GAME Plan Evaluation

This week has been very busy, I always thought Spring Break was a time to relax and recharge, but I decided to finish remodeling my basement and complete my GAME plan by creating a WebQuest for my Spanish students. I have completed the "hard" part of the WebQuest in writing the script for all of the pages and have hyperlinks to all of the different resources that my students are going to need to complete the task.  All I have to do now is to do the tedious work of making the webpage for the WebQuest. It isn't difficult, just very time consuming and mentally taxing.   The best part about it is that once I am finished I can use the WebQuest yearly and do not have to re create it (of course I will have to go back and make sure the links that I use are still active and replace them if they are not).

There are some things that I can use in my instruction that I have discovered.  In searching for different resources I can have students do some of the heavy lifting for me.  They can find three places of a certain topic then give me the link and a detailed description of the site that they have found and why they want to use it.  This is a way for me to use the students to to the vetting of websites for me, and I know that they are okay to use because the school's firewall does not block out the pages that they find (they will use school computers to do their research).

The question about what do I still have to learn is kind of silly if you ask me.  There is A LOT that I still have to learn.  As Socrates said, "I know that I know nothing," is how I live my life.  I am always going to have questions and I am always going to have something to learn, its just the way that life is.  I think my mom put it best, "teachers are life long learners because we are actively learning everyday."

There really isn't anything that I need to adjust to my Plan to make it fit my needs.  If the plan could finish my basement for me that would be great, but I know that it can't so I just need to stay diligent and go ahead and finish the WebQuest for my students to vet when we get back to work after spring break. 

This past week has been hectic as the end of the third grading period is fast approaching and a lot of my students are doing what they can to get in any assignments that they are missing. I give them half credit for work turned in late, which they have figured out is a lot better than getting no credit at all. I have been getting their input on what they want to accomplish with the WebQuest that I will put together on Spring Break. I am in a difficult situation at my new school, since I was surplused at the end of the calendar year (Happy holidays to me!) and then I got placed in a school where the teacher could not handle the students, and could not speak or teach the language. I have been in a rough spot trying to get through a years worth of instruction in a limited period of time. The students all respect me and I established guidelines from the start and all of the students are enjoying my class, but the problem that I am encountering is what the students do not know but should know if I had been here since the beginning of the school year. I have decided to allow for “Spanglish” in their final presentation in the WebQuest because I can not hold them accountable for what they did not receive through no fault of their own.

I have already found an abundance of resources to implement in the WebQuest for my students for one part of the project which would be the foods from other countries. The problem that I am finding is good and valid sites that are in English for specific parts of the culture elements that I am looking for. I like the WebQuest because it is essentially a self guided project with the links to specific information already there for my students. I make the foundation and then they build the house for this project. I just need to make sure that the resources that I find for them in English are viable sources of information that is to be used for their project.

My action plan is going fine and there isn’t anything that I need to modify to complete my plan. I just need to stay focused and get the foundation build so that I can have my colleagues go through the WebQuest to see if it all makes sense before I give it to the students to complete.

The best thing that the GAME plan has taught me is that it is a lot easier to do things when there is an actual plan instead of just “winging it.” I have always had this problem of not organizing my thoughts on paper before I jump into doing something. I try to think things out in my head first then write it out, but a lot of the time I skip over something that I want to cover and then have to go back and add it. Some times I put my thoughts in the wrong order and have to go back and edit the paper to have it make sense. I know that these things can easily be avoided if I simply outline a plan then follow it so that I know everything is covered and in the order I want it to be in.

I am having a lot of fun making another WebQuest for my students to complete. They really enjoy working on digital projects that allows them a different type of assessment than they normally would do. When talking to my students about this WebQuest and explaining to them what it is, their eyes start beam with excitement at the possibilities to express themselves in a unique way for their final exam.

GAME Plan Resources

For me to be successful in my GAME plan, I will need to find a variety of links that will help my students complete their WebQuest.  This Spring Break I will create a new WebQuest for my students to complete in lieu of the traditional pencil to paper exam for their final exam.  The WebQuest is going to let my students explore a Spanish speaking country of their choice and then they will learn about that country's culture and cuisine.  The resources that I will need for them to be successful I have found and posted on my "digital library" that gives the students access to many links that talk about cuisine and the culture of the Spanish speaking countries in Central and South America.  I have also found many things that my students can use from Spain.  The best resource that I have at my disposal is Google since it is the search engine of choice in my school.  Through this I can vet resources and then have my students use them for their project.  There will also be more traditional resources such as travel guides and text books that I have gathered from the local library, but the best bet is by using a computer and utilizing search engines to find information that is essential to complete the final project. 

GAME Plan

There are two ISTE standards that jump out at me when I look at them and they are:

2. Design and Develop Digital-Age Learning Experiences and Assessments

Teachers design, develop, and evaluate authentic learning experiences and assessment incorporating contemporary tools and resources to maximize content learning in context and to develop the knowledge, skills, and attitudes identified in the NETS

4. Promote and Model Digital Citizenship and Responsibility

Teachers understand local and global societal issues and responsibilities in an evolving digital culture and exhibit legal and ethical behavior in their professional practices.

What I will do to make sure that I utilize the second standard is to make sure that I use the technology that is available to me and my students.  It is easy for me to fall into the same trap of following the same lesson plans from years past and using the same books and videos as resources, but there is so much more available for me to make class more interesting and for my students to interact with so that they can understand Spanish in new ways.  My goal to do this is to have my students go on a virtual field trip or complete a WebQuest every quarter so that class instruction is fresh and different. 

The next thing that I want to make sure that my students understand that all of the materials and things that I or they use belong to someone and that they need to give credit to the people who created the resources that are used.  My goal is to cite everything that I use in my lessons if the ideas are not mine.  I also will cite pictures and works that I have created if I use them in a WebQuest so that students understand that things found on the web have a creator and that person is the owner of that “digital property.”  I want them to understand that it is okay for them to use other people’s ideas, but they need to give credit to the people who came up with those ideas. 

I will monitor my progress by making sure that I keep my personal responsibility to give credit to owners of intellectual property.  It may not seem like stealing, but it is and I have to be honest to myself since I am to be a role model for all of my students.  The other way for me to monitor my plan is to make sure my students know of my plan and hold me to giving them a digital project each quarter.

My learning and growth will be continuous, because technology is continually evolving.  The computer that I am using to write this is less than a year old, but it is already almost obsolete compared to the computers available in my local stores.  I will be able to evaluate my learning by looking at the products that my students produce during their digital projects, but I know that I will find better and faster ways to make sure they are learning and I am learning with them.