Monitoring the GAME Plan

We finally had our meeting to fill out the surveys yesterday. Roughly two-thirds of the staff showed up. Two teachers commented that they wondered how we were going to have twenty people filling out surveys on my three classroom computers. (I have 21) There has clearly been some conversation amongst the other staff about the technology that I have. In fact I was approached about the tech mentor position for next year by the current tech mentor. She felt as though I was far more qualified and was uncomfortable continuing in the position. I'm not sure how I feel about taking on that responsibility. Because it is a new school, and she is doing a fine job I don't see a need to step in and take her place. There is a stipend for the tech mentor and the site coordinator for the surveys which I am already doing, but there are also more meetings that go along with it. I was a little afraid of letting people know about the things that I do with technology, because then you are approached more often when people have questions. At my old school, there were five of us that worked together as tech mentors. There was a bigger staff, but the workload was less because there were more of us to help out too. I guess we will see where it goes from here.

Carrying out the GAME Plan

I looked over the GAME Plan post from last week, and it looked a little thin on actionable items. I did volunteer for the leadership spot that was vacant and they said that would be great... they will let me know when the next meeting is scheduled.

My room is scheduled to host the Medical Billing Surveys next Tuesday the 26th. The minimum day collaboration that was scheduled for today was cancelled due to weather. The principal called and asked if I would make my room available so that people could start early, but nobody showed up.

I haven't had any time to start work on an activity for exploring a real-world situation using digital tools and resources.

GAME Plan

After reading through the National Educational Technology Standards (NETS•T)
and Performance Indicators for Teachers two of the areas jumped out as relative strengths. There were two as areas where I feel I am OK, and one where I feel that I fall a little short of where I probably should be.

The area where I felt as though I was not very strong, confident, or proficient was the area of professional growth and leadership. I generally keep to myself and do my own thing staying out of the “workroom politic” as much as possible. A switch to a new staff and campus this year has exacerbated that shortcoming. It is really quite difficult to demonstrate anything or participate in decision making or community building if this is your mode of operation. The first step that I am going to take is to involve myself more in the staff dynamic at my school site. There is an opening on the leadership team for my grade level that I will volunteer to fill. I have been helping some of the staff to fill out some district mandated surveys as the site coordinator, but I have done that in their classrooms or the computer lab. We have a day coming up when we will be required to fill them out for this quarter. I will arrange for that to take place in my room this time. The teachers who come will see the technology that I am using… perhaps leading to conversation about the things that I am doing with my students. Because time a huge factor, I think that I will probably leave it at that. I don’t do a real good job in any of the other areas listed under professional growth and leadership, but they will have to wait for another time.

I don’t look at the other areas listed and feel as though I can’t do them or don’t do them well, but I’m not sure that there is currently a perception that there is much room in the “standards-based” world of education to facilitate and inspire student learning and creativity. My perspective is that much of what I do is dictated by administration, and I have little room to be creative myself. That said, I will explore, create, and implement one activity with a focus of engaging students in exploration of real-world issues using digital tools and resources.