I mentioned in last week’s blog that I use my Mimio board into my classroom often. Just this week, while discussing political and social issues in Africa, I used Google Earth to zoom in on several townships in South Africa. While doing so, I also use a split screen to show video of the rise and fall of Apartheid in the country. I was able to use my interactive board to stop and fast forward the video very easily, while never actually leaving the board. Not having to use a remote is wonderful. I was also able to draw over the video and map with the Mimio markers to point out different things as opposed to using a laser pointer or yard stick. I felt this lesson was a great step forward into my GAME plan.
However, I feel my GAME plan progress has slowed down. There is pressure from my administration for my students to perform at an exceptionally high level on our district’s end of the semester course test. My gifted students have to pull the weight of other students on my grade level that may not do as well, in order to make our scores look better. With that being said, I am now in a crunch to cover four weeks work of material in just two weeks—which is when the test will administered, and it is hindering my progress. I am concerned that I will not be able to meet my goal of integrating technology into the classroom every single day leading up to Winter Break. I believe I have the resources to integrate, but not the time. I feel it is very easy and convenient at the moment to use my traditional lessons, rather than create new ones or modify the old ones to integrate technology. Doing so will take time that I simply do not have at this moment in the academic calendar. I do not foresee this as a problem in the future, and eventually I will reach my goal.
On the a brighter note, this setback has shown me that some of the best developed plans may go awry due to circumstances that may be in or out of my own hands. The most important thing is to adapt and adjust, and continue to move forward, and to realize if I need to “modify my goals” (Cennamo, Ross, and Ertmer, 2009, p.5). This is the question that I will ponder over the next week or so. This time should give me an accurate measure of whether or not my original GAME plan goal is attainable.
References
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.