1.
Classify
technology goals in a proper domain (technology, management, funding).
Due to the rapid changes in technology, goals set in the technology plan for technology acquisition and implementation should be short-term. The plan should be reviewed and evaluated yearly to maintain its currency (November, 1998).
Management:
- The administration will provide fair and equitable access to technology to faculty, staff, and students so that they can effectively and efficiently perform required tasks.
- The administration, department representatives, and technology coordinator will create and maintain a technology plan and professional development technology plan.
Funding
- School administration includes technology into financial planning and creates a sustainable financial model for school technology commitments.
Technology
- faculty, students, and staff will become technologically proficient as evidenced by accomplishment of authentic tasks documented in school records, lesson plans, portfolios, and observation.
- Students, teachers, and staff will have 24/7 access to school-related documents and information.
- Technology support issues will be addressed within 48 hours by the technology support staff.
2.
Identify the
major steps required to accomplish technological goals.
Once goals are determined, next enumerate the important steps
that must be performed to achieve the goal. These steps may or may not have to be
performed sequentially (Virginia Tech School of Education, n.d.a)
Management:
- The administration will provide fair and equitable access to technology to faculty, staff, and students so that they can effectively and efficiently perform required tasks.
o
Major steps:
1.
Create inventory of all technology
2.
Gather data from stakeholders, accreditation standards,
developments in instructional technology
3.
Identify areas of need
4.
Determine financial resources
5.
Acquire technology within budgetary constraints
- The technology committee, consisting of administration, department representatives, and technology coordinator, will create and maintain a technology plan and professional development technology plan.
o
Major steps:
1.
Form technology committee
2.
Adopt/review technology plan
3.
Adopt/review professional development plan
Funding
- Technology will be sustainably funded for school technology commitments.
o Major
steps:
1. Obtain
technology budget requests
2. Determine
available funds in school budget
3. Determine
how to meet shortfall, if any
Technology
- All faculty, students, and staff will become technologically proficient as evidenced by accomplishment of authentic tasks documented in school records, lesson plans, portfolios, and observation.
o
Major steps:
1. Conduct needs assessment appropriate to group
2. Develop technology skills improvement plan
3. Provide instruction/resources to implement plan
4. Assess effectiveness of plan
- Students, teachers, and staff will have 24/7 access to school-related documents and information.
o
Major steps:
1.
Assess current state of availability of school-related
documents and information
2.
Designate areas where improvement is needed
3.
Determine budget
4.
Write plan to address areas needing improvement
5.
Implement plan within budget constraints
- Technology support issues will be addressed within 48 hours by the technology support staff.
o
Major steps:
1.
Develop method for notifying technology support staff
of technology issues
2.
Develop logging system showing status of issues
submitted
3.
Tech support staff updates log to reflect outcome
3. Develop assessment instruments to test the objectives for the technology plan. Describe the desired instrument/s under each objective.
Using criterion-referenced assessments, one can measure whether the objective is met. Assessments can take many forms, some of which are:
- Written evaluation
- Product checklist
- Portfolio assessment (Virginia Tech School of Education, n.d.b)
- The school administration, department representatives, and technology coordinator will meet at least once per semester to evaluate the use of technology to support instruction, and update a plan to provide ongoing professional development to support implementation of technology integration in the classroom.
- Assessment: This objective will be assessed by examining lesson plans describing technology use, technology professional development records, and technology committee meeting records.
- The school administration will provide sufficient and equitable access to technology for faculty and staff: each faculty and staff will have use of a computer, reliable software, network and internet access necessary for teaching and administrative support.
- Assessment: This objective will be assessed by examining the technology inventory per office/classroom, and interviews with faculty and staff
- The school administration will provide sufficient and equitable access to technology for students: each student will have access to hardware, software, network and internet, so that each student will, at minimum, use technology at least once per day.
- Assessment: This objective will be assessed by reviewing lesson plans showing planned technology use, and inventory of technology in the classroom
Funding
- School administration includes technology into financial planning and creates a sustainable financial model for school technology commitments.
o Assessment:
This objective will be tested by examining the school budget to determine that
the allocation and spending for technology is balanced, and also examine any
other sources of income to support technology to ensure sustainability
Technology
- Classrooms will be provisioned with adequate technology to support integrated instruction including technology for teacher and student use. At minimum this will include a computer with network and internet access, and technology for student use at least once daily.
o
Assessment: This objective will be tested by
examining technology inventory in each classroom, teacher’s lesson plans
showing technology use, and interviews with teachers
- Administrative and support staff will each have a computer with school management software and productivity software for efficient and effective support of school operations.
o
Assessment: This objective will be tested by
examining inventory of administrative and support staff technology, examining
school computerized records, and staff interviews
- Students, teachers, and staff will have 24/7 access to school-related documents and information.
o
Assessment: This objective will be tested by
interviewing students, teachers, and staff
- A plan for updating and maintaining technology will be written, and then evaluated and revised as needed each year.
o
Assessment: This objective will be tested by
examining the plan with record of updates
- Technology support issues will be addressed within 48 hours by the technology support staff.
o
This objective will be tested by checking the
issue logs, and interviews with technology users
- Technology will be integrated into instruction will be as evidenced by lesson plans, teacher and student portfolios, and observation.
o
This objective will be tested by examining
lesson plans, teacher and student portfolios, and classroom observation.
Resources
November, A. (1998). Critical Issue: Developing a School or District Technology Plan. Retrieved March 4, 2012, from
Virginia Tech School of Education.
(n.d.a) . Lesson 3: Instructional analysis.
Retrieved March 4, 2012, from http://www.itma.vt.edu/modules/spring03/instrdes/lesson3.htm.
Virginia Tech School of Education.
(n.d.b) . Lesson 7: Assessment
instruments. Retrieved March 4, 2012, from http://www.itma.vt.edu/modules/spring03/instrdes/lesson7.htm
Referencing Funding:
ReplyDeleteThrough e-Rate funding there is a timeline in which funds are to be used. Within your technology plan how are your goals achieved within the allotted time frame.
Reference:
TEA (2012). e-Rate. Retrieved (2012, March 4) from http://tpesc.esc12.net/erate/default.html
Lori,
ReplyDeleteWe are a private school that does not participate in e-Rate. My first reaction to your question was that we are not even eligible for e-Rate, but upon a bit of checking, it appears we may be (U.S. Department of Education, n.d.). When I looked into e-Rate several years ago, my school was not eligible. So, at present, we do not get e-Rate funding, but it may be worth looking into once again.
U.S. Department of Education. (n.d.). Office of non-public education. Retrieved March 4, 2012, from http://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/oii/nonpublic/erate.html
Technology planning will assist us with efficiently securing and using appropriate technology with our students. This in turn will help us prepare them for a technology rich world. My school has some administrators that do not model nor support consistent use of technology in the classroom. I also notice that an administrators lack of support does not hinder teacher use of technology in the classroom (Sugar, Crawley, et.al., 2004). How do your administrators support staff and student technology use?
ReplyDeleteReference:
Sugar, W., Crawley, F., & Fine, B. (2004). Examining teachers’ decisions to adopt new technology. Educational Technology
and Society, 7 (4), 201-213.
I agree, administrative support is not absolutely necessary for technology to be integrated in the classroom, but having administrative support can help to remove frustration faculty might have when they feel like they are going it alone. My administration provides support, but often times I feel that we are not "on the same page." Administration has purchased new computers, but they have, for the most part, gone to the teachers and not the students. I would rather have technology in the hands of the students, but that is an argument that I am not winning.
DeleteSusan, for your goal of "Technology support issues will be addressed within 48 hours by the technology support staff." you list steps for reporting and logging support requests. But has there been an analysis of why support requests are not currently meeting this objective? If the staff is just unorganized, undisciplined, or lazy, your steps may be sufficient. However, if the problem is an under-resourced tech support group, your major steps will clearly document the problem, but will not correct the problem. Does there need to be a step included to identify problems that are preventing the achievement of your goals and development of approaches to remove these obstacles? Perhaps these will be strategies? I like your quotes from November- does he offer any insights into how to handle these problems.
ReplyDeleteMike,
DeleteI know by including this, it implies tech support is not responding in a timely manner. I am the tech support staff. I included this to push myself to be more organized and create more of a trail of accountability. I do think I respond to issues in a timely manner, but imposing better record keeping will serve me when/if I have to refer back to issues due to a recurring problem or other need.
I like Alan November's writings; glad you do, too. In the article I reference, he outlines the steps to create a tech plan: form a committee, create a vision, create goals based on the vision, and then stapes to reach the goals. He quotes John See, "develop a plan based on what students, staff, and administration should be able to do with technology and let those outcomes determine the types and amount of technology [the] plan requests." This ties into the first step the tech committee should complete: to create a vision, rather than jump into what or how to implement technology use.
Susan, well obviously the tech support staff is not lazy:-) Having the documentation of the requests and the responses will be helpful to you in identifying recurring problems as you say, and sometimes those problems will be users rather than technology. The documentation will also allow you to demonstrate the level of effort that the tech support requires, and that can help in the future as growth brings about more hardware and more support requests. At some point you may need to ask for more help, then you'll have the documentation to show how the work load has grown over time.
DeleteI like your goal that states the staff will become technology proficient. I feel like it's important the staff members keep learning and stay up with the ever-changing technology. This can sometimes prove to be a challenge, but it's necessary. In all of the technology plans I've researched, they all seem to have a similar goal. Here is an example of one from a California school, "Teachers and administration will routinely use technological tools to organize, teach and assess student learning in California Content Standards. School staff will use technological tools to store, sort and evaluate student and school wide data, including student achievement related to the California Content Standards." (District Technology Plan)
ReplyDeleteReference: District Technology Plan. Retrieved from http://www.cville.k12.ca.us/Technology_Plan.pdf
Monica,
ReplyDeleteProficiency with technology is a good goal, but as I read and think about this, I now think a key piece is developing problem-solving skills and initiative in the staff - as we aim to do with our students - so that teachers model life-long learning.
In the process of writing this posting and the papers for the Practicum, I think this portion of this plan will undergo some revisions to reflect my evolving ideas on what a plan should entail. It's been interesting; I will need to make sure there is a consistency from beginning to end.
Susan,
ReplyDeleteI agree with your opening statement that you found, "Due to the rapid changes in technology, goals set in the technology plan for technology acquisition and implementation should be short-term. The plan should be reviewed and evaluated yearly to maintain its currency (November, 1998)."
We look at the district plan every 3 years. The school that I am at doesn't have a legitament technology plan. Revision of the technology plan must be on going. While the mission and vision of the educational technology plan may stay constant, the implementation plans will change constantly, as new products and possibilities become available (September, 2011). This site also has a scoring guide that will help monitor goals being meet.
This is something I hope to change in our school to where it is an on going improvement along with the district.
Communications Missouri Education. (September, 2011. Six Step Process in Creating a Technology Plan. Retrieved from http://dese.mo.gov/divimprove/instrtech/techplan/evaluateplan.html#GUIDING QUESTIONS
Excellent input!
ReplyDelete