Reflection Final Blog on My GAME Plan

Throughout this course we have been constantly tinkering with our GAME plans. It occurred to me about the third time I adjusted it that I was really making adjustments without focusing on the overall implication to my activities associated with the objectives. So I stopped tinkering with it until I began on of the lessons that I implicated in my GAME plan. It was then that some minor adjustments presented themselves. They were merely time issues and also I had one activity that really needed a more refined rubric. I found Rubistar to be of great help. I had at least three good questions from my classes that dealt with the oversight. Other than those minor adjustments, the plan was stable.

I think what I learned the most had to do with actually creating a problem based lesson and how the students find it more intriguing than a general activity that leads them to the content material I am covering. Don’t misunderstand my statement, not every project can be created to investigate a problem, but I think I have developed a new way to create a few others that we can socially integrate and then assess through a digital story. That was what I found to be the model for me. At first I just thought of the lessons being developed in stages. But then I realized I can develop a project along a continuum and have it splinter along three different levels of that continuum. I also found that if I pitch it that way to the students, they can see exactly where they are going with the information they find. Because of the social networking as the second level of development and they can make adjustments to the projects as they move forward, even if they have to go back to their original solution. With them looking ahead to the digital storyboard, they can also see how they want to share their findings. It really permits the students to look at the whole picture. It also allows me to do the same before I pitch it to them.

As a result of this course, I can use that model to further integrate problem based learning projects, design webquests with the same procedure in mind, and be able to also keep my fingers on what new technology skills I am going to develop as I go. By setting up workshops for my peers, I have helped integrate the Social Studies department at my school and have shared some really fun activities for them to use with our students. I have even had a student use Animoto to share a digital story to the entire high school population as a promotion for “Prom Promise” week. She paired a series of statistics, with disturbing photos of alcohol related accidents, and popular music to promote student signing the contract not to use alcohol on prom night. It was tastefully done and made a great point to the audience. It was another example of an authentic assessment in digital storytelling. Good luck to us all in our future endeavors!

Here is just one of my student's Glog! http://ssrvjt3.edu.glogster.com/ Once there, just click on the title of her glog, just underneath in order to view it full screen. I also had them link to two other students to present as a team so you can view 2 others from her's. Enjoy.