Professional Learning Plan

By: Melissa Thompson

Past Experiences With Technology

My first experience with technology and education was my undergraduate course at Oakland University. It inspired me to develop websites, classroom technology games, iMovie and a webquest. I knew at that point that incorporating technology into lessons was the way I wanted to direct my teaching. The past two year of teaching I have been fortunate enough to have great technology devices in my classroom. The technology tools I have worked with include smartboards, document cameras, wireless internet in the classroom and students having computers to easily access. When teaching lessons I would use technology daily. I would present lessons from the smartboard, show worksheets and examples of assignments under the document camera. I would show United Streaming videos or Brain Pop presentations on the smartboard and students would use their computers to put together projects or look at scientific demonstrations online. After two years of teaching, my goal in signing up for this Masters program at MSU was to become more confident and knowledgable with technology and the learning environment.

My Future Professional Learning Goals

In the next two to three years my professional goal is to complete the Masters of Educational Technology Program at Michigan State University. This coming year I am looking forward to taking more technology classes CEP 820 and CEP 805 on science and technology. The science and technology course will be a good way to use the TPACK model to incorporate content and technology. I also plan to share my Wicked Problem Project with the math department at my school and work closely with the technology department. I want to attend all professional development on technology that the school provides especially using the smartboard. I want to use the equipment provided to me by the school to the fullest. I plan to attend the MACUL conference this year as well as the DACTM Math conference next week. I want to be a resource to other teachers and promote sharing of technological ideas amongst staff members.

What I Have Learned

After going back and looking at my Personal Growth Plan from CEP 810, I discuss how I want to learn more about the various technology tools that I can bring back to the classroom. I feel that I have learned many new things in the MAET program at MSU. Some of the tools that I have learned include... Creating Websites on Weebly Mind mapping tools on bubbl.us PREZI Slidshare Scrapblog Creating QR Codes Podcasting from garage band Screencasting on JING and Quicktime Blogs Wordle Glogster Animoto / iMovie Fotoflexer These exciting new technological tools will be used to enhance learning for my students in a state of the art 21st century classroom.

Technology & Learning

Making Learning Meaningful Through Technology
Another thing I have learned is the importance of the TPACK model and integrating technology into learning. In my I believe statement I talk about the interactions of technology, pedagogy and content (TPACK) forms the core of the TPACK model (Koehler & Mishra, 2008). When teachers are planning lessons, its important to use TPACK. With TPACK teachers look at the content they need to teach. Then they think of ways to incorporate technology with the content and conceptually think how they are going to tie in the content and technology with their pedological philosophies. It can be challenging to tie all this into one lesson but the more teacher are using and thinking of TPACK it will just become a routine that is second nature. The model of TPACK helps with differentiated instruction taking place in the classroom and will enable educators to meet the different needs of all learners in the classroom. This class has taught me the importance of using the TPACK model when planning lessons for my 7th grade math and science classes. My personal learning network (PLN) has expanded tremendously as I have met some great teachers who I have been able to collaborate with and expand my knowledge base. We have shared many hours finding online resources and helping each other problem solve to conquer some technological challenges. I like meeting with the classmates face to face and interacting with them on a personal basis. It also helpful when we got to the online environment that we were able to see students projects on Facebook, Twitter and Blogs. Other teachers and classmates are a wealth of helpful information. I am anxious to start using the tools I have learned this summer and putting them into effective lessons for my students.

This year the goals in my classroom to incorporate technology include.... Making a website for my classroom using Weebly. Students creating a glogster/wordle at the beginning of the year to tell us who they are. Making a presentation on Prezi Using my Wicked Project on Slope-Intercept Form Students creating a Scrapblog Groups of students creating a Wordle on math concepts. Access more smartboard lessons through smartboard websites.