Wednesday, March 23, 2011
Monitoring my GAME Plan Progress
When it comes to my GAME plan I have found that there are tons of valuable information out there for me to use. I have been performing internet searches and speaking to my districts technology specialist. One thing that has come to my attention is the lack of technology that my district is providing for it’s high school students. I have had to find free programs on line to create blogs and wikis because my district is not funding this type of technology. I have a lot of questions for my district when it comes to why they are not trying to improve the technology usage on the secondary level. I really do not understand this. I am going to schedule a trial and run error with my media center specialist to begin working on creating a classroom wiki page so that I can finally put some of my knowledge to use. I must do this before I can make any other modifications to my GAME plan. I did have some success this week when I took my students to the computer lab and we begin working on academic integrity. APA format is so foreign to them and I ended having to have them use a citation maker that I found on the internet.
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4 comments:
Sadie
It sounds like you’re making progress despite your district’s limitations. Luckily there are plenty of free online resources for students and teachers to help overcome this problem. I know how frustrating it is; my district does not allow us to use wikis or blogs. Although the policy is under review, change comes slowly….
Have you used the Purdue Online Writing Lab (http://owl.english.purdue.edu/)? It’s an excellent resource, including writing/grammar exercises, information on how to avoid plagiarism, and APA/MLA formatting instructions. Educators can use materials free of charge and without requesting specific permission (as long as the resources are not modified). This might be a resource that you and your students find helpful.
I’ve just started basic MLA citation with my eighth graders this week. They’ve all seemed to absorb my advice about gathering their citation information as they find resources; we’ll see once they get to formatting the reference page. This is a skill I haven’t spent much time on in the past, but the exposure this year will help my students when they get to high school and spend more time writing research papers.
Kelly,
I have not used the Purdue ONline Writing Lab but I will give it a try. Today was the first day that I used the Walden University writing lab's grammar program and I liked what I saw. There was a program that analyzed the wrinting and had all kinds of application about citing sources. I am going to look into this and try to find a program like this for my students to use. I am also going to take some of those worksheets that were in one of our earlier textbooks and include them into a couple of lessons. Thanks for the feedback and I look forward to bouncing back ideas with you.
Sadie
Sadie,
It seems as though you are making tremendous strides to complete the task of your GAME plan! I enjoyed reading your comments about students limited knowledge with APA because I struggle with my fifth graders as well. At the end of the year I spend a month teaching students how to cite their sources. This week I was just introduced to the site easybib.com. Other teachers in my district have been using it and suggested it to me. I have not tried it with my students, but figured it might be helpful to you. GOOD LUCK!
Sadie
It is hard to understand how a school district, in this day and age, can not be taking strides to provide educational technology for their students. There are so many national initiatives promoting the use of technology in schools. The business community has also recognized the importance of preparing students for the 21st century and are providing grants and donations in an effort to make that happen.
At the grassroots level I think you are doing exactly what you should and that is taking the initiative of promoting the use of technology within your school. You could certianly be the match that lights the fuse and gets things moving in the right direction.
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