This week has definitely been a struggle for me. Not only am I wrapping up the first semester, trying to complete some long overdue grading, and working to complete my final exams, but I am also wrapping up my government students' first service learning project. I must admit, I have not slept much this week, and I think I am getting sick. No matter, I will push through as many educators do on a daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly basis.
As I review my GAME plan, I am continuing to work towards achieving my goals. One thing I have realized this week and is something that I am always struggling with is the notion that organization reduces stress. With a million things going on at once, it seems difficult for me to prioritize and focus on achieving one thing at a time. Again, part of my GAME plan is to find ways to organize myself, which in the end will make me a better educator. Also, I am finding ways to branch out and make connections in order to find meaningful, project based assessments in my class. Through various resources, I have learned about Nings. This interesting social networking tool can provide a daily exposure to technology for my students. Hopefully this is something that I will continue to gain experience with and one day implement into my classroom.
As for now, I really do not see setting more goals for right now. I want to continue to utilize the resources I have learned, gain experience in using these technologies, and find appropriate ways to implement them into my classroom. The resources for this course have helped tremendously by giving me examples of technologies to use for project based assessment, social, and educational networking. However, part of my problem is instead of focusing on simply one concept, I tend to want to try and work on all of them. I need to understand this is a learning process and like my students, I need to take the time to master the concepts in order to fully understand how and if these technologies will fit in my classroom.
I think I will take a week off to focus on finishing up the first semester. Although I have so much to do, I am sure that I will continue to contemplate and think of ways to achieve these goals.
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Mike,
ReplyDeleteI know this sounds really cliché and perhaps even a stock response around here, but I want to tell you I totally know what you mean, what you are going through. I have wondered as I read your posts and plans each week if you are also on a block semester schedule as I am. In my school district, I have been teaching my students 95 minutes each day, and will wrap up the course December 23rd. I find myself already planning out the next semester. As I will still teach two sections of English II next semester (as I teach this semester), I know I won’t do everything the exact same way. Well, I never really do, but I really know that I have learned so much during my Walden courses, and especially during this GAME plan process and the plans we are creating and posting on our wiki page, I have many changes I would like to make and many things I want to work through when I start a new class of English II with new students in January. I’m sure you feel this same way.
I think you are probably doing the same as I. As I am completing this very course, I have so many ideas and plans for what I will do with this next class. I have had all these grandiose ideas for how I want to use social networking in my class to the degree of truly educational networking (Laureate Education, Inc., 2010). I have had many issues along the way the last several weeks. I have mentioned several of these things in the blogs and discussion posts I’ve made over the last few weeks. Several of you guys have said you want to see where I will go and I feel I have dropped the ball. I have just run into some obstacles. I am like you and have most recently (thanks to our course resources) become interested in Ning. I would love to see where you are going to go with this. I think you are doing just what you need to do and things will come together. Do what you have to do, and I will keep following you. In fact, I am really interested to communicate and follow your plan beyond this course as we enter next semester’s classes. I think this is what we are going to have to do to really reach the place we want to be. We have to keep bouncing ideas off each other, giving each other feedback, and sharing sites and technology and brainstorms with each other.
Wesley Rogers
HS English
Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2010). Davis, P. (Speaker). Spotlight on Technology: Social Networking and Online Collaboration, Part 1. [DVD]. Integrating technology across the content areas. Baltimore, MD.