EDUC 6713: Final Reflection

Throughout this course, I learned that the GAME plan I developed and followed guided me towards establishing outstanding educational goals for my students and me. For example, I set out to learn more about current and emerging digital tools and took action by creating a checklist/”to do” list. Thanks to Walden, I experienced many of the digital tools earlier than planned, such as digital storytelling and social or educational networking. As a result of this experience and GAME plan, the educational technologist and I have already planned a digital storytelling unit for next school year. In addition, I worked with the administration so that our school is now connected to a social networking site that centers on problem-based learning. This will also take place next school year.

This spring, I had the opportunity to teach the GAME plan goal-setting methodology to a couple of my middle school classes (ESL and careers) and the students created their own GAME plans for a particular task. Overall, the students were receptive, motivated, and followed through. After this positive experience, I will continue to implement the GAME plan into my classes next year. Furthermore, I will continue to follow my GAME plan for learning more about current and emerging digital tools. I have many more tools to discover and check off of my list.

Finally, the immediate adjustment I will make to my instructional practice regarding technology integration in my content areas is to LOOK AT CONTENT FIRST then see what technology will support it! Grasping this idea has made technology integration less overwhelming and more exciting. I look forward to this being a number one priority in my teaching practice in order to facilitate students' creative thinking or overall self-directed learning.

Reference

Laureate Education, Inc. (Producer). (2009). Enriching Content Area Learning Experiences with Technology, Part 1 [Motion Picture]. Integrating technology across the content areas. Baltimore: Author.