Saturday, July 10, 2010

Developing a GAME plan

I have been trying to follow and incorporate the NETS into my curriculum for the last 2 years. I have become very comfortable with most of the 5 NETS, but would still consider myself weak in the Modeling of Digital Material subset. I work in a school district that has very little technology at the teachers' disposal. I keep a school website, a classroom blog, and use email constantly to communicate with my parents; all of this does not mean I am fulfilling the requirements of the objectives set by the ISTE for this directive.

My GAME plan involves the "upgrade" of myself in the Modeling of Digital Material objectives. The primary focus will be of 3b "collaborate with students, peers, parents, and community members using digital tools and resources to support student success and innovation" and 3c "communicate relevant information and ideas effectively to students, parents, and peers using a variety of digital-age media and formats."

My Goals are to become more involved with communications in digital formats other than those used, and upgrading the use of those in place, for parents & community members. I will update and revisit my website much more often and post a blog discussion each week. I would like to have parents link to Google Calendar with me to see the lesson plans and other critical information I can add, such as field trips, paperwork due dates, and such. I will need to concentrate more efforts towards parental communications this next year, since I will be teaching elementary school after 10 years of middle school. HELP!

5 comments:

  1. Marie,
    You have some great ideas on how to best communicate with your parents. Also, staying in contact with parents is one of the greatest tools that teachers can use on a regular basis. With this in mind, the digital communication may take a bit more effort for parents since not all of them will have regular access to a computer. In order for you to be successful in this, you may want see if the school could provide a free computer station on campus for parents to use.

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  2. Marie,

    Your plan sounds great! It will be an adjustment for you at the beginning, but with a little hard work and dedication you will do just fine. I like your idea of setting up the Goggle calendar. This will help not only your parents but also your students as well. I think more teachers need to use classroom web pages because of the digital age we are in.

    I am currently looking to build my own classroom website myself and I think I may borrow a few of your ideas. That is of course if you don’t mind.

    Victoria

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  3. Using technology to communicate with parents is essential. My children's schools use yahoo groups for the parents to communicate with each other and the teacher. It is a good way to stay connected with what is happening in the classroom and extracurricular events.

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  4. Denise~ wonderful idea, but I'm not sure of the access. I will definitely look into that suggestion.

    Victoria~ borrow away, that's why we work well together.

    John, Yahoo Groups was never in the forefront of my thoughts, so thanks for sharing. I will see what I can do about that!

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  5. Marie,

    I had one of the same goals that you did for this week. My school district is also week in the technology area, although the school is called "The School of Technology", so you would think they would have more. Anyhow, I am going to also make a goal to try and improve how much I know about technology and try to aquire the most resources I can with what I have. It is hard with things like schools blocking useful sites on the internet or even getting access to computers at times, but I always just try to make the best of it.

    Alicia

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