Reflecting on the GAME Plan

The world today is changing fast and technology is the driving force. Therefore educators and students must be prepared to keep pace with the changes. In order to keep up with the changes you need a plan like the one Cennamo, Ross, and Ertmer (2009) developed the GAME plan. I have incorporated this plan into my own teaching career during the past eight weeks. So far I have successfully set up a website for my classes to use. This website will help students and parents stay organized and abreast of performance dates, class projects, class rules, enable them to print necessary forms and practice their repertoire. I plan to keep extending the usefulness of the site by planning for future additions of music based links. Today’s students can no longer be taught with just academic content in mind. The world is changing fast and technology is a driving force behind the changes. Students must be prepared to be competitive in a burgeoning global society. That is why I intend to use my website to help students further those skills.

Reference:
Cennamo, K., Ross, J., & Ertmer, P. (2009). Technology integration for meaningful classroom
use: A standards-based approach. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning.

With my own technology GAME plan now underway I look forward to the future, considering further uses of the organizational technique, originally created by Katherine Cennamo, John Ross, and Peggy Ertmer in their book Technology Integration for Meaningful Classroom Use (2009). Students as well as teachers need to find ways to self direct their learning within a exponentially growing technological and global society. Therefore, the GAME plan is an excellent tool for student use as well as for teachers to plan for self directed learning. For instance, students today are responsible for learning more than just academic content standards. To stay competitive in a global society they must also be current with the ISTE National Educational Technology Standards (NETS•S). They must be able to plan for personal development of creativity, innovation, communication and collaboration. They must also plan to develop their web literacy skills, critical thinking and problem solving capabilities and all under the umbrella of digital citizenship (ISTE, 2007). With this seemingly insurmountable amount of skills to become proficient at students must set some goals. That’s were the GAME plan comes in. Using the GAME plan students could choose several NETS•S that they would like to become more proficient at and set up a plan to meet them. They could keep a journal of the actions they plan to make to achieve their goals, and then monitor their own progress by reviewing their journals and re-evaluating their plan on a weekly basis. This type of self propelled learning is exactly what 21st century learners need to stay competitive in modern society.

References:

Cennamo, K., Ross, J., & Ertmer, P. (2009). Technology integration for meaningful classroom use: a standards based approach. Mason, OH: Cengage Learning.

ISTE International Society for Technology in Education. (2008). NETS-S. Retrieved November 9, 2009, from Http://www.iste.org/Content/NavigationMenu/NETS/ForStudents/2008Standards/NETS_S__Standards_Final.pdf

A G.A.M.E. Plan Evaluation

Once again, looking back over my game plan, which was originally created by Katherine Cennamo, John Ross, and Peggy Ertmer in their book Technology Integration for Meaningful Classroom Use (2009), I will be evaluating how well the integration of NETS-T standards have been used in the plan.

Overall, my original GAME plan for integrating technology into my content area has been successful. The development and implementation of NETS-T standard 3c, “communicate relevant information and ideas effectively to students, parents, and peers using a variety of digital-age media and formats (ISTE, 2008) has been successful. Choir web-pages have been successfully uploaded and linked to the schools website, and a concept map to help organize the ongoing development of the website has also been successfully established.

Presently, I am still developing a plan to integrate a class blog link on to the website for assessment and learning community purposes. Vicki Davis, IT director, teacher and co-creator of the Flat Classroom project suggests subscribing to an RSS reader to organize and monitor student blogs (Laureate, 2009). She also suggests that students be assigned tags for their work so that finding and subscribing to their blogs is made easier. Prospectively, I plan to develop and integrate her ideas into my own GAME plan.

In the future, I would like to extend the development of integrating technology into my content area, by staying updated and informed about technological developments through networking with other educators through Eduwiki, located at http://musiceduwikius.wikispaces.com , this was also suggested by Vicki Davis (Laureate, 2009). This site provides connections to almost every content area, allowing teachers with the same interest to connect and build grass root projects, keeping life long community based learning alive.

Resource:
Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2009). Program eleven. Spotlight on technology: Social networking and online collaboration Part 2. Integrating technology across the content areas. Baltimore: Author.

Continueing to Review the Choral Technology G.A.M.E. Plan

Again this week I will be looking back over my technology G.A.M.E. plan examining how effective my actions have been in achieving my goals, what I have learned so far to apply to my instructional practice, what do I still need to learn, and how I plan to adjust my plan to meet my current needs . The G.A.M.E. plan was developed by Katherine Cennamo, John Ross, and Peggy Ertmer in their book Technology Integration for Meaningful Classroom Use (2009).

Being the holiday season, it has been hard to move forward with the set up of website. There have been problems linking the new website to the different buildings web pages. The website needs to be accessible from the middle school and the high school pages. However, the organization of the website flow chart is progressing. Making a strong resource link page has become one of my biggest concerns. Having resources that help build students understanding and performance skills are desired for this section. John Kusmich, Jr. suggests several usable music theory and ear training software programs in his Choral Director article (pp. 28-31, 2009). The most interesting and usable where, Essentials of Music Theory 3, and Alfred’s Interactive Musician, by Alfred www.alfred.com, as well as, EarMaster distributed by Emedia www.emediamusic.com , all offered self-paced drill and practice software and promoted sight reading skills, a desirable skill for singers.

As mentioned in chapter 16 of Technology Integration for Meaningful Classroom Use (Cennamo, Ross, and Ertmer, 2009), “these innovative methods for helping students practice on their own carry many benefits that are hard to dispute. They can bring exemplary models of performance into a student’s home at little cost, which is especially useful for student who do not have access to private lessons.”

References:

Cennamo, K., Ross, J., & Ertmer, P. (2009). Technology integration for meaningful classroom use: a standards based approach. Mason, OH: Cengage Learning.

Kuzmich, J., Jr. (2009, November). Music Theory & Ear Training Software.
Choral Director, 28-31.