Wednesday, March 23, 2011
Web Conference
I attended the web conference on Wednesday, March 16th. There wasn't any sound avaliable so we were just chatting. It was a little on the frustrating side because people kept opening and closing windows on the screen. I don't think they realized that they were changing everyone's screen. That was frustrating because you couldn't read the messages when the cameras were full screen. There were a lot of questions about the internship, ILD, and LCE. There were a few questions about week 4 assignments, which I had as well, but I never saw that they were answered. I will say that it was almost impossible to keep up. Overall, I can see that it would be nice but with a much smaller group.
Sunday, March 20, 2011
Sunday, March 6, 2011
Blog Posting #2- Texas Long Range Plan for Technology
The Texas Long-Range Plan for Technology was designed by the State Board of Education for acquiring and using technology in the public school system. They also want to see professional development offered that teaches the teachers how technology can be used to promote positive child development. By the end of 2000, each graduating senior will meet a minimum proficiency requirement.
Everyone involved, students, parents, educators, and community and school board members must all be involved and helping to promote the technology in all aspects of the students' lives.
The major goals of this initiative was to have 24/7 access to technology and the internet. The STaR chart was developed to allow teachers to report directly to the state the level of progress their school was making toward reaching these technology goals and ultimately achieving all advanced tech on the STaR chart evaluation. The progress report shows that 65% of campuses are achieving at the Developing Tech category (5-9 students per computer) and the state Long Range Plan states that their goal is a 1:1 ratio. The other alarming percentage is that 53% provide internet to the classrooms. This was shocking to me because every classroom, office, workroom, etc all have internet access on my campus. It’s hard to fathom having only half of the classrooms in Texas to have internet access. I feel very fortunate to work on a campus where technology is valued and required. We have spent a lot of time splitting up the technology TEKS by subject area and grade level to ensure that the students are receiving the instruction and opportunity to work with technology.
http://www.tea.state.tx.us/index2.aspx?id=5082&menu_id=2147483665
Everyone involved, students, parents, educators, and community and school board members must all be involved and helping to promote the technology in all aspects of the students' lives.
The major goals of this initiative was to have 24/7 access to technology and the internet. The STaR chart was developed to allow teachers to report directly to the state the level of progress their school was making toward reaching these technology goals and ultimately achieving all advanced tech on the STaR chart evaluation. The progress report shows that 65% of campuses are achieving at the Developing Tech category (5-9 students per computer) and the state Long Range Plan states that their goal is a 1:1 ratio. The other alarming percentage is that 53% provide internet to the classrooms. This was shocking to me because every classroom, office, workroom, etc all have internet access on my campus. It’s hard to fathom having only half of the classrooms in Texas to have internet access. I feel very fortunate to work on a campus where technology is valued and required. We have spent a lot of time splitting up the technology TEKS by subject area and grade level to ensure that the students are receiving the instruction and opportunity to work with technology.
http://www.tea.state.tx.us/index2.aspx?id=5082&menu_id=2147483665
Friday, March 4, 2011
Blog Posting #3 National Educational Technology Plan
National Education Technology Plan has set out two very clear goals. By 2020, we will reach a graduation rate of 60% (either a two year or 4 year degree). This is an increase of 21% over the next nine years. The second goal is to close the gap between students no matter their race, income, or neighborhood so that they may graduate high school with the knowledge to succeed in college or in the job world.
To achieve these goals we must have a low cost solution that incorporates technology, evaluations and the goal for ongoing improvement. Each and every school should have the the opportunity to take advantage of the resources available and use them to help students achieve.
There are five essential areas that include learning, assessment, teaching, infrastructure, and productivity. Learning includes for engaging and empowering our lessons to reach all students. There is a lot of mention of choice for students, using their learning styles, and reaching students where they are. Technology allows for many of these provisions and allows them to personalize their educational experiences. In the area of assessment, we need to look for new and improved ways to look at where our students are in their educational path and online assessments allow for immediate feedback that leads us directly to the areas students need the most improvement. Teaching areas calls for teachers to be connected to a vast number of other educator that allows us to broaden our teaching outside of the four walls of our classrooms and work with teachers worldwide to enhance the learning experience of our students. Infrastructure calls for everyone to be connected and for everyone involved to buy into the need and the amount of effort and resources it would take to make this type of learning accessible for our students. Productivity allows us to use technology, in a time of budget crisis, to account for every dollar and to make sure that we are spending our money in the area of education. You can never go wrong investing in our future.
To achieve these goals we must have a low cost solution that incorporates technology, evaluations and the goal for ongoing improvement. Each and every school should have the the opportunity to take advantage of the resources available and use them to help students achieve.
There are five essential areas that include learning, assessment, teaching, infrastructure, and productivity. Learning includes for engaging and empowering our lessons to reach all students. There is a lot of mention of choice for students, using their learning styles, and reaching students where they are. Technology allows for many of these provisions and allows them to personalize their educational experiences. In the area of assessment, we need to look for new and improved ways to look at where our students are in their educational path and online assessments allow for immediate feedback that leads us directly to the areas students need the most improvement. Teaching areas calls for teachers to be connected to a vast number of other educator that allows us to broaden our teaching outside of the four walls of our classrooms and work with teachers worldwide to enhance the learning experience of our students. Infrastructure calls for everyone to be connected and for everyone involved to buy into the need and the amount of effort and resources it would take to make this type of learning accessible for our students. Productivity allows us to use technology, in a time of budget crisis, to account for every dollar and to make sure that we are spending our money in the area of education. You can never go wrong investing in our future.
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
Blog Posting #1: Administration and Support
The Texas Long Range Plan for Technology has four areas of focus to promote technology advancements in our schools. Administration and Support if just one of the four and includes six specific target areas. These are leadership and vision, planning, instructional support, communication and collaboration, budget, and leadership and support for online learning.
When teachers respond to this part of the survey, their responses should reflect the teacher's perception of the instructional environment. The trend that stood out the most to me was that 94% of campuses have access to technology support staff. 49% of schools have one technical support staff member to every 750 computers and 45.5% of schools have one technical support staff member to every 500 computers. The schools that score advanced tech have a campus plan that is board approved and supported by the superintendent. They also use their technology allotment, e-Rate, competitive grands and local funding for purchases that allows for expanding their technology base in many different ways. The developing tech schools have a campus plan aligned with the Long Range Plan for Technology and their technology allotment and local funding are used for purchases.
While I love to use technology and integrate it into my classroom, I am still one of those that has a hard time seeing the benefit in relationship to the amount of money we spend on technology. Our campus tech told me that the computers we have on our campus are five years old and the are going to be replaced this year. Five years is the maximum length a computer stays in use in our district. Really? Is it just me or is that crazy? We have textbooks for ten years and a computer for half of that. While technology does enhance our lessons it isn't NECESSARY to complete the TEKS we are required to teach in our Language Arts classes or any of our core classes for that matter.
When teachers respond to this part of the survey, their responses should reflect the teacher's perception of the instructional environment. The trend that stood out the most to me was that 94% of campuses have access to technology support staff. 49% of schools have one technical support staff member to every 750 computers and 45.5% of schools have one technical support staff member to every 500 computers. The schools that score advanced tech have a campus plan that is board approved and supported by the superintendent. They also use their technology allotment, e-Rate, competitive grands and local funding for purchases that allows for expanding their technology base in many different ways. The developing tech schools have a campus plan aligned with the Long Range Plan for Technology and their technology allotment and local funding are used for purchases.
While I love to use technology and integrate it into my classroom, I am still one of those that has a hard time seeing the benefit in relationship to the amount of money we spend on technology. Our campus tech told me that the computers we have on our campus are five years old and the are going to be replaced this year. Five years is the maximum length a computer stays in use in our district. Really? Is it just me or is that crazy? We have textbooks for ten years and a computer for half of that. While technology does enhance our lessons it isn't NECESSARY to complete the TEKS we are required to teach in our Language Arts classes or any of our core classes for that matter.
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