Week 5 Reflection

When I first learned about the focus of this course, some questions immediately came to my mind. For instance, what do we do about the lack of access that many of our students have in regards to technology. I also began reflecting upon my own use of technology in the classroom, and realized that much of my use is related to management of communication and data, rather than instructional. I felt at a loss as to how to incorporate more technology into my instruction. With such a prescribed pacing calendar, and with a lack of resources, how do I move from using technology to present information to using it as a regular tool to increase student engagement? Throughout this course, my eyes were opened to various tools that I can use, such as blogging, vlogging, wikis, and podcasts. My students can move to a more project based atmosphere, which resembles a 21^st century workplace, with these tools. I am still reflecting on how to get there from where I am now. I do not feel that my current assignment lends itself to taking full advantage of these tools.

Although I question using these tools in my current assignment, resource math, I am open to exploring new ideas. When it comes to other subject areas, however, I feel that I could successfully guide a teacher through creating lessons and projects that would promote technological literacy in our student body. Ideally, technology use would be integrated into the curriculum, rather than a pull-out experience. The major roadblock you run into is heavily prescribed curriculum with a tight pacing calendar. This leaves little room for inserting a project that may possibly take several class periods to complete. Technology, after all, is not yet a TAKS tested area. We may give lip service to promoting technology literacy, but the reality is slow in coming. In fact, our students are outpacing us in many ways. Their connectivity is astounding. With Facebook, smart phones, and gaming experience, our students are already wired. As educators, I observe that we do not take full advantage of the ways in which our students are already highly experienced and instead try to force them into using technology that is not a natural fit.

My objective throughout this course was to find various ways in which I personally can utilize technology for the benefit of my students. To that end, nothing has changed. I personally can use these tools and even teach my peers how to use them. I am at a loss as to how I can teach my resource math students to use these tools. We use graphing calculators on a regular basis, and it has taken us weeks just to remember how to square a number! This is a two button process, so I struggle to make sense of how I can integrate more technology into my instruction. I personally have observed some of these students take entire class periods to simply log in on a computer network. This wastes valuable instructional time on an already tight calendar. In order to improve this, I would recommend investigating personal computing devices for all students. I am proud to say that my district is already in the process of investigating this, according to our long range plan.

The course assignments were helpful to me because I learned more about technology tools and how they can be utilized in instruction. The articles were intriguing to me. I found them to be an interesting read, as well as practical to me as an educator. I appreciated the discussion component of the course, and I do think this should be continued in future courses. Online discussion is a great medium for exchange of dialogue and information. I enjoyed finding my district’s long range technology plan and comparing it to the state’s long range plan. It was interesting to read the plan, developed over a year ago, and compare it to what I am already seeing in my local school. Developing the action plan was probably the most difficult part for me. I was not always certain of the “chain of command” that is to be followed in regards to certain aspects of technology use. In spite of creating the organizational chart, I still felt unsure of where certain aspects of technology use might fall under that chart.

In the future, I believe my experience and attitude toward technology will make me an ideal 21^st century school leader. In spite of my uncertainty about using technology in my current situation, my openness to implementing new ideas and willingness to explore new resources will set me apart from many candidates who view these changes with anxiety. I am currently deciding on whether to maintain this blog once this course is completed. As I am exploring new technology resources for my own classroom, this blog would be a great tool for sharing my experiences and networking with other teachers who are interested in the same topic. My concerns about maintaining this blog mainly have to do with privacy issues, as well as the possibility that something I say here could be misinterpreted by someone. Blogging, however, can be a valuable tool for communication. I can see a principal using blogs to detail school information in a central location for busy parents and community members who are not always able to participate by being physically present at the campus. I look forward to expanding my use of blogging and other technology tools in the future.

What is the Texas STaR Chart anyway? - Week 2

Texas STaR Chart - Week 2

When evaluating local, state, and national progress on Technology proficiency in the classroom, one tool that is used is the STaR Chart. The STaR Chart is an annual survey in which teachers self report their use of technology and their experiences with professional development in technology.

One area that consistently falls short of the target is that of Educator Preparation and Development. There are many reasons why this area is underdeveloped. First of all, the demands of the day to day curriculum and school business make it difficult for teachers to obtain training and implement it on new technology. Infrastructure may not support the use of further technology, so there is little motivation to obtain further training. School administrators may wish to place further emphasis on technology, but other needs to be addressed during dedicated staff development times may take precedence. In addition, pre-service teacher preparation programs do not adequately prepare aspiring teachers for the technology demands of the 21st century classroom.

My own campus rates as Developing Tech in this area. Growth in this area has largely remained static. Looking at statewide statistics, the experience on my campus is not an isolated one. It is encouraging to note, however, that more campuses in the state of Texas are being rated as Advanced Tech. In order for this trend to continue, more time and resources must be devoted to the ongoing professional development of Texas educators in the area of technology. Our practice must be aligned with our philosophy, and our resources aligned with our goals.

Pre-K Technology Applications TEKS: Laying the Groundwork for Technology Literacy - Week 1

The beauty of the Technology Applications TEKS is that it is a dynamic document, spiraling in technology skills at all levels. At the Pre-K level, a great deal of emphasis is placed on exploration, which lends itself to play. This is developmentally appropriate for the Pre-K student. Another significant aspect of the Pre-K TEKS involves skills being modeled by the teacher. This lays the groundwork for the expectations in the later grades. For instance, one Pre-K Technology TEK simply states that the child will recognize that information is available through the use of technology. As soon as K-2, however, the child is expected to actually acquire information through the use of keyword searches. In grades 3-5, the student is expected to expand that to the use of Boolean operators. From there, the expectation increases even more in grades 6-8, when the student is expected to "use strategies to locate and acquire desired information on LANs and WANs, including the Internet, intranet, and collaborative software." This scaffolding then leads to the desired student outcome of being able to select the appropriate search strategy and using the appropriate network for resource sharing.

More information about the Technology Applications TEKS can be found here.

TEA and The Long Range Plan for Technology - Week 1

Texas has a comprehensive long range plan to address 21st Century technology needs in our schools. Society is changing exponentially, and if schools do not keep up with the times, then it is our students and our economy who will suffer the consequences. As a school leader, it is important to have an understanding of the areas of greatest need. It will be important, for example, to provide a great deal of professional development and adequate time for its implementation if increased integration of technology is to be achieved in our classrooms. In addition, the school leader will need to advocate for increased funding and support from the community if the technology is to be implemented effectively. Furthermore, it will be essential that the school leader enthusiastically encourages teachers in their use and even experimentation with technology in the classroom if our students are to become proficient, savvy, and successful users of technology based applications and communication.

Technology Assessments - Week 1

I have always considered myself to be technically savvy. I have been using the internet since I was in my early teens, even interacting with text only sites via telnet. As the internet has evolved, I have eagerly kept up. In college, I created my first websites with a friend of mine. We would sneak into the computer lab after hours and experiment with HTML and other basic scripts. I never became proficient at it, but I had a working knowledge that I felt was sufficient for my purposes.

However, as the internet has become more sophisticated, having a mere working knowledge is no longer enough for the educational leader. This week, I took several assessments in regards to my knowledge and use of technology in the classroom. In the Pre-Course Self-Evaluation, I realized that I have little knowledge of the Technology TEKS for our Texas students. In addition, I realized that I have little knowledge of the expectations placed on Texas teachers in regards to technology. Recently, I took the STaR Chart survey on my campus and felt that many of my responses were less than ideal. I also took this survey on the TEA website. I actually was able to response yes to most of the questions, but I realized that my knowledge lacks depth in many of those areas. For instance, I create many spreadsheets to organize information in special education, but I am not well practiced in many of the features that Excel offers. If it isn't something I use very often, it takes me a great deal of time to figure out how to execute it.

The final survey was the most thought provoking for me. In it, I was confronted with the fact that I do not regularly use technology in my lessons in a way that will help my students to become technologically literate. Practically speaking, however, the curriculum and demands of resource math do not lend themselves to utilizing much more than a graphing calculator. I can foresee ways that technology could bring certain concepts to life for my students, but I think of the day to day demands of designing a relatively simple lesson and I wonder how I could ever get to the next level. There simply aren't enough hours in the day to meet all these expectations. I am certainly open to suggestions and am willing to try new things if support is available.

I am interested to see what I may learn throughout the rest of this course about integrating technology in my classroom. I am even more interested in how I might support other teachers as an instructional leader in regards to technology.