I think that my GAME Plan has been going very well so far. I have been monitoring my progress through each chapter, and I am now on my second chapter in each class since starting the plan. The integration of technology in my assessments has seem to boost my students' interest and they are performing slightly better on the assessments overall. By allowing them to show me how to accomplish the content through the technology they are more interested in the content and doing better on both the standards based assessments as well as the technology based assessments. For instance, I just got done grading the take home quizzes I gave to my Honors Geometry students during spring break, and the grades were higher than ever before. I had multiple students say that after making the required question using the technology they went back and fixed other problems in the quiz because they realized they had done something wrong. So, for my students to be able to synthesize the information needed to create a problem they actually performed better on their other problems. With these results I have gone into my next chapter and started to add in more technology pieces to the project I already have in place.
My Algebra students have also shown better completion in their quadratics unit from simply being able to use a calculator to help them graph. They have also taken the initiative to find a couple of websites to help them walk through solving quadratics by different methods. Some of the websites they have found are wonderful and I have posted them to my school website for all the students to use. This give them the opportunity to learn in different ways and see step by step instructions away from the classroom.
As for my second goal I think I am making some headway in the tech department and administration on allowing blog and wiki sites past the filter for my students to use. Someone suggested that I look for .org or .edu sites that allow for this, and when I asked if this would be easier to get through the filter both the tech department and the administration said yes. So, right now I am in the process of finding good blog and wiki sites that are .org or .edu. When I find them I will be putting together a presentation for the administration on how to use them and how I can monitor what is happening on them. I think this may work, so if anyone has found any of these sites in a .org or .edu format please let me know. If I cannot find them I may have to drop this fight and pick it back up over the summer so that I can get it implemented for next year.
Overall, I am excited about my progress and I can't wait to see how it ends up by the finish of the school year.
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Paul,
ReplyDeleteIt sounds like your students are really enjoying the technology applications you have in place now. Anytime I can add a piece of technology to one of my lessons, I see an increase in student motivation and engagement--especially when I give them the opportunity to teach each other using technology. I have also learned a lot from my students about technology over the course of implementing more technology into my lessons--my students love showing me how to do things on the computer or smartboard.
Hang in there with getting those blogging and wiki websites approved by the administration/district board. Those types of sites offer wonderfully valuable opportunities for kids to share and reflect on their learning. I have used blogging in my class (on a district sanctioned website), and my students absolutely loved it. It made the activity more relevant and applicable to their every day lives because their lives are saturated with social networking websites. It will be worth the fight!
I am glad to hear you are seeing your efforts taking effect. I hadn't thought of looking for sites with those endings. I will have to look myself. If you find some good ones would you post it fo us?
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