The Countdown Begins...

Back to school shopping has commenced, back to school planning is in full swing. I still do not have a functioning cell phone, so I am going to start looking into a second option for integrating a new type of technology into my life: switching my school email from an Outlook account to a Google mail account. I am not completely abandoning my dreams of using my cell phone as an agenda for my life, but putting it on hold until I have a phone that works. I did get a great suggestion last week, to have my school emails sent to my phone, I will link these when I get my phone up and ringing.

My action plan for switching to Google mail includes looking through old emails and deciding whether or not I need to convert any to my new email address, or if I can just start fresh. I will also need to spend a little time updating my contacts and familiarizing myself with how Google mail functions. I know this is not a major change, but it is something I can do towards achieving a goal of integrating a new technology into my life.

I have done some research this week of ideas for integrating technology into my classroom weekly. On Pinterest I found this great blog site, http://walkinginmathland.weebly.com that has references to UTube videos that relate to the content I teach, as well as some math games that I can modify to use on the Smart Board.

In my research I also found this site for Geometer’s Sketchpad Resource Center at http://www.dynamicgeometry.com/.  I am not sure how much money I have in my budget, but I doubt it is much, if any to spend on software like this. The price is $30 for a student edition.

These next few weeks before school begins I will continue to look at online lesson plans and activities I can use in my classes. I am still open to suggestions on integrating authentic lessons and technology into Analytic Geometry for tenth graders, so please post ideas if you have them.

Action!

As you recall from last week’s blog post my first goal is to incorporate one new type of technology into my life each new semester of school. I have a Smartphone and have become very reliant on several of the applications available on it; however I have not yet gotten used to the calendar feature, or the reminders that are available through this application. As school supplies are beginning to go on sale around me I have considered purchasing my new agenda for the school year, but have decided instead to not to do this and rely on my phone instead. I picture myself being able to speak reminders to myself in my phone as I walk between buildings and classes at school, always having my calendar at my fingertips, and never missing a meeting because I will have text reminders sent to me. To become comfortable with using the phone as my agenda I need to become comfortable with the features, and I will likely have someone with a similar phone show me how they use theirs. I have access to several expert teenage phone users who I am sure would love to show me how to do everything I need. Summer seems like the perfect time to begin experimenting with this, but alas, my phone battery exploded and I have been without my beloved phone for over a month now. I ordered a replacement battery June 8^th, and it is still on back order… it is due to arrive July 22. Step one to accomplishing my first goal is to actually get my phone to turn on; I have not accomplished this yet but hope to do so soon.

My second goal is to have students use technology in the classroom weekly. To do this I plan to meet with my colleagues weekly to plan collaborative lessons with them and present ideas on how to integrate technology into my lessons. Since it is summer break I have not yet accomplished this.  This week’s resources have included several ideas for my content area: using Microsoft Excel to have students enter data and create graphs, using software (we have Smart Notebook) to allow students to create lines to solve for, and assigning online tutorial work to struggling students to replace missing assignments, (Laureate Productions, Inc., 2011). To keep coming up with fresh ideas I intend to research lesson plans online. There are many teachers who post their classroom ideas on blog sites and Pinterest; I will use these resources to find creative ways that I can adapt technology to my classroom. I have researched some teacher websites in the past, but if you know of any great sites for teaching Analytic Geometry please do feel free to share.

References

Laureate Education, Inc. (Producer). (2011). Meeting Students’ Needs with Technology Part 1. [Video webcast]. Retrieved from http://www.courseurl.com.

GAME plan

As I reviewed the National Educational Technology Standards for teachers this week I found that I am confident in areas of collaboration, authentic lessons, and using technology that I am familiar with in my lesson plans. However, some areas I would like to improve upon include indicator 3d “model and facilitate effective use of current and emerging digital tools to locate, analyze, evaluate, and use information resources to support research and learning,” and indicator 5a, “Participate in local and global learning communities to explore creative applications of technology to improve student learning,” (International Society for Technology in Education, 2007). To improve on these two standards I would like to set the following goals:

·         Incorporate one new type of technology into my life each new semester of school.

·         Have students using technology in the classroom weekly.

To achieve these goals the actions I will need to take are to research types of technology and become comfortable using them. I will need to take the time to explore how each new technology works and experiment with it myself to become comfortable with it. As I become familiar with the technology I will make a note of ways that that technology can be used to make my life easier or more efficient, or how it can be used in my classroom.

When I create lesson plans with my colleagues I will need to be prepared with ideas for using technology in the classroom and express to my team the importance of using technology in the classroom. I can research other teachers’ lesson plan ideas that incorporate technology in Analytic Geometry classrooms via the internet and have those contributions ready to present when planning lessons for our own classrooms.

I can monitor my progress by sharing my goals with my colleagues and have them hold me accountable to my goals.  By December I should be proficient with a new type of technology that I was not comfortable with in August, and then in May I should be proficient with another type of technology. I can reflect on my lesson plans at these two benchmarks and evaluate how frequently the students used technology in my classroom. I believe if I set the standard for myself that each week’s lesson plan should include technology that I will be able to make that happen.

I will be consistently extending my learning through the incorporation of using technology in my lesson plans and researching what other teachers are doing in my subject area.

References

International Society for Technology in Education, (2007). Teacher Standards. Retrieved from http://www.iste.org/docs/pdfs/nets-t-standards.pdf?sfvrsn=2