Carrying Out My GAME Plan
This week
I have been looking at strategies for seamlessly integrating technology into my
content area instruction by developing, implementing, monitoring, and
evaluating my personal GAME plan. Exposing myself to the technology that is out
there will enable me to make more specific decisions that will work with
student strengths rather than against their weaknesses. As you can see, I have
tried to intertwine my GAME plans A and B in order to maximize the benefit to
my learners.
Resources Needed
I looked
at several resources this week. Links to them are listed below. I have visited
each site and am trying something from each with my learners this week in order
to evaluate the site as it relates to my particular group.
http://www.spellingcity.com/view-spelling-list.html?listId=4649682 I am looking at
this site to help me generate good spelling lists based on content vocabulary;
that is what we are working on at the moment in Spelling. I need to generate
lists that contain a wide variety of words as my students self-select words to
study that best match their levels. I liked the various options attached to the
upgrade version and will consider using it with my class next year; I do not
think it is worthwhile to join at this point in the year as membership runs
yearly. Using this site will be beneficial because I can easily email lists to
my learners who have organizational issues (often leaving study lists at
school/home- wherever they are not), and because I can change the size of the
text as I put it up on the Smartboard which may help some of my learners to
both better attend and be better able to see.
http://www.funbrain.com/comics/lostsideofsuburbia/index.html?pubdate=101211
We have been working on fantasy in reading, and as we bring this unit to a
close, I thought it would be fun to read a comic together. This particular one
supports the diverse needs of my learners with large text, reduced amount of
text on a page, and great illustrations. While reading it, we are selecting
words for our Word of the Day (one word for every two students) and reporting
back to the class on the words we have selected. I love this story because it
is highly entertaining and also because it has great (challenging) vocabulary.
Reading it together may provide the impetus and motivation needed to get some
of my readers, who are on the cusp of becoming more independent in their
reading selections, to pick more challenging material. My class enjoyed this
today and all seemed to be engaged not just by the story but by the words we
selected.
http://studyjams.scholastic.com/studyjams/jams/math/fractions/simplest-form.htm
We are about to wrap up a unit on fractions, and I was delighted to discover
this Scholastic site to help us review. From videos to step-by-step
instructions, this engaging site looks wonderful for this purpose. My class
enjoyed the “jam” we used today and several said it clarified the topic
(simplest form/lowest terms fractions).
Additional Information
I also looked at http://www.wested.org/cs/tdl/view/tdl_topic/1
which provided a link to information about ADD/ADHD students, based on the PBS
series Misunderstood Minds. This was helpful to me as I thought about the
characteristics of my diverse group of learners. I think I also need to
continue exploring possible sites for useful resources. I have added http://www.freetech4teachers.com/
to my RSS feed in order to update me when new information comes out; I have
found this site helpful in the past in both stimulating me to look for
resources and alerting me to what is available.
Steps
Taken
I am pleased with the
resources I have located this week, and thrilled that I have actually used all
three of them already this week. As you can see from my notes, I have used one
in planning (spelling) and the other two with my students.
Feedback from my Walden Community Requested
I would love it if I could hear from
my Walden cohort, or indeed anyone else who might be interested in this topic,
with suggestions for building more resources that are useful to learners who
need extra support in maintaining focus on a task. I should mention that I
teach Grade 5.
I also really like this blog for staying current with technology; I like that it is from Australia too because it widens my support base. http://primarytech.global2.vic.edu.au/
ReplyDeleteYou have put a lot of thought into your resource to know how you can use them in your classroom. I also like how you thinking of modifications for your students at this point of your plan.
ReplyDeleteAnother site you can use is http://quizlet.com/
Hi Jeanine,
DeleteThanks for your feedback and your suggestion. What do you use quizlet for in your class?
Lisa
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteHello Lisa,
ReplyDeleteI love that you are using this time at the end of the school year to evaluate some websites and resources with your students. School is over for me, so I am not able to see if the resources that I am using will actually support student learning in my classroom.
I recently found a subscription based website that is aligned to common core students. I used the free trial version with my students the last 6 weeks of school. This is a great site and my students were very driven to be the learner of the day and week. The site allows you as the teacher to assign lessons on a particular standard or content area. The students can also access the website at home.
The website is www.scootpad.com
Hi Trinecia,
DeleteWe still have a full month to go, and our end-of-year exams are next week, so there is a lot of time left. Still looking for cool things to do!
Thanks for the tip, I will check it out. A site I used heavily for review this year was Adapted Mind http://adaptedmind.com/gradelist.php?grade=5 which one of my class parents sponsored for everyone.
Regards,
Lisa
Hey Lisa,
ReplyDeleteYour plan is really coming together! Do you find it easier to email the info to your kids? Do they all have internet access? I tried to do that, but had issues having the students respond. A few said they couldn't find it, parents said they couldn't use the internet or what not.
Josh
Hi Josh,
DeleteThanks!
All my class gets email (we are pretty saturated here with cell phones) but not all can get on the internet for the blog posts. I try to check in every couple of days to see if anyone needs to do their blog posts at school; it seems to be working quite well. I made it pretty clear in the first parent meeting that one of my goals was to really push internet use both in a drive to reduce paper and also to use some of the really cool review sites I had been learning about. I think it really helped being upfront with the parents about what I was trying to do.
Regards,
Lisa