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.