Technology Professional Development Plan
As part of an overall professional development plan, and based on Campus STaR Chart and LOTI (Levels of Technology Integration) surveys, we have identified several tactical areas in which technology professional development will be useful to our staff. Additionally, teachers will receive advanced training in Microsoft Excel, which will allow them to more readily manipulate data used to make instructional decisions at all levels.
Objectives:
1. To improve teachers’ ability to use classroom instructional tools such as mobile computer labs, interactive whiteboards and classroom response systems available on campus.
2. To improve teachers’ capacity to organize and manipulate data with Microsoft Excel.
Timeline:
1. Technology professional development will be ongoing throughout the year, with the underlying goal of delivering training most effectively by:
a. Providing training in small, digestible chunks that teachers can immediately apply in their everyday practice.
b. Providing training when it is most needed (i.e. Data Manipulation training with excel just after interim assessments or training on classroom responders being offered just before the tool is available to teachers).
2. Technology training will be delivered to the groups for whom it is most relevant (i.e. calculator-based data collection tools training will only be offered to math and science instructors, while professional development on web resources for improving reading skills will be offered to humanities teachers).
Responsibilities:
1. The campus Educational Technology Coordinator will deliver all training at the campus.
Evaluation:
1. The campus principal, academic coaches, and educational technology coordinator will monitor the use of technology tools pre and post training.
2. The campus principal, academic coaches, and educational technology coordinator will monitor the effective use of Excel for manipulating data.
3. The educational technology coordinator will provide remedial training as needed to ensure the development of these skills.
Friday, December 18, 2009
Reflections on Learning - Instructional Leadership
Here are my reflections on learning from my latest course.
Course Outcomes - Initially, I had anticipated that this course would be something other than a course based on technology literacy and 21st Century learning skills. While I was pleasantly surprised when presented with the actual course objectives, I was still somewhat wary of the content and delivery of the material. After the first week's videos, readings and assignments, I was convinced that the materials to be presented were authentic to my own person beliefs about technology and how it can be used in education. The fears that I speak of here were those created from attending many, many professional development sessions in which the presenter was obviously not one to really try the techniques presented, however radical - or not - they may be, or where the material presented just could not be used effectively in the classroom. I was pleased to see that content of this course was so appropriate to today's learning. I feel that I mastered the course objectives.
Relevance of Course Outcomes to My Work - I am a teacher of business computer applications, a creator of content for additional technology courses, and an integration strategist in my current position at my campus. In each of these roles, the learning I obtained in the Instructional leadership course will be helpful. In my role as a teacher, I will now be able to teach 21st Century skills by meeting my students "where they are". By this, I mean that I can make learning more relevant by incorporating the things that students do to learn about their world every day. In my job as a course content developer, I will be better able to see the relevance in particular activities and to design better learning, as it is applicable to students today. Finally, and most importantly, I will be able to help other teachers understand that the way we teach these students has to be not only strong in technolgy tools, but relevant to the way our students think.
Identified Areas for Growth - While I believe, as I mentioned in the first section of this reflection, that I met all the course, and my personal, learning goals, there are still many areas in which I can improve within this arena. First and foremost, while I am familiar with the STaR Chart and technology planning phases of identifying needs and creating strategies to address those needs, I am still lacking in how those strategies can be taken to the next level down and incorporated in the campus improvement plan, then used for setting school, departmental, and individual teacher goals for improvement. Our district has recently implemented similar strategies in regards to using AEIS data to develop CIPs and goals at all levels, then using updated data to adjust individual objectives in the interim. Aside from the translation of technology goals to the campus level, I would still identify the constant updating of my skill set to keep up with what's popular and beneficial to our students in regards to new and relevant technologies.
Course Assignments - The assignments within the Instructional Leadership course we relevant for understanding how technology leadership works in learning organizations and was especially helpful, since it caused me to probe for information and to fully understand the inner workings of my own district's connections between technology and learning. I especially enjoyed the week 4 assignment in which we were required to create an organization chart for our organization. As a district, my organization does not have a lot of formal structure, so building this chart based upon job roles and responsibilities, while somewhat challenging, was meaningful for a deeper understanding of strengths and possible areas for disconnect in communication or functional role. One assignment with which I have a deep level of understanding is the STaR Chart and Technology Plan writings. As our district's Educational Technology Coordinator last year, I was responsible for administering the STaR Chart and for ensuring that campuses used the survey's feedback in a useful way for developing campus improvement goals. Additionally, I was tasked with revising and submitting our district's technology plan.
Technology and Leadership Skills and Personal Growth - Over the 5 weeks associated with this course, I believe that I expanded my knowledge of technology, as it applies to a system for instructional leadership. The assignments related to the Texas STaR Chart Survey and Technology planning were helpful in growing my ability to understand the necessity of many state requirements, as well as how those feed into the campus improvement plan and to setting goals for the success of our students. The lessons on the new literacy and on 21st Century learning skills was enlightening, as well. This helped me to explain many of the things I see in the classroom every day. Now these new skills, including evaluating and processing large quantities of information, exposing knowledge, ethics in the Internet age, and creating digital content in multiple forms, can be measured by teachers and by campus administrators and other decision makers, so that we can have a guage by which to continue growing that learning.
Value of Blogs to the 21st Century Learner - We live in a new era. The way that we communicated before the web is a vague memory as we now have access to practically all the world's information within seconds. To quote David Warlick, "what questions will we ask when our students are walking in with Google in their pockets? Will they be better questions than we are askign today?" Our students - the digital natives, the 21st Century citizens, must learn to be content creators. Writers, sure. Communicators, by all means. But also real, effective creators and owners of digital content. Our students, and other, many, many others, who write on the web are the owners of the web. Their spaces are the new newsprint and AM radio. Their audiences, while possibly not as large as those of major broadcast or print publications, are no less important. Our students have the kind of voice that we never had, as the kids who would go to the front of the class and read our essay to the other 24 there, our always-ready captive audience.
Concerns with Blogs and Blogging - As with any online tool, blogs are continually under the scrutiny of parents, teachers, school administrators and other stakeholders. Two specific factors affecting this degree of concern are the privacy and safety of our students. Online safety is a growing concern due to the web being more of a place oriented toward the creation of digital content, along with the consumption of such material. As students are given the opportunity to put things online, the chance exists, despite what we teach, that personal and identifying information, material harmful to a students reputation, or other potentially hazardous data could be posted somewhere on the Internet. how do we find the right answer - the thing that will protect our students whil allowing them to participate, as digital citizens, in what may be the one arena that will still exist for communication at the end of their academic career? We must be the gatekeepers, balancing strong, authentic learning experiences with a safe, monitored, framework for using the web as a tool for communication and collaboration.
Blogging to Engage Student Stakeholders - As a user of blogs as a means of communicating with my students and as a tool for monitoring their progress toward their personal learning goals, I know that this is a means of engaging students in today's classroom. Countless conversations have sprung from a response to a blog post that I initiated and then turned into a conversation that I could sit back and watch, fully observing students' level of understanding of the topic addressed. Additionally, using individual student blogs as a basis for an online learning journal or e-portfolio, I have seen many students go far above the assigned work, as their blog takes wings and becomes a project of personal interest and expression. Blogs will, without a doubt, continue to be an integral and indespensible part of my teaching, as well as one of the methodologies I find to be most helpful in my class and for others across multiple content areas and grade levels.
Course Outcomes - Initially, I had anticipated that this course would be something other than a course based on technology literacy and 21st Century learning skills. While I was pleasantly surprised when presented with the actual course objectives, I was still somewhat wary of the content and delivery of the material. After the first week's videos, readings and assignments, I was convinced that the materials to be presented were authentic to my own person beliefs about technology and how it can be used in education. The fears that I speak of here were those created from attending many, many professional development sessions in which the presenter was obviously not one to really try the techniques presented, however radical - or not - they may be, or where the material presented just could not be used effectively in the classroom. I was pleased to see that content of this course was so appropriate to today's learning. I feel that I mastered the course objectives.
Relevance of Course Outcomes to My Work - I am a teacher of business computer applications, a creator of content for additional technology courses, and an integration strategist in my current position at my campus. In each of these roles, the learning I obtained in the Instructional leadership course will be helpful. In my role as a teacher, I will now be able to teach 21st Century skills by meeting my students "where they are". By this, I mean that I can make learning more relevant by incorporating the things that students do to learn about their world every day. In my job as a course content developer, I will be better able to see the relevance in particular activities and to design better learning, as it is applicable to students today. Finally, and most importantly, I will be able to help other teachers understand that the way we teach these students has to be not only strong in technolgy tools, but relevant to the way our students think.
Identified Areas for Growth - While I believe, as I mentioned in the first section of this reflection, that I met all the course, and my personal, learning goals, there are still many areas in which I can improve within this arena. First and foremost, while I am familiar with the STaR Chart and technology planning phases of identifying needs and creating strategies to address those needs, I am still lacking in how those strategies can be taken to the next level down and incorporated in the campus improvement plan, then used for setting school, departmental, and individual teacher goals for improvement. Our district has recently implemented similar strategies in regards to using AEIS data to develop CIPs and goals at all levels, then using updated data to adjust individual objectives in the interim. Aside from the translation of technology goals to the campus level, I would still identify the constant updating of my skill set to keep up with what's popular and beneficial to our students in regards to new and relevant technologies.
Course Assignments - The assignments within the Instructional Leadership course we relevant for understanding how technology leadership works in learning organizations and was especially helpful, since it caused me to probe for information and to fully understand the inner workings of my own district's connections between technology and learning. I especially enjoyed the week 4 assignment in which we were required to create an organization chart for our organization. As a district, my organization does not have a lot of formal structure, so building this chart based upon job roles and responsibilities, while somewhat challenging, was meaningful for a deeper understanding of strengths and possible areas for disconnect in communication or functional role. One assignment with which I have a deep level of understanding is the STaR Chart and Technology Plan writings. As our district's Educational Technology Coordinator last year, I was responsible for administering the STaR Chart and for ensuring that campuses used the survey's feedback in a useful way for developing campus improvement goals. Additionally, I was tasked with revising and submitting our district's technology plan.
Technology and Leadership Skills and Personal Growth - Over the 5 weeks associated with this course, I believe that I expanded my knowledge of technology, as it applies to a system for instructional leadership. The assignments related to the Texas STaR Chart Survey and Technology planning were helpful in growing my ability to understand the necessity of many state requirements, as well as how those feed into the campus improvement plan and to setting goals for the success of our students. The lessons on the new literacy and on 21st Century learning skills was enlightening, as well. This helped me to explain many of the things I see in the classroom every day. Now these new skills, including evaluating and processing large quantities of information, exposing knowledge, ethics in the Internet age, and creating digital content in multiple forms, can be measured by teachers and by campus administrators and other decision makers, so that we can have a guage by which to continue growing that learning.
Value of Blogs to the 21st Century Learner - We live in a new era. The way that we communicated before the web is a vague memory as we now have access to practically all the world's information within seconds. To quote David Warlick, "what questions will we ask when our students are walking in with Google in their pockets? Will they be better questions than we are askign today?" Our students - the digital natives, the 21st Century citizens, must learn to be content creators. Writers, sure. Communicators, by all means. But also real, effective creators and owners of digital content. Our students, and other, many, many others, who write on the web are the owners of the web. Their spaces are the new newsprint and AM radio. Their audiences, while possibly not as large as those of major broadcast or print publications, are no less important. Our students have the kind of voice that we never had, as the kids who would go to the front of the class and read our essay to the other 24 there, our always-ready captive audience.
Concerns with Blogs and Blogging - As with any online tool, blogs are continually under the scrutiny of parents, teachers, school administrators and other stakeholders. Two specific factors affecting this degree of concern are the privacy and safety of our students. Online safety is a growing concern due to the web being more of a place oriented toward the creation of digital content, along with the consumption of such material. As students are given the opportunity to put things online, the chance exists, despite what we teach, that personal and identifying information, material harmful to a students reputation, or other potentially hazardous data could be posted somewhere on the Internet. how do we find the right answer - the thing that will protect our students whil allowing them to participate, as digital citizens, in what may be the one arena that will still exist for communication at the end of their academic career? We must be the gatekeepers, balancing strong, authentic learning experiences with a safe, monitored, framework for using the web as a tool for communication and collaboration.
Blogging to Engage Student Stakeholders - As a user of blogs as a means of communicating with my students and as a tool for monitoring their progress toward their personal learning goals, I know that this is a means of engaging students in today's classroom. Countless conversations have sprung from a response to a blog post that I initiated and then turned into a conversation that I could sit back and watch, fully observing students' level of understanding of the topic addressed. Additionally, using individual student blogs as a basis for an online learning journal or e-portfolio, I have seen many students go far above the assigned work, as their blog takes wings and becomes a project of personal interest and expression. Blogs will, without a doubt, continue to be an integral and indespensible part of my teaching, as well as one of the methodologies I find to be most helpful in my class and for others across multiple content areas and grade levels.
Sunday, November 29, 2009
STaR Chart - Infrastructure for Technology
The Infrastructure for Technology area of the Texas STaR Chart provides detailed guidance for implementing appropriate technologies in order to improve school districts and individual campuses. Specifically, focus is given to the student to computer ratio, as well as to specific LAN and WAN technologies that are in place at the district and campus levels.
As the internet and emerging web technologies have replaced many desktop dependent programs, more and more focus has been placed upon the bandwidth a district purchases from an Internet Service Provider. In the past, many schools operated on a single T-1 line, but as more robust content took the place of text only web pages, the need for bigger pipes coming into our schools was obvious. Distance learning has also been a proponent of the faster internet connections which are now commonplace in our schools.
The STaR Chart and its many Long Range Plan for Technology correlates are one component of an integral system for ensuring that public schools are able to purchase technology infrastructure equipment such as switches, routers and network cabling that will ensure students benefit from a connected classroom and are truly enabled to be 21st century learners. Once strengths and weaknesses in technology are identified by teachers and administrators on campus, the district’s technology department is required to submit an e-plan for technology for the following one to three years. Once the e-plan has been submitted, district technologists can begin to submit and accept requests for proposals and requests for bids that eventually lead to the district spending it’s technology dollars on infrastructure equipment, wth partial funding through the e-rate system of the schools and libraries division of the US Department of Education.
Scaffolding Curriculum
A scaffolding curriculum is one in which skills are introduced and gradually taken to higher levels over time. One example of this is in the Technology Applications TEKS for middle school (grades 6-8). For example, a student might be introduced to spreadsheet software in the 6th grade year, but not taught to create charts and graphs from data until the following year. Finally, during the 8th grade year, the student may build in-depth formulas to perform complex calculations on the data. In this model, students are given the opportunity to take the software one piece at a time in order to internalize one part of the functionality before delving into another.
Pre-K Technology Applications TEKS
The Pre-K Technology Applications TEKS are a set of guidelines for developing age-appropriate technology skills in Pre-Kinder students. Students should begin learning to operate a variety of programs, using oral or visual cues to navigate the software. Additionally, students should begin to benefit from the rich multimedia offerings of computer programs in areas such as read-alouds or digital storytelling. The successful implementation of Pre-K Tech Apps TEKS will ensure that our students are on track to begin and to continue to develop 21st century learning skills.
Long-Range Plan for Technology
The Texas Long-Range Plan for Technology lays out the specifications for the need to adapt our classrooms for the 21st century. This specifically addresses the areas of Teaching and Learning, Educator Preparation and Development, Leadership, Administration, and Instructional Support, and Infrastructure for Technology. As a new administrator at a campus, the LRPT should be a guide for integrating technology into the classroom, for preparing teachers to deliver technology-enriched instruction, and for deciding where technology funds should be spent.
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