National Education Technology Standards

After looking at the Standards and Indicators for teachers, I have found two that I would like to work on.  The first is from the standard, Model Digit-Age Work and Learning.  Indicator 3,  collaborate with students, peers, parents and community members using digital tools and resources to support student success and innovation, is one indicator I need to do better with.  I currently have a blog that I communicate with parents but this is not utilized by all the parents.  My GAME plan is as follows.  Goal- to provide parents, as well as students, a site they can visit to, and have classroom information readily available to them.  Action-  Create a blog or website for my students that parents can also access, that has classroom information on it.  This information will include, homework assignments, test dates, websites for students to visit, and classroom rules and procedures.  Monitor- I will monitor the website to see if students are visiting it.  I will also occasionally post an extra credit assignment, or secret code word that can earn students bonus points of some kind to see if they are using the site.  I Also need to monitor how often I can update the sites.  Evaluate-  To evaluate this plan, I can compare the number of missed assignments from last year to this year.  I can also compare how often I receive parent questions from year to year to determine if the information posted limits this.  I also will send out as survey several times throughout the year to ask what both parents and students have found helpful and what else they would like to see added to each site.

The second indicator I need to address is from Standard 4:  Promote and Model Digital Citizenship, Indicator: promote and model digital etiquette and responsible social interactions relates to the use of technology and information.  I feel this is extremely important to cover with students.  Bullying, believe it or not is happening earlier and earlier in schools.  I had a fourth grader whom we had to enforce the no tolerance policy on.  Here is my plan. Goal: to provide students with an understanding of the proper rules and etiquette for using technology as a tool and for communication purposes.  Action:  create various lessons to teach the students rules and etiquette.  As each lesson is assessed the students will earn a puzzle piece.  After all the pieces for each lesson have been earned, the student will have a certificate of digital etiquette.  A Digital Driver's License for surfing the Internet and using technology for learning and communicating.  It is their passport to independent learning through technology. Monitor:  each lesson will have an online assessment piece.  This is how each piece of the puzzle will be earned.  I will monitor the scores to determine which lessons need to be strengthened.  I will also monitor the use of technology throughout the lessons and the year.  When students are caught misusing technology or being cyber bullies, they will lose the puzzle piece from the lesson that addressed the issue.  Those students will need to re-earn their License.  I will also use a survey to ask students their feels on the lessons and if they found them valuable.  Evaluate:  I will use the assessments to evaluate the effectiveness of each lesson, as well as the surveys.  In addition, as I monitor student use of technology, I can determine if they are having proper etiquette for using technology as a learning of communication tool. 

I believe by addressing each indicator throughout the course of the year, I can become a teacher whom using technology as a tool to provide students with new and creative and authentic learning experiences that meets the needs of all my students.