Reflecting on My GAME Plan:

Integrating new technology tools into the high school science curricula I teach has been both challenging and exciting at the same time. I welcome the students’ interest and enthusiasm for using technology in new ways at school. My duty to educate my students for their futures will require integrating state curriculum standards with national technology standards from http://www.iste.org/Content/NavigationMenu/NETS/ForTeachers/2008Standards/NETS_T_Standards_Final.pdf. Literacy at all grades must now include internet literacy, research on scientific topics now requires the ethical use of information and images found on the web, and critical thinking in science now should include skeptically evaluating the authority and authenticity of a web page.
So far it has not been easy or straight forward. I am, as they say, a ‘digital immigrant’ who has invested countless hours learning how to use new web 2.0 tools and other technology tools outside my comfort zone. The real work, the time-consuming work has been the planning in order to adapt their use in appropriate ways to improve student understanding of core content. Being out there on the leading edge of implementation of new technologies has its weak points. The learning curve has been steep and I need to make more use of online educator groups to find, share, and get help with resources. Quick implementation is not necessarily the best, so now I am focusing more on quality rather than quantity of technology integration.
My GAME Plan has followed the model set up by Cennamo, Ertmer, & Ross and now in the extend and evaluate stage, I can see so many areas that need improvement. First, I have relied more upon the paperless hand-in feature of our school’s network to get students to create and turn in more innovative work. Next,I have set up a Ning for my science students to join. This gets around the hassle of the prior platform which we were to use getting axed by our school district . This has been sooooo slow to get going as I wait and remind and cajole students into signing up and signing in. It is, after all, not really a social network. However,I can see blogging and posting via cell phone in my future as my two classes of seniors approach June and graduation and become less motivated about course requirements.


Reference:, J. (2009). Technology Integration for Meaningful ClassroomUse: A Standards-Based Approach (1 ed.). Mason, OH: Cengage Learning.