My two goals for my GAME plan are to teach my students how to use technology in a useful manner and to take advantage of more professional development opportunities that my district offers. In order teach my students how to use technology in a more useful manner, I will need to make time in the curriculum in order to teach them how to use different types of technology. In order to do this, I must offer them intense lessons. I plan to use Mondays (in which the classes are shortened) as a time to do this. I plan to work with our technology coordinator in order to get the proper equipment and the use of the computer labs. By taking the time to teach my students technology, I will be offering them skills that they will use for the rest of their lives.
In order to take advantage of professional development opportunities, I must take time out of my schedule to do so. I can also work with administrators in order to make the time spent more effectively and on subjects that I can truly use in my classroom. If I become involved in the process of creating professional development ideas, I will be more likely to participate.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Your idea to use Mondays in the shortened class time with the technology coordinator is great. This allows you time in the computer lab, as well as designing lessons that you could teach there. Thanks for sharing your idea.
ReplyDeleteOletha,
ReplyDeleteWhat grade level/subject do you teach? I think the idea of using your shortened classes is a wonderful idea for getting in technology lessons. My district has early release Wednesdays every other week, where the students get out at 1:20 and the teachers have professional development time until 2:50 (the end of the school day). It's hard to plan lessons during this time on non-early release days because it only happens twice a month. After reading your post I'm going to reserve our computer lab and plan some technology lessons. Like you said, we'll be offering them skills that will help them the rest of their lives. Even though it's not a core content area of mine, technology is still a necessary skill and it needs to be taught - if not by our computer teacher, then by me.
A suggestion I can make for professional development time:
Instead of mandatory in-service days with speakers and professional development meetings throughout the year, my school gives us choices. They require 16 hours of professional development time (which we're paid for - we used to have this many hours of professional development time built into our schedule throughout the year). But, we choose what to do. They offer some speakers/workshops/classes, but then we can also request others that we want to do. My grade level team and I were insteresed in starting a literacy program called the Daily 5. So, we used 4 professional development hours to watch some videos on it, discuss the Daily 5 book that we read in our "free time", and make some lesson plans. It's so nice to be able to choose our own professional development, so we are using our time as wisely as we can. I would suggest it to your administration - it's a great way to get in some much needed personal professional development time.
I love your idea of teaching technology on Mondays. This is a great commitment to your game plan. Your students will have fun and benefit tremendously. I would love to do something like this but unfortunately I don't think that I would be able to reserve the equipment every Monday. Good luck to you! You are off to a wonderful start.
ReplyDelete