Technology Action Plan

Technology Action Plan

Goals

As I sought to formulate an action plan to improve technology and how it is utilized on our campus, I thought I would start by identifying goals and areas that needed to be addressed. In order to do that I turned to our district wide Technology Plan. Here are the goals that caught my eye as they pertained to integrating technology to deliver and enrich instruction:

Goal One: Improve student academic achievement through technology. Mitchell Long, the Technology Director for our district, said in order for this to happen all students will be “technologically literate” by the end of their eighth grade year and that all students in grade levels that are tested will meet the state and federal NCLB AP standards either on the TAKS tests or their IEP objectives.

Goal Two: Integrate technology skills and use in the various content areas. The primary objective of this goal is to increase the integration of technology and instruction.

Goal Three: Provide technology and learning opportunities to the community and parents. This can allow stakeholders to have an integral part in the educational environment. We learned last week that a “wiki” could be a tool used to meet this goal.

Goal Four: Improve teacher/administrator skills in using technology in instructional settings. The plan goes on to say that in order for this occur 100% of teachers and administrators must participate in professional development sessions that address district wide deficiencies lined out in the StaR reports.

Goal Seven: Improve technology infrastructure for our district. If administrators and teachers are expected to use technology they have to be given the proper equipment to do so.

Evaluation

After looking at the goals for our campus we need to look at how those goals can be evaluated.

Goal One: One way for this goal to be evaluated is to look at the StaR chart results. This information can be taken annually and aide in developing steps to ensure all administrators, teachers, and students are “technologically literate”.

Goal Two: The most effective way to evaluate this goal is for the administrators to observe teachers and see how they are using technology during instruction. The StaR chart data can also be used.


Goal Three: To evaluate if this goal is being met you could survey stakeholders to see if they feel their voice is being heard.

Goal Four: Once again we will need to review the StaR data to ensure this goal is met. The good thing about the StaR data is that it is updated every year so we are up to date on the newest, most important aspects that need addressing.

Goal Seven: This goal is imperative. You cannot expect administrators and teachers to use technology successfully if they are not provided the proper equipment to do so. StaR data will reveal if teachers feel they need more equipment to adequately implement technology, but you could also create a survey asking administrators and teachers if they are receiving necessary equipment; and if they aren’t, what equipment they need to meet those requirements.

Professional Development

Some professional development issues that need resolving in our district are:

· Proper training for all programs-At our district we usually have a blanket professional development session for all programs we are expected to use, i.e. gradebook, attendance, quia, Microsoft outlook etc. For some this is ok, but there are always teachers that feel they are not properly prepared to utilize these programs and become frustrated quickly.
· Proper training for all equipment-A few of my colleagues comment frequently about not being properly trained to use the equipment that we have been provided (Ex. ELMOs). A training session for teachers to learn basic and advanced functions would be influential.
· More time for collaboration-Very little time is dedicated to teachers sharing ideas and strategies that work regarding technology. This could be the most effective tool because it is always useful to see how programs work in real world settings and not just in an in-service setting.