Campus Technology Action Plan

Technology Professional Development
The STaR Chart results will be used by the principal and the campus Technology Facilitator (described below) to determine how technology is perceived on the campus and assess what needs to be done to improve. At the district level, the district STaR chart is analyzed to see where our downfalls and achievements are as far as the amount of equipment and networking capabilities. This analysis allows for indicating the types and numbers of workshops that we need to make available for the coming year.

Professional development needs to be scheduled to have teachers perform a study of the Technology Applications TEKS as well as analyze and reflect upon STaR chart data for the campus, district, and state. Other possibilities include having teachers complete the TEA’s Technology Applications Inventory to assess the knowledge and skills needed for implementation of the Technology Applications TEKS. Based on staff results, work can be done to provide appropriate training to address discovered weak area.

Also important is collecting input from all stakeholders. Surveys should be distributed to assess teacher’s, student’s and parent’s comfort level with technology. Information regarding what level of support is available in the home would be useful in directing the implementation of certain types of technology.

Utilization of resources already available on campus is a must. Trainings need to be provided to allow teachers to utilize Moodle to implement social networking discussion groups related to curricular content. Training in the use of the Interwrite MOBIs & Pads is also needed. These mobile interactive white boards can be used to get students engaged and participate and “write on the board” in a new way. The campus Technology Facilitator can work to embed these trainings into the teacher’s lesson planning, so the training is ongoing and continued. This strategy provides trainings referenced in curriculum content which utilize technology to accomplish the curricular task at hand. This would avoid training centereing only on the technology itself and promotes an image of technology as a tool to utilize to improve instruction.

It may also be possible to utilize the current mentoring heirarchy in schools where veteran teachers are paired with younger beginning teachers to provide guidance with things such as classroom management and organization. This partnership can be enhanced by urging the young teacher to recipricate by helping the veteran teachers with advancing their technology application in their teaching.


District/Campus Technology Support
Technology Integration support at the district level will included Melissa Fouche, Executive Director of Technology and Information Services who directs both Cheryl McDonald, Coordinator of Elementary Instructional Technology and Pam Weir, Coordinator of Secondary Instructional Technology. They administer to the campus-based technology staff as described below.

Katrina Stroot, Technology Integration Facilitator, (instructional implementation) is assigned at the campus level. She is a certified teacher, who provides campus staff development, helps write technology integration curriculum, and assists with technical support. She provides on-campus professional development to teachers on software integration, such as eInstruction CPS, MOBI, Moodle blogs and wikis, etc.

Ed Arndt, Technology Integration Specialist, (hardware and networking) is also assigned at the campus level. He assists in the planning and integration of technology, serves as the first level of technical support, and manages the media retrieval systems. He is on call to solve technical issues, maintain equipment and connectivity to district network. These trainings will focus on relevant, teacher needs as a means of teaching various software applications

These two partner with teachers via job embedded modeling during a routine school day. This allows us to show teachers how to integrate technology as a learning tool into the core curriculum for all students. By teaching practical applications of software, we encourage teachers to embrace technology as a resource tool for their own practical use. For example, PowerPoint basics are taught while creating a presentation for open house, or Excel basics are taught while creating a lesson plan template.

They will utilize the campus’ technology integration lab(s) during the school day. The Facilitators and Specialists work with teachers and their students on an ongoing basis throughout the year, modeling and providing relevant, practical demonstrations. During the summer, the Facilitators from all campuses come together as a team to teach Technology Integration Academies based on subject area and grade level.

The principal’s role is to support all of the activities by funding needed equipment, providing time for teachers to take advantage of trainings, encouraging teachers to implement technology, and possibly by including criteria in teacher evaluations.



Technology Evaluation
After implementing more technology training during the academic year and encouraging its implementation, and providing ongoing support, the STaR chart survey can be repeated and the results then compared to the previous year to measure outcomes and growth. The STaR chart results indicate areas to emphasize within Professional Development and Teaching & Learning. These aspects are obviously linked. If teachers are provided more training, technology will propagate into the classrooms and impact student learning. In addition, the teacher can re-take the TEA’s Technology Applications Inventory to compare to previous results to check for growth.

Another aspect of evaluation should involve monitoring the volume of student products that are technology-based. Are students creating paper posters to be displayed in the hallway, or are they creating electronic documents that are printed? Activity throughout the Moodle discussion groups and wikis can be monitored and quantified to detect increases in the use of this technology. Efforts should be made to determine if teachers are utilizing the talents of their students to overcome technology hurdles.

Before planning future technology workshops, teachers should be surveyed so that subsequent trainings meet that needs of the teachers. Before each workshop, the facilitators should inspect the roster of attendees to make sure there is something presented that will be useful for each one of them. The goal of trainings should be for teachers to develop ideas and depart with a lesson plan or a sample project that they can take back to their classes.

Progress should involve the consideration of moving technology professional development online. Available applications such as Moodle allow for teachers to log in anywhere, complete “assignments,” and have access to pertinent information. Teachers do not necessarily need to be bound to a classroom or computer lab to participate in professional development. This type of training for the teachers would be perfect to model the types of activity that can be going on in their classrooms.

If professional development moved online, teachers from all over a district could pool their knowledge and resources. This type of venue for training should promote more open and timely discussion of the training content.