Technology Action Plan

After reviewing my schools CIP, the STaR chart data, reviewing the interview, and adding in what I have learned about the 21st century learner I felt that it is important that we make sure that all teachers have the tools to be successful teaching these learners. To ensure that we have all the tools that are needed to be successful in engage our students while incorporating technology I have put together an action plan that will allow for teachers to attend two technology trainings. One of the trainings will be based off of content and what area was designated for them. The other training will be up to the individual teacher and what they would like to use in their classroom. During these trainings teachers will be given a “how to” for each piece of equipment, be shown how to use it, practice using it, and build a lesson or “mini” lesson that will use the technology during it. After the teachers have completed their training session their advisors will begin conducting walkthroughs looks for evidence of technology being use to assist in the instruction. Teachers will also be asked to supply their department chairs, advisors, and building principal with a short reflection on how they feel each piece they were trained on will help them in the classrooms, and how they plan on implementing it. Due to the number of sessions going on at once an assistant principal, a teacher expert, and the department chair will do most of the training. We do have 3 campus technology coordinators that will be assisting in the sessions, but due to all of them going on at the same times they will have to rotate through the sessions. I believe that this will be a positive growth for our campus. Having everyone involved will also show our unity and willingness to get the job done as a campus.

My Experience with a Web Conference

My first experience with the web conference, March 20, was not a good one. Right after the conference started the discussion was going so fast that it was hard to keep up. There was not an actual "discussion" going on and I stayed confused for most of it. We were supposed to be discussion the readings, but the conference was cancelled soon after it started. I am not going to completely write off doing another web conference I think just next time the number of people involved needs to be a lot less. I saw that the cap now on the web conferences is at 25 people so I am going to try to attend another one if time permits. I believe that this can be a powerful communication tool for campuses just it may not be able to accommodate the whole campus at once. Web conferences could be used to allow all the department heads of different campuses to communicate without having to travel.

STaR Chart

Where do we stand with technology as a state, district, and campus?

S ta r chart

View more presentations from Amyham.

The Plan

The National Educational Technology Plan: Transforming American Education: Learning Powered by Technology calls for a change in what we are doing now as educators. The government want us to make lessons that are more engaging , relevant, and personalized learning to help students pre prepare for the future, this should not be something that we are not willing to do. There are five areas that are concentrated on in this plan which are: learning, assessment, teaching, infrastructure, and productivity. The first area of learning concentrates on our need to revamp the classroom. Right now students communicate and network using technology and it is our current challenge to personalize lessons that are able to engage these students as well as mirror their daily lives while preparing them for their future. Assessments should be used to provide what is needed for data driven instruction. The assessments that we give our students should challenge them in all the aspects of a 21st century learner. The comprehensive infrastructure should be one that all resources and materials are available to whoever should need them at all times. Many of the technology resources are readily available at a cost efficient manner. Using technology and knowing what our economy is going through we need to teach our students to be more productive minded. Being able to accomplish tasks in a timely manner or even accomplish more than one task at once. To accommodate all of the areas that need to be concentrated on may cause the structuring of schools to be changed. As the world as changing like it is we have to learn to be flexible and prepare our students for their tomorrow which will involve a lot of technology and being able to reason through a content area.

The Loooonnnnggggg Term Plan

With the Long-Range Plan for Technology it will allow students to access information 24/7 without having to have a teacher standing directly in front of them. Parents will also have access all the time to learning resources to help their child along with information regarding their child such as attendance, discipline, and achievements. This will allow working parent who may not normally have the time to communicate with the school able to keep up with their child’s progress, as well as, having resources to work with their child when they are struggling. The goal is to help prepare the students for the changing work environment that they will eventually enter. This will also allow teachers to make learning more personable allowing for more of an individualized instruction plan.
There are four components of the Long-Range Plan for Technology the first being teaching and learning; educator and preparation; development, leadership, administration, and instructional support; and infrastructure for technology. All of these components are beginning to see growth as grants are being written and there is more funding allowed for these areas. The STaR Chart revealed that a majority of educators are falling into either the developing or advanced areas. This means that we are starting to see the growth in technology we are not where we would like to be but we are not as far away as we were. Teachers are implementing the technology through facilitating of lessons that involve them. Schools are also getting media support to help the staff grow in their understanding of how to implement it as well as, where it would fit into their curriculum. Staff members are also getting trained in technology programs to deepen their understanding. We are also beginning to see improvement in the connections that we are using to get onto the internet. Children are learning how to do more maneuvers on the computers and are able to help out others (teachers) when needed. Finally, there is still a push for students to participate in virtual school and that we encourage their participation in it. Right now we are still working to achieve our goals in technology we have made some growth, but we do have a long road ahead to get to where we are able to completely prepare our students for the technology demands that they will face in life.

Educator Preparation and Development for Technology

When I was looking at the STaR Chart Analysis Report for the state I figured that we would align pretty close to it, which we did. For all areas the states majority is either developing or advanced tech. On my campus the majority is in advance, however in Infrastructure for Technology we went down to developing and are now back into advanced. The area that personally feel is the one area that we need to concentrate on above the rest is the educator preparation and development. I personally feel that once this component is built up it will make it easier for the others to fall into place. Right now at the state level for educator preparation and development is still developing, which is also the area that I am in, and right above that is the area that my school is in. Most of the technology that we use is simply for email, attendance, and basic presentations/movies for lessons. My school is considered to be in the advanced section which means that they are integrating technology into teaching. I believe that we are at the beginning stages for this. For some reason on our campus it is hard get a hold of technology to use in the classroom and there are only two computer labs available during the day for all class so the reservation list for them is usually pretty full by the beginning of the year. Integrating technology into the classroom has become a little bit easier since people have become more aware of the ability to share lessons so that you do not have to make them all on your own. I use the smart board a lot in my classroom and before I even begin creating my own lesson I look out on the internet to see if there is one already available that I can use or at least modify to use. I believe that the reason that the state is not doing much beyond emails is because of lack of training and we are not being pushed enough. Sometimes people have to be pushed out of their comfort zones so that they are able to become more successful. I believe with adding in trainings, perhaps at the beginning of the year and also when we have staff developments, will allow the teachers to gradually develop an understanding of how to use technology and what is out there for them to use. Perhaps after being forces to learn technology they will develop and appreciation for it so it can become a useful helpful tool in the classroom. It will also allow for differentiating instruction. In order for the kids to use it teachers have to be comfortable using it which will allow for more technology to be brought into the classes.

Developing an Action Research Plan

I thought that developing an action research plan would be easy but as I began to talk with my site supervisor she told me that my topics were too broad and that I needed to be more specific. She helped me understanding it by comparing it to the SMART GOALS that we do at the beginning of every year. She said that I want to make sure that I could track the progress and that it would not take too long to see results of it working or not working. I wanted to really concentrate on parent’s involvement in schools since I feel that this is something that is really lacking. Even though I do not understand it because I want to know everything about my son's education to ensure that he will be successful. After thinking about it, I was able to find a place to start at....increasing parent involvement in the math classroom. Whenever I contact parents about their Childs math grade I seem to constantly hear that they do not know how to do it or they were bad at math and that is why their child struggles too. I am not so sure that math skills are genetically linked, but okay. So I now want to look at developing a program, or sessions so that we are able to work with parents so that they are able to help their child. All this one on one help could benefit many children and it is hard when our tutorials are anywhere from 8 to 30 kids. One on one really doesn't get to happen that much at my school. I am looking forward to developing and implementing this program at my school hopefully with the help of the other math teachers!