Tuesday, October 19, 2010
National Education Technology Plan
The National Education Technology Plan (NETP) clearly defines education as “the key to America
Goals:
“1.0 Learning
All learners will have engaging and empowering learning experiences both in and outside of school that prepare them to be active, creative, knowledgeable, and ethical participants in our globally networked society.”
“2.0 Assessment
Our education system at all levels will leverage the power of technology to measure what matters and use assessment data for continuous improvement.”
“3.0 Teaching
Professional educators will be supported individually and in teams by technology that connects them to data, content, resources, expertise, and learning experiences that enable and inspire more effective teaching for all learners.”
“4.0 Infrastructure
All students and educators will have access to a comprehensive infrastructure for learning when and where they need it.”
“5.0 Productivity
Our education system at all levels will redesign processes and structures to take advantage of the power of technology to improve learning outcomes while making more efficient use of time, money, and staff.”
The plan emphasizes that change in education can come from modeling the business industries innovative use of technology. The plan also indicates that technology can make everything better, learning, assessment, teaching and productivity, because this is what is occurring in the business model. With technology, learning can become more individualized and differentiated. Technology can improve teaching through collaboration and real time assessment of learners instead of at the end of the year assessments. The plan also includes many examples of real schools implementing innovative ideas and using technology.
I think we must be careful how far we emulate the business model in education. We must not allow public education to become a business like college education has become, only for those who can afford to pay. Technology provides many tools that, as the examples in the NETP show, given opportunity, training and resources, teachers can innovatively integrate into their lessons. Teachers have always known that the key to education is to engage students and differentiate the lesson for each student according to their speed and learning method. The two biggest influences on whether applying technology to education will actually work are: having time for students and parental involvement. High positive parental involvement always increases success. There is all kinds of pressure on time for students, from ‘time to move on to the next lesson’ to science only being taught on certain days because it’s not in TAKS this year. Having a bold, innovative and revolutionary technology plan will bolster education, but will not solve all.
Resources:
http://www.ed.gov/sites/default/files/NETP-2010-final-report.pdf
Monday, October 18, 2010
School Technology Plan
I have searched the Navarro ISD website and was not able to find a technology plan by itself. I did find reference to technology in the “Navarro Elementary School Campus Improvement Plan”, (http://www.nisd.us/district/Improvement_Plans/09-10/ES_CIP_2009-2010.pdf), which I will simply refer to as the Plan. One of the goals set out in this plan on page six is “A progressive five-year plan to replace or update inadequate facilities, capital equipment, and technology infrastructure” and repeated in more detail on page seven, “The classroom use of technology will increase as reflected by the following levels on the Texas Star Chart: Teaching & Learning-Developing Tech, Infrastructure for Technology-Advance Tech,
Administration & Support Services-Advanced Tech, Educator Preparation-Developing Tech”. Unfortunately, as of Oct. 18th, the link for “Campus Data Search” on the website http://starchart.esc12.net/ is still broken and I am not able to access the assessment information for Navarro ISD. Still there is a lot of information about technology at Navarro ISD in this document so I will be examining it for the five elements necessary in a technology plan as indicated on the Technology Planning and E-Rate Support Center
I’ve identified several “Activities” as they are referred to in the Plan related to technology within the goals that have been set forth in the Plan. Although Goal #6 includes activities that are most directly related to a technology plan, I wanted to list these other goals as evidence for how technology is being integrated into the curriculum and processes at Navarro Elementary.
“Goal #1: Each student subgroup will maintain recognized status and strive to reach exemplary status as well as raise our commended levels. (page 9)”, the following activities:
Activity “15. Teachers will be provided with release time for vertical teaming and curriculum alignment as well as integration of C-Scope.”
Activity “20. A vertically-aligned, rigorous curriculum (CSCOPE) will be implemented in the core subjects.”
Under “GOAL #2: The Elementary Campus will foster a partnership with parents through a number of opportunities to directly participate in their child's education. Parents will be notified in their home language (page11)”, the following activities:
Activity “3. Parents and community members will be informed of school activities, meetings and student performance on the campus web site.”
Activity “9. Teachers will increase communication with parents through regularly-updated teacher web sites and lesson plans.”
Activity “10. Parents will be given routine access to the parent portal to check both attendance and academic grades.”
Under “GOAL #4: Maintain 100% highly qualified staff, provide targeted professional development, and increase staff diversity. [Title I Schoolwide Components 3, 4, & 5.] (page 13)”, the following activities:
Activity “8. Provide technology training for the development of classroom websites.”
Activity “10. Professional development activities will include: subject/grade level training; ; behavior management; technology/technology integration; disaggregation of test scores; harassment/bullying prevention; emergency procedures; CPI; ESL; and instructional strategies for special populations with use of CSCOPE.”
Activity “11. Add one certified professional computer teacher position to deliver instruction to our students.”
Without going further I can see that Navarro Elementary is using telecommunications and information technology in a realistic means and setting goals with real purposes.
In Goal #6 of the Plan, twenty-one different activities are identified for meeting the assessment criteria set forth in the Texas STaR Chart. For each activity, the Staff Responsible, Resources, Timeline and Evaluation methods are identified. Although the Texas STaR Chart assessments may have been used, they are not included in the Plan. There is, however, a written assessment that identifies accomplishments such as additional computer lab with 24 stations and the purchase of “Scope on the Rope” to enhance science lessons. A detailed assessment of telecommunication services, hardware, software, and other services needed is not present here.
In general, I believe that what is included in Navarro Elementary’s School Campus Improvement Plan is a conservative technology plan. This plan meets most of the goals needed for a technology plan, but is lacking some details. There should be a detailed assessment of telecommunication services, hardware, software and other services. Resource amounts are not clearly defined, only where funds will come from and evaluation details are not clear for the activities listed as well as monitor the progress toward the activities and make corrections in response to new developments and opportunities as they arise. Navarro is a small three A school with limited resources and that may explain the conservative effort in this plan.
Sunday, October 17, 2010
Technology Assessment
We live in a time when information and the technology that brings us information are integrated into our lives. Education and curriculum has always been reflective or molded to reflect the needs of society. In order to mold education to fit the needs of society now and in the future a thorough assessment of technology, technology use and knowledge is needed.
The value that should be most obvious in having a technology assessment is that it gives you a starting place. In fact, it may identify several starting places for making improvements in technology or technology development. Having a technology assessment should be the first step in developing a technology plan or making changes to an existing one. An assessment will identify areas of weakness, areas of strength and, in the case of an existing technology plan, areas that need tweaking. A good assessment will also help to identify resources, both intellectual and monetary. Here are some examples of how the “Texas Campus STaR Chart can be used:
- To create and/or update the district’s technology plan.
- To help conceptualize your campus or district vision of technology.
- To set benchmarks and goals. Campuses and districts may use the chart to identify current education technology profiles, establish goals, and monitor progress.
- To measure student and teacher proficiencies with regard to the integration of technology into all content areas.” (http://starchart.esc12.net/docs/TxCSC.pdf)
There are pros and cons to a technology assessment. One pro is a technology assessment gives you a lot of information towards setting standards and goals for a technology plan, but also meeting standards and goals as in the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. “The act requires that all students be technology literate by the eighth grade (http://www.learningpt.org/pdfs/qkey3.pdf)”. Having an assessment helps determine the playing field and players you have which leads to the next step, a technology plan to meet the NCLB requirement. The only cons to doing a technology assessment I can think of is finding out how much ground you have to make up to bring technology, curriculum and teacher knowledge up to meet the standards being set by the state. If you have limited resources this can be very discouraging, but a good enough reason not to do an assessment.
Saturday, October 16, 2010
Wed. Oct 13th 8pm Web Conference
Although I read somewhere that there are no additional costs to participating in a web conference, I purchased a $35 web camera and microphone in order to participate. I connected early, anticipating I may have problems. Too early as no one was there. I left my session open, as the message on the screen said that I would be added as soon as my host arrived, but came back to find it had been closed. So I started another session and was quickly joined to the web conference. I’ve participated in a few live conferences in healthcare, but this was a little different. While the healthcare conferences involve multiple sites, after connecting you only see the hosting site. In this conference, I could see everyone who had their camera working. I figured out by the end that mine must not have been working. The content, however, was presented in much the same way. Basically a power point and talking head, but then it is hard to make this kind of thing exciting. As usual the internet was it’s dependable self and we had to deal with frozen images and missed or broken speech. On a professional level, web conferencing can save time and money. You can bring people together without having to travel. As a student, I think podcasting is probably a more reliable means of delivering the same information. Coupled with a blog for each podcast and you have instant feedback and discussion from your students.
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