I like to improve my Proficiency on

          I need to increase and improve my ability to advocate, model, and teach safe, legal and ethical use of digital information and technology, including respect for copyright, intellectual property and appropriate documentation of sources. When we used other people’s ideas or information and we failed to properly reference the sources, Warlick, (2010a) while discussing the “Ethical Usage” describes it as stealing, she urges teachers to model citation of sources to their students very clearly. I also like to improve and increase my participation in local and global learning communities to explore creative applications of technology to improve student learning so that I can take the advantage of students’ digital literacy skills. (Hartman, 2010).

My GAME Plan

          Dr. Cennamo in her discussion of GAME plan identified four important components of planning as setting “Goal”, developing Action plan to achieve the goal, “Monitoring” to identify what works and what does not, and then “Evaluating” the product and reflect on the process in order to see where improvement is required. My “GAME Plan” to increase my proficiency in the areas identified above is based on the ideas suggested by Cennamo et, al, (2009).

Setting the Goal

         G.  In setting achievable “Goal” for myself regarding my ability to advocate, model, and teach safe, legal and ethical use of digital information and technology, including respect for copyright, intellectual property and appropriate documentation of sources is to learn more as much as I possibly can about laws and rules governing accessing and using digital information and all laws governing copyright and intellectual property. Read what experts have to say on topic of appropriate use of digital information and familiarize myself with the consequences of non compliance.

“Action” taken will include extensive internet search to locate and access more relevant information on appropriate use and reference of digital information. If I could locate an expert, I will reach out to an expert to hear what he/she may have to say on the issue including outcomes of any issues or cases of non compliance.

To “Monitor” my activity, I will create a checklist of what I need to know about on the issue of safe, legal, and ethical use of digital information, proper citation of digital sources as well as copyright and intellectual property. I will like to know what constitute an intellectual property and when is the rule violated.

“Evaluation” will take the form of documentation what I learned and know about the issues I searched, documentation I compiled and actual teaching and modeling to my students how to be safe while surfing the net, properly referencing any digital information I used and telling them the consequences of “stealing” other people’s idea without giving them credit for their work. We will jointly research outcomes of cases of stealing intellectual properties and violation of copyright laws. I will extend my learning by sharing my work with other colleagues, and also seeking more information from variety of source as well as asking for feedback and comments from colleagues and friends.

On my second area where I like to improve my participation, I will begin by setting my goal similar to the one above. The “Goal” here is to seek and reach out and participate in both local and global learning communities and explore creative applications so as to improve student learning. Since in team, the whole is greater than the sum of the parts, I will search and find out about various local and global community organizations that are interested in using technology tools to improve student engagement and learning.

 The “Action” I will take is to search the internet, check the local library and ask people about the names and location of organizations both global and local with the interest in using technology to help students learn and participate in their own education.  A veritable source of information is my teachers’ union, the Peel Elementary Teachers’ Local as well as Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario, various local and international news papers and magazines as well as radio and television and of cause the internet.

“Monitoring” this goal will not prove difficulty, I will be able to look at how many local and global community associations or groups I have been able to contact and registered with. I will be able to count on my fingers’ tips how many meetings and conferences that I have attended and participated in during the period I have joined.

“Evaluation” stage will take place when I am able to transfer my learning and participation in various activities into my class and reflect them in my instructional strategies. This will manifest itself when I am able to improve the use of existing and new technology tools in my class to improve participation, engagement and improvement in my student learning and achievement.

I will extend my learning by reflecting on my teaching practice and participating more in local and global conferences. I will continue to consolidate and seek to increase and improve use of digital technology in my class, my school as a whole, create technology club in my school as well as teaching my skills to other colleagues who may be interested.

 I also like to improve and increase my participation in local and global learning communities to explore creative applications of technology to improve student learning so that I can take the advantage of students’ digital literacy skills.

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.

laws. (n.d.). ISTE | NETS for Teachers. ISTE | Membership, NETS Standards, Books, Journals

        and Professional Development for Teachers. Retrieved September 13, 2011, from

        http://www.iste.org/standards/nets-for-teachers.aspx 

Laureate Education, Inc. (Producer). (2010a). Program 1: Promoting self-directed learning with

       technology [DVD]. Integrating technology across the content areas. Baltimore, MD: Author.

Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2010a). Ethical Usage [Webcast]. Supporting

        Information Literacy and Online Inquiry in the Classroom. Baltimore, MD: Author.