The Technology Link - Course Reflections

When this course began, I had some expectations of what would be discussed and had hoped to become more acquainted with those topics. I anticipated discussing appropriate use laws, copyrights, and technology integration in the classroom, and a few other general ideas as well. However, I had not considered the issues of cyber-bullying, the conflict between the “digital immigrant” and the “digital native”, or even the necessity of technology for data collection and analysis in developing our campuses and districts. I am pleased that the course did fulfill my expectations by further educating me on the issues that I had anticipated, as well as opening my eyes to a host of other important topics related to technology in our schools. And as I look back through what was offered and what I expected, I am unable to identify an objective that was not achieved or a concept that was not adequately explained.

The assignments that were given were applicable, as all-encompassing as can be anticipated from this type of course, and demanding yet not impossible. I believe that I was successful in completing the given assignments. My gauge of measurement here is my ability to complete it in a timely manner as well as my understanding of what the assignments covered. Perhaps the most challenging part was the data analysis assignment. For some people this can seem tiresome and almost like a waste of time. But through the readings, videos, and interviews with administrators and the technology specialist, it is obvious that the data is necessary. Schools are data driven to help see the trends and try to predict where we are heading so we can provide our students with the best chances for success.

The greatest contribution that this course will have given me is my heightened consciousness and awareness of the variety of issues and considerations that must be made when working with technology in our classrooms and with our students. Perhaps the greatest lesson that could have been learned, though, was that when it comes to technology usage, we can learn so much from our students and will learn simultaneously with them. And as far as the greatest benefit for the students is concerned, the more attention that is given to integrating technology into their education, the more prepared they will be for their future education, employment, and being responsible with technology throughout their whole lives.

In addition to the actual information that I learned, this course gave me humbling insight into my own views of technology and my self-proclaimed “familiarity” with it. As a more recent college graduate and one of the newer and younger teachers around my campus, I have always had an air of youthfulness about me, especially when it has come to technology. I do not usually need the technology specialist to hold my hand and show me simple computer processes, and I have almost felt superior in that aspect over many people. But elements of this course, particularly the given readings, have shown me that, while I may be a step ahead of some certain individuals when it comes to my familiarity with technology, I am miles behind others and the growth and capabilities of technology itself. While I may understand all of the simple things that I have taken for granted as I have grown up, I never took the time to search the many other functions and offerings that our every day hardware and software can provide us with. I have learned that I have ways to go, and if the past and present are good indicators of the future, I will be lost before I know it if I do not do my best to stay actively involved in keeping up with what technology can offer us.

I also enjoyed the chance to use blogs to communicate information and ideas about this sort of topic. My wife and I have been using a blog for years now, but with the purpose of staying in touch with family and friends. I like the idea of using blogs to provide information and act as a sort of presenter for those who are interested. The greatest value, however, that I feel blogs can have to our 21^st century learners is showing them that they can easily produce something of value and import on the internet. Most of our learners use the internet for recreational and social reasons. Most of the things they post or communicate on those websites have no contributing value and are often destructive to themselves or others. For them to have a place where they can give positively online would be a wonderful and meaningful experience that can give them an entirely new perspective on the purpose of online communication. Obviously there are concerns that come along with blogging as well. You worry about if what is being said is appropriate, if the students are wise enough to keep personal information to themselves, if they are plagiarizing others words, if there is cyber bullying going on, and other issues as well. But as we learned through our readings and videos, and life really, we cannot completely protect our students or ourselves from those dangers or concerns. The best thing we can do is educate them well and help them learn how to act appropriately online, just like we help them to act that way every day.

From the view of an administrator, a blog can also be a valuable asset of communication to our stakeholders and other persons of interest. With busy schedules, longer days and commutes, and an increase in virtual communications, blogs can and should be utilized to keep stakeholders and others informed of activities, action plans, meetings, and anything else that you would want to communicate to them. With the simple click of a mouse, we can update ourselves.

Education is changing and it is always going more and more in the direction of greater technology integration. For that reason, this course has been extremely useful and I am very satisfied with what it had to offer. Thanks a lot for considering these issues and helping future educational leaders be aware of the real needs and issues in education today.

Technology Action Planning

Professional Development Planning

As I did the Week 3 campus technology report, and reviewed it for this current assignment, it became evident that the main issue on my campus, and on campuses all over Texas, was the lack of staff readiness to use the technology that has been provided. Many of our teachers are becoming more and more familiar with certain individual programs and pieces of equipment, but those that are implementing those things are the younger teachers who are more recently graduated from college and were already more familiar with the simple and basic operations of technology. Our campus is in need of varying degrees of technology aimed staff developments to assist both our experienced and our new teachers in both implementing technology and also understanding the varied and different uses of the different software and resources that are available to them and the students on campus. To assist in doing these things, the district and its campuses are training certain individuals and have also created a new position to more thoroughly prepare all of its teachers to work with its current and future technology resources. The following bullets will name and give a brief explanation of the various courses of action that have recently been taken and are planned to occur in the near future in order to provide adequate and quality technology professional development.

District Level

· Provide and train a technology specialist and a librarian on each campus to train and assist teachers in technology implementation and usage in all curriculum areas

· Provide a “District Master Technology Trainer” and make classes available to all faculty and staff

· Provide funding for training – a minimum of 30% of the amount of money spent on technology hardware and software

· Provide technology training for all new teachers through the New Teacher Induction Academy

· Provide online database of lesson plans, activities, resources, and best practice videos for teachers

· In addition to campus and district professional developments, provide online staff developments to supplement and support other sessions

· Encourage participation in educational technology organizations and training opportunities offered by these same organizations as well

· Require participation in the SBEC Master Technology Teacher program

Campus Level

· Share information and allot funds for staff development opportunities “on campus” and “off campus”

· Monitor and post staff development at district and campus level

· Survey staff for staff development needs each semester

· Provide staff development on using and understanding the Texas STaR chart program

· Provide staff development on the uses of district online database TRIAND

Evaluation Planning for Action Plan

A review of the Week 3 assignment and the campus and district technology and improvement plans have given us a direction and goals to head towards. The remainder of this plan will be to outline the various methods which will help us to measure the efficacy of the technology professional developments and the gathering and analysis of data that is gathered and utilized throughout. Following a summary of those methods we will also examine the desired physical outcomes and results of the efforts put into the goals of the technology and improvement plans analyzed.

Measurable Evaluation Methods –

· Texas STaR Chart – yearly participation and year-to-year comparisons to determine improvements and/or areas of need

· Teacher surveys that are filled out following professional development sessions to assess what was learned and its considered level of usefulness in the classroom and to the teachers and students

· Teacher survey put out by the technology specialist to gather information and evaluate the technology needs and support needs of the faculty and staff on campus

· Student survey to evaluate level of student satisfaction as to the quality and quantity of technology usage and implementation

· PDAS evaluations

· CWT’s performed by AP’s and Principal

Desired outcomes and results of the actions taken in the district and campus action plans and technology improvement plans –

· Each campus will have a technology specialist

· All teachers integrate technology into their curriculum and instruction

· STaR Chart indicates increased integration of technology in all curriculum areas

· At least 1,000 technology training classes offered per year through the District Master Technology Trainer

· At least 30% of district technology budget is set aside for training

· STaR Chart shows training takes place and is effective

· New teachers receive training in the use of online administrative tools

· Online database is available and dynamic

· Online training is planned, available, and carried out, along with a catalog of course offerings

· Educator memberships in TCEA, ISTE, CoSN, CTO, and/or NECC

· By 2012, 100% of technology specialists, 50% of department chairs, and 10% of other educators will be SBEC certified in the Master Technology Teacher program

Texas S Ta R Chart Presentation

STaR Chart Presentation for Caraway Intermediate

Texas S Ta R Chart

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Educator Preparation in Technology

Of the 4 areas in the long-range plan for technology and the STaR Chart, I chose to talk about the area of educator preparation. The reason is because, on a broader spectrum, this is the one area that is either not making much progress or the people taking the survey do not feel like it is. The vision and goals of this area aim for the teachers and other educators to reach an acceptable level of preparedness to teach and incorporate their subject matter with technology. Several of my other readings over the last couple of weeks have really focused on how the older generations are not familiar with technology and can be very resistant to changing education to embrace the use of it. The plan aims to have teachers graduate from educator preparation programs and exit them with a greater knowledge of how to incorporate technology into their classrooms. Knowing how, obviously, does not cut it though. The greater goal is not only to educate them, but to have them integrate that technology into their classes and across all curriculum.

On my particular campus, our progress in this area has actually been quite good. 3 years ago we scored only 50% of the total possible points, and are now at 75%, moving from developing tech status to advanced tech. This is in contrast to the statewide progress though. During the 3 year period for the whole state, the early tech and developing tech status numbers increased while the advanced and target tech statuses decreased significantly. This means that more teachers on more campuses are seeing themselves as less prepared for technology usage in their schools. The national consensus seems to be the same as well with 55% of teachers feeling only average in regards to their knowledge of technology usage.

The trends seem to point towards a regression in this area as a state and perhaps nationally. As far as my particular campus goes, we are improving or at least the teachers feel like they are more prepared. Hopefully these trends continue for my school. However, in order to ensure that these increases in confidence continue, I would recommend that the skills specialists and administration on campus provide opportunities and resources for incorporating technology in the classrooms. The lack of funding and current technology are definitely the greatest deficit on our campus. Statewide and nationally I think we are going to need the same things. Increased funding is going to be necessary for initial educator preparation programs as well as providing them with the technology in their classrooms so they can both incorporate it into their lessons as well as experiment with it and both become familiar with it and see how it can best be used to benefit their students.

Technology Applications TEKS

Pre-K TEKS: The Pre-K TEKS are designed to effectively familiarize the children with computers, software, and the simple functions and controls of their various components. Children learn how to insert and use CD's with a computer, how to navigate using a mouse, to become familiar with the vocabulary and terminology associated with computer usage, create writings and drawings, and learn information through interaction with technology.
These TEKS initially seem too simple, however, I am always surprised by the lack of familiarity that some of my current students have with computers. These Pre-K TEKS will help prepare students for performance in future grades. Knowing and becoming more acquainted with the simple functions and vocabulary dealing with computers will make their future interactions with technology easier, more effective, and they will be able to progress faster and produce higher quality products using technology. They will also pave the way for greater technological literacy and be able to assess and analyze information found using electronic resources.
The technology TEKS are said to be dynamic and contribute to what is known as a spiral or scaffolding curriculum. This type of curriculum is one that builds upon itself and gives the student many different opportunities for learning and demonstrating their mastery of what has been learned. An example of a series of TEKS that does this can be seen in the following:

The student is expected to:
(a) demonstrate proficiency in the use of a mouse, keyboard, scanner, recorder, disc, video, and digital camera by creating files
(b) use digital keyboarding standards
(c) use strategies when digitally capturing files to conserve memory and retain the image integrity
(d) differentiate among audio input

In this short series of TEKS, you can see how a student would have multiple opportunities to show mastery of the different functions with a keyboard, capturing and using different file types, and integrating various sources of technology.

Texas Long-Range Plan for Technology

I liked the overall vision and purpose of this plan. The plan does a great job of focusing on the idea that this ongoing change in technology usage is not just ideal, rather it is inevitable and that the suggestions and guidelines within are vital to the education and life preparation of our students. It recognizes that globalization is becoming more apparent and that the job markets and demographics of this country are changing along with it. Because of these changes, the qualifications and preparations that our students have will need to be significantly different from when we were in school at the same levels that they now are. Their world is already very integrated with technology and it would be counterproductive to not play on that and use it to our advantage.
Another strong and important point that was made was that the focus on education can not be as simple as passing on knowledge. With the digital age, students now need to be better at analyzing and assessing information for its importance and veracity.
As expected, teacher education will continue to be necessary. A big challenge is going to be that, as we learn how to implement and utilize the current technology in our classrooms, the technology is going to change along with our learning. In order to stay ahead of it, or at least current with it, we will need several different effective educator programs in regards to technology. Along with this need there will also continually be a need for good technology funding and a solid infrastructure that supports and enforces the learning and implementation that is going on.
All of this will be important to me as a leader on campus because it will be my job to make sure that all staff have this same vision and understanding of the direction that these changes will be taking us. It will be important to be able to recognize who is in greatest need of educator training and what areas of the technology on campus are in need of improvement and require attention and re-evaluation. It is also good to know that there are many advocates and supporters of these changes. Many times it seems like there is lots of opposition to these changes. They are going to happen and I am glad that I have been informed of the long-range plan that the state has for ensuring that these changes do occur and in the proper manner.

Technology Assessments

Prior to taking these two assessments I would have said that my main strength as a leader on a campus, pertaining to technology, would be that I have more exposure to the newer kinds of technology that are beginning to be more common to our youth. As a new teacher and leader coming up from a younger generation, I am more familiar with many programs that a lot of our more experienced teachers and leaders must undergo many training sessions in order to understand. This does not make me any better than another teacher or leader, it just gives me an advantage because of my greater familiarity. What I learned and gathered from these two assessments will definitely be of benefit to my learning and knowledge of what direction I need to go in regards to technology education and implementation.

The first assessment was useful to me because it showed me that, while I am familiar with many of the standard and simple functions of many educational programs and software, I realized that I am not even close to understanding the full range of capabilities and options that these programs come equipped with. The second assessment, the SETDA Teacher Survey, showed me that my school and our teachers are not using technology enough in my classroom, and we are not evaluating the effectiveness of the technology that we are using. Another big problem is that when I am developing lesson plans I am not necessarily thinking of ways I can incorporate technology into the lesson. It is more like an added bonus when I am able to use it.

I believe that I will also need to engage in some training to more fully understand the range of possibilities of simple word processing or presentation tools as well as some of the other programs that are more specific to education.

I agree with these assessments because, up until the time I became a teacher, I only ever used the necessary technology either as a student or for recreational purposes. My focus on the use of technology needs to change and be geared towards making it useful to my students and helping them become technology literate and proficient.