Evaluating My GAME Plan Progress

Three weeks in and this is the progress my GAME plan has made.


• How effective were your actions in helping you meet your goals?

My original goal was to increase my competency level on technology standards 1 and 2; Facilitate and inspire student learning and creativity and design and develop digital-aged learning and assessment. To date, I will replace a lesson I taught last nine weeks in my piano lab class with a more digital-aged lesson. Instead of students performing a song from the book as their final, students will use any of the pre-programmed voices on their piano keyboard to ‘compose’ their own song. While this is not that much of a lesson, they will have to compose this song based on a video prompt. Essentially, they will be composing a soundtrack for a one and half minute video. Their songs and story narration will be recorded and compiled into a Movie Maker video. This video then will be uploaded to the music class web site I have created. So, I feel I am meeting my goal with a monitoring step that was part of my original GAME plan.

• What have you learned so far that you can apply in your instructional practice?

I have learned that I don’t need a wall full of electronics and tech-toys to integrate technology into my lesson plans. Several of the suggestions given in chapter 16 of our course text, Technology Integration for Meaningful Classroom Use, are tools and resources I already have. (Cennamo, Ross & Ertmer, 2009) Add to that the free online resources I have recently discovered and I have a good base to work from. The strategies learned from this course, such as assessing diverse learners and problem-based lessons give framework to the tools I have to work with.

• What do you still have to learn? What new questions have arisen?

I’m not sure about this question. I don’t feel like anything new has surfaced nor do I know what I still need to learn. I just need to kick in my own creative thinking skills to find new ways to incorporate the tools I now have for the variety of classes I teach on a daily basis.

• How will you adjust your plan to fit your current needs?

I still feel like the only thing that needs to be adjusted from my original GAME plan would be the timeline to implement my plan. This will continue to be an ongoing, slow process and my desire to replace one lesson plan in each class with a digital-aged lesson plan by the end of the current nine weeks has proven to take much more time than expected. But at least I am moving in the right direction.


Cennamo, K., Ross, J., & Ertmer, P. (2009). Technology integration for meaningful classroom use: A standards-based approach. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning.

My GAME Plan Revisited

Last week, I posted my GAME plan for incorporating technology into my music classroom. (Cennamo, K., Ross, J., & Ertmer, P., 2009) Since doing this, it has been interesting to notice how I now look at my teaching through new eyes. With that in mind, here is what I have learned so far.

To summarize my game plan, my goal is to increase my competency level by 1) facilitating and inspiring student learning and creativity and 2) designing and developing digital-aged learning and assessments. (www.iste.org ) To do this, I need to evaluate my current teaching practices and determine how technology can be incorporated as well as take a technology inventory of the resources available to me and begin conferring with other middle school music teachers to learn how they incorporate technology.

Goal: To date, my goal has not changed. I still need to work towards improving my music lesson with technology and develop better assessment strategies.

Action: The majority of the work I have done towards accomplishing my game plan has been here. I have been able to take a technology inventory and while I have little technology to work with, at least I have a place to start. My students have access to two music programs; one program can be used only on two computers at a time and the other is on a mobile computer lab with 25 seat licenses. The best part is I am already familiar with both programs. My classroom is equipped with a Promethean Board and my school has a wealth of computer lab access.

The remaining parts of my action plan are in process. Evaluating my current curriculum is much harder than I expected. The problem still lies with my original concern; how to incorporate technology lessons that does not take away from rehearsal time? This has been harder than I expected. I have many great digital-age lesson ideas, but once again, rehearsal stops in order to have students complete the lesson. I’m still looking.

I did come across an internet based program while I was setting up an epals.com account. Another music teacher, whom I have contacted and yet to hear from, wanted to set up a collaborative project using a music composition software called Noteflight.(www.noteflight.com) Whether I hear from this teacher or not, the resource is a great one, it’s free and compatible with the notation software available to my students. While I have not been in touch with my fellow music teachers in my district, I was able to discover how technology can be used beyond what I already knew. At this point, that is a step in the right direction.

Monitor: I still plan to exchange at least one lesson with a digital-age lesson, however, the process is just that, in process.

Evaluate: To date, no changes have been made.

I am excited at the prospect of incorporating technology based lessons into my current curriculum. I think the key for me will be when I can find the balance between technology based learning in band and choir versus standard practice procedure.



Cennamo, K., Ross, J., & Ertmer, P. (2009). Technology integration for meaningful classroom use: A standards-based approach. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning.

http://www.epals.com

http://www.iste.org/Content/NavigationMenu/NETS/ForTeachers/2008Standards/NETS_T_Standards_Final.pdf

http://www.noteflight.com