In order to strengthen my confidence and proficiency in addressing the National Educational Technology Standards for Students (NETS.S) within my classroom I have developed a GAME Plan to support my proficiency in the standards. “The GAME Plan requires that you think about and take steps to direct your learning process, specifically while learning about technology and how to integrate it into the curriculum” (Cennamo, Ross & Ertmer, 2009, p. 3).
Monitoring My Progress
“As you take action to achieve your learning goals, you’ll need to monitor whether you are making sufficient progress towards your goals and reflect on whether the strategies you have chosen are working” (Cennamo, Ross & Ertmer, 2009, p. 4). In order to monitor my progress I will refer to my colleagues within our meetings, as well as reflect on my progress, by asking and journaling my responses in my blog to the following questions:
Am I finding the information I need from other resources?
What patterns are emerging from the User Agreements I have gathered from other districts?
What more information do I want?
Am I including my student’s voice in our work?
Am I including social issues in our User Agreement?
Is the User Agreement relevant?
Do I need to modify my action plan?
My blog journaling will be made available for public feedback, including my colleagues, parents within the district, my administrators, and my students. A biweekly update will include a post of the current draft of the user agreement and presentation materials upon suggestion from my principal.
My Current Progress
Currently, I have collected several user agreements from districts all across the world (thanks to my colleagues in China and Germany) and I have found that many of them are in worse shape than my own. I have also gleaned a few major points of interest that should be considered within the agreement, such as anti-cyber bullying initiatives, plagiarism outlines, and web etiquette. I still have several more to read and analyze, but I am off to a great start!
Next week I will begin the debates with my students on the user agreements and the aspects thereof. They have been working in their English classes on debate development, research, and presentation. Many of them have really become inspired by the task at hand and I am very eager to hear their perspectives and insight.
A Request for Resources
Lastly, I would like to ask if anyone within this Walden learning community would like to send me a digital copy of their school district’s technology User Agreement I would be much obliged! Additionally, any thoughts you have about the agreement and it’s function in your district or at your school would also be greatly appreciated. Thank you in advance for your support!
Michael,
ReplyDeleteYour GAME Plan is impressive. It is important to make sure that the policies for technology usage within a school district benefit and protect all users. Unfortunately, some technology user policies are long and cumbersome. Therefore, users are not reading through them. I think it is a great opportunity for your students to be involved with the re-working of the Electronic Resource Agreement in you district. I think it will be a valuable learning experience for them.
Also, the web map diagram is terrific. I will check if I can pass on our user agreement. If it is ok, I will certainly share it with you.
Layna
Michael,
ReplyDeleteI agree. Your Game Plan does look impressive. I believe I'll make myself a web to help collect my thoughts and moves for my GAME Plan as well. I like you idea of collecting agreements from around the world. Are their agreements different from the ones you have collected from the U.S.? I'm interested to know how they use the internet and other digital tools from around the world. To view my agreement, the link is http://elkhart.k12.in.us/2_parents/IGBC.pdf. Hopefully this works for you. If not, my district's main site is at http://elkhart.k12.in.us/.
-Matt
Michael,
ReplyDeleteIt is great that you have already planned meetings with your colleagues at your school to discuss your district’s policies. Your colleagues will be your best resources because they are the ones who have been using your district’s current policies over the years and they know the problems the policies have. You have already developed questions that you will ask your colleagues at your upcoming meetings. I like that you made your blog available to students and their parents. This is an easy way for you to get comments from parents without having to email and contact each parent individually. It is nice that you are updating your progress with the user agreement biweekly which allows parents, teachers, administrators, and students to see they progress you have made. I am sure you are excited to watch the debates your students have been working on based on aspects of your school’s new user agreements. You’ll have to update us next week on the results of the debates.
Sara
Layna,
ReplyDeleteThank you!
Michael
Sara,
ReplyDeleteThank you, I have set a goal of biweekly because without it I do not think i would do it at all (especially with my wedding in July and our honeymoon the month of August!). Thank you for your kudos!
Michael
Matt,
ReplyDeleteSo far there are many similarities between notional and world user agreements. One thing I did notice in China was how strict their search engines and email use was - but this does not surprise me. Also in England I found that there is much more outlined as far as parental expectations. It is very intriguing!
Thank you for the link o your agreement!
Michael