Week Four: Monitoring the Game Plan

In our world, technology causes what we know to shift daily. What was cutting edge use of technology last year is now dated. One of my favorite things as an educator is reading the new material out there that can inspire new thoughts and new trends. When working through my GAME plan, it became really important for me to see what the cutting edge trends were out there for helping with assessment and communication.

            I began my research with Henry Jenkins’ (2013) Reading in a Participatory Culture. Jenkins’ (2009) book explores a world where students interact with each other in a social media world. Jenkins (2009) argues that students are used to living in a world where their opinions are a few keystrokes away from being shared with the world. Don’t like a video on YouTube? Leave a comment. Like a friend’s Facebook status? Click the “like” button. Upset about your test score? Take to Twitter to rant. What Jenkins (2009) argues is that this aligns itself perfectly with students interacting over text in the classroom. By making assessments over a text less about isolated activities like writing a paper. Instead, we should be looking at ways in which students can participate in each other’s writings. This comes in the form of online forums for writing and allowing students to show mastery in shorter writings like blog posts that can then allow students to interact with each other in a world they are comfortable with. Doing this, Jenkins (2009) argues, allows for the classroom to meet students where they are

             Michael Graham’s Google Apps Meets the Common Core (2013) outlines several apps that can be used through the Google platform for use in the classroom. Many of the apps would not align with my assessment needs, but Graham (2013) does outline the use of Google Docs which would be helpful. With Google Docs, students can write, edit and comment on the same page in real time. Changes are tracked and students can collaboratively create together. Ultimately, the writing process becomes collaborative and allows for students to learn from each other.

             Todd Hick’s Crafting digital writing: Composing texts across media and genres (2013) echoes many of the same ideas of the other texts. Hick’s (2013) argues that in order to prepare writers for relevancy in the modern world, they must prepare to share their writings with a larger audience and in different mediums. Hicks (2013) outlines several ways including digital blogs, discussions, video creations and audio recordings to help gauge a writer’s ability. This includes writing more than just literary analysis and typical English classroom writings, but also including forms of writing that will stretch them as readers.

            In regards to my second GAME plan, I worked with Dwight to discuss how he uses Twitter. Dwight explained that he uses it as a way to disseminate information quickly to students and parents, allowing them to easily link to important information on school websites. He also uses it to link articles that he thinks will be beneficial for people to read, whether a staffer or a student.  He uses hashtags to label which group he would like to read the article. I also met with Jeni to look at her portal. She showed me a few easy steps I can take to set up units in advance and then hide them so I can just unlock them for students as needed. She also showed me how to link to several pages my PLC members had already worked on.

            Looking at my GAME plan, my next questions are revolving around where to go next. I am going to start looking at how to best integrate this information with material that I already have in my classroom to improve the units already in place. My only remaining big question is how to make the assessments fit in a way that feels natural without feeling like we’re using technology just to use technology. This will be my goal going forward.

Reference:

Cennamo, K., Ross, J. & Ertmer, P. (2009). Technology integration for meaningful classroom

use: A standards-based approach. (Laureate Education, Inc., Custom ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning.

Graham, M. (2013). Google apps meets Common Core. New York, New York: Corwin.

Hicks, T. (2013). Crafting digital writing: Composing texts across media and genres. Chicago,

Illinois: Heinemann.

Jenkins, H. (2013). Reading in a participatory culture: Moby dick in the English classroom.

Teachers College Press.