Campus Technology Plan Presentation

E Rate

View more presentations from keithorama

District Technology Plan

The Schools and Libraries Program of the Universal Service Fund is a federally funded organization that grants discounts to school districts seeking less expensive internet access.  This is called the E-Rate and schools wishing to take advantage of this program must submit a technology plan.  This plan must include five elements: goals and strategies for using telecommunications and information technology, a professional development strategy, an assessment of technology needed, budget resources, and an ongoing evaluation process.  After 2011, budget resources will no longer be required in the technology plan.  The district’s technology plan shows expenditures of three million dollars in technology with $150,000 set aside for professional development.  Training in technology application software is through the Instructional Technology department.  There are classes offered Monday through Saturday in the district technology training labs.  Special training sessions are available for campuses or teachers that need extra training.  This summer, I went to trainings for Google Earth and SmartBoards.  I will attend a ProjectShare training next week for Social Studies.  This is a collaboration web site for teachers to receive training and share information with one another.  The district made note of some needs they need to address.  These include increasing community awareness of the use of technology in the classroom, upgrading infrastructure in existing technology, increasing the technology equipment in each campus, and adding more professional development.  Assessments in the form of annual technology surveys and self reflections are collected as input for future professional development.  From looking at the technology budget, there seems to be enough money to place more computers in each campus and provide opportunities for professional development.

National Educational Technology Plan

The National Educational Technology Plan begins with the belief that education is central to the growth and prosperity of America.  Without a high quality education, we will not be able to compete in the global economy.  There are two goals of this technology plan. The first is to raise proportion of college graduates from 41% to 60% by the year 2020.  The second goal is to equip all high school graduates with the necessary skills to achieve in college.  This is a large goal.  Many high school graduates get to college and are overwhelmed and not able to complete college.  We need to narrow the achievement gap by raising the standards that we have in high school.  This will meet resistance from a struggling economy.  Many states, including Texas, are cutting budgets and money that goes into education.  We must bring up our students with cost effective strategies that require a deeper knowledge.  Technology is vital to our everyday lives.  If this plan is to succeed, it must incorporate technology.  The plan calls for technology based learning and collaboration.  Collaboration is crucial for teachers. When we share our best teaching practices, everyone benefits. The best teachers I know tell me that they learned everything from other teachers. Collaborating with our co-teachers improves our teaching ability. We should strive to collaborate as much as possible and share our best lessons. Technology can assist with this collaboration effort. Many school districts have SharePoint sites or blogs that teachers can post links and lessons.  With the proper use of technology, we can meet the highest standards we set for our students.

Resources:

Office of Educational Technology. (n.d.). National Education Technology Plan 2010. Retrieved July 22, 2011, from U.S. Department of Education website: http://www.ed.gov/sites/default/files/netp2010-execsumm.pdf

Technology Assessments

An old saying goes, “You don’t know where you are going until you see where you have been.”  This is true in many cases including assessing proficiency in technology.  There may be blind spots in your instructions that you may not be aware of.  We need to constantly strive to be better teachers.  For educators, you can not know what needs improvement without assessing your strengths and weaknesses.  In week one, we took multiple surveys on our use of technology.  After taking these surveys, I discovered that my knowledge was limited to a single operating system. My professional development goals would be to improve my knowledge of other operating systems besides Windows, learn how to diagnose software problems, configure and troubleshoot software, and to navigate using the file manager.  Knowing these skills will help me save time when using different technologies.  I have never created a web page beyond my teacher site, which was very basic.  For professional development, I would like to improve my skills at creating a web site.  I could then create a website for my class that includes links to activities and information.  I would have never been aware of this fact had I not assessed my proficiency of technology.  Assessing student proficiency in technology is also beneficial.  Some students may have a high proficiency in one area, but score low in another.  Assessing their level will provide vital feedback on what technology needs to be addressed.  We need to teach today’s students the skills they need in the 21^st century workplace.   

Web Conference Reflection

I attended the web conference on July 21, 2011.  This was my first ever attempt at using a web camera.  The web conference was an interesting activity.  At first, I could not access the website.  I was frantically trying to get into the site before 8:00.  Whenever I clicked on the link, it said the meeting has ended.  Frustrated, I grabbed my sister-in-law’s computer and typed in the website and immediately gained access to Cohort 22.  Then I realized that the link I clicked on sent me to Cohort 21’s conference site.  After I was able to access the site, I had audio, but no video.  I asked if my video was working and suddenly, there was a button that said share video.  I clicked on it and everyone could see me.  I am not sure if the professor had a feature that allowed me to have access to that button or if it was merely coincidence.  After a short while, my connection timed out and I lost access to broadcasting audio and video.  Many people in the class also had trouble with connection and audio.  There was an eerie echo during the begging of the conference and the professor’s own internet cut out twice.  This is I believe the biggest limitation to technology.  When it works, great and amazing things happen.  When technology doesn’t do exactly what you want it to (like during the web conference) it can be frustrating and burdensome.