It's Game Time!

It is now time to take the GAME plan and put it into action. My plan has been put together in a way that will utilize the use of technology to support the instruction I am providing my students in the classroom. One mistake I have seen teachers make is that they feel technology is an area that is separate from the rest of what is taught in their classroom. It has become my clear understanding that the technology I choose to use will serve as an assistive tool in helping address the many learning needs of my diverse body of students. In my plan I have designed a lesson that focuses on learning our home addresses, knowing how to write them, and understanding what different things we can do with our addresses.

To carry out my plan I am going to be using my computer/interactive whiteboard setup in my classroom. This will mainly be used in demonstrating the computer usage and how to interact with the googlemaps website that we will be using. I will also need use of our school's computer lab for about two 30 minute periods. The purpose of the first period will be to go to the lab, practice getting on the site, inputting the information, and getting somewhat familiar with the features of the website. Our second period will be aimed at going to the lab and using the site to acquire certain information. Students will input their address, look for features near their home, and identify routes to various locations.

I am relatively comfortable with the googlemaps program, so I feel that there is not a lot of new information I need to acquire. If anything, I will be going to googlemaps to get a better perspective on how I can effectively teach it so that my students catch on as quickly as possible. Of course, this online research will require some information from my students. I will be assigning them to write down their home address and return that address to school. Obviously, I could get this information from our school office, but this will be a great way to have each student have some interaction with their own address. This will be a vital piece of information that I want them to start becoming comfortable and familiar with.

I have been able to demonstrate some of the features of googlemaps to my students. This was a good way to address the needs of my visual learners, but my tactile and kinesthetic learners needed to get their hands on something. I was able to have some of these students interact with the website and practice putting an address in and searching for that location. Some students were successful in their search, while others ran into various obstacles. Surprisingly, I was glad to have these issues arise when they did. Seeing some of the problems my students faced allowed me to plan my next steps. I have realized that before we go to the lab for a full class visit I am going to have to talk to my young second graders how important it is to accurately input our address information. It should not have been a surprise to me that students were inputting their addresses with spelling mistakes, leaving out critical information, or simply not putting spaces between their words. I thought to myself, "Can I blame them?" At least they are excited about engaging in the educational experience, and in my book that's nothing to get upset about!