Technology Action Plan

Technology Action Plan

Organization Chart Integrating Technology

Superintendent: It is the responsibility of the Superintendent to ensure that the schools within the district are provided all necessary resources in order to attain all local and state technology standards. Works directly with School Board to define, implement, and assess district technology policy and goals.

Assistant Superintendent of Instruction: Responsible for working with the Superintendent, Technology and Curriculum Coordinators and Principals in order to incorporate technology into curriculum instruction. Also coordinates all district-wide professional development programs including introduction of new computer software and hardware.

Director of Information Systems: Oversees the development, implementation, and viability of all information systems and the technology associated with these systems. Works directly with the Superintendent in analyzing district technological goals and needs.

School Board: It is the responsibility of the school board to determine district policy regarding the integration, implementation, compatibility, and maintenance of all technology integrated into curriculum instruction.


Instructional Technology Coordinators: It is the responsibility of the technology coordinators to provide support to all school personnel regarding the proper use and implementation of all district technology sytems and programs. In addition, they are required to stay abreast all new technological advances that may impact the manner in which the school district operates on a day to day basis.

Curriculum Coordinators: Work to implement school district policy regarding the implementation of technology into the classroom. Collaborate closely with campus principals to ensure that teachers are provided the resources and training necessary in order to reach technology goals and standards.

Prinicpal: Provides professional development opportunities for teachers to ensure knowledge and use of technology. The principal is responsible for making sure that appropriate technology is used in instruction and reports the progress of this technology directly to the Superintendent. To do this, the principal must facilitate the technology plan by modeling its positive uses, supervising teachers and students using technology, and working with stakeholders to maintain up to date knowledge and provide current resources to teachers.

Assistant Principal: Advises classroom teachers on district’s available technology and helps coordinate campus staff development introducing this technology. Also, assistant principals implement technology tools at hand to facilitate teacher evaluations using the PDAS system. They provide support to the principal by monitoring the use of technology in the classrooms and act as liasion between teachers and principal.


Teachers: It is the responsibility of all teachers to incorporate appropriate technology into daily curriculum instruction. They must not only apply applicable software into lesson planning, but also provide reliable guidance to their students for the proper uses of the particular technology being implemented. Teachers must be willing to share technological insights with their peers in order to better facilitate complete technological integration.


Part 2: Professional Development Planning
Because many teachers do not have a strong foundation for technology-enhanced instruction, it is critical for teachers to be provided with adequate professional development opportunities to support this practice. In addition to effective professional development, supporting technology integration also entails the following elements: (1) establishing communities of practice, (2) providing administrative support, and (3) creating relevance to context and curriculum. This information is a valuable resource for schools or districts establishing or refining their approaches to delivering effective professional development to support technology integration.
In order to improve technology integration into the curriculum, schools must converge on the powerful element of teachers supporting each other’s learning. Establishing a true learning community of practice in which teachers—and sometimes students—are engaged in learning through technology together is key to maintaining and deepening the efforts undertaken. These sometimes casual networks sustain engagement, offer contextual support, and can bridge the gap between professional development and implementation




Part 3: Evaluating the Technology Plan

Read and review the district's technology plan, noting its goals and objectives, as well as the intended activities for achieving those goals. Be sure to consider the timeline the plan sets for meeting those goals and incorporate it into the evaluation. It would not be appropriate to evaluate the availability of broadband Internet access in all district schools after one year if the plan specifies a three-year timeline for achieving it.

Look for a needs assessment in the plan that examines the district's overall technology needs and identifies the campuses or areas of the district with the greatest need. A district's schools often have differing levels of technology access for various reasons. Newer schools, for example, often have better Internet access than older campuses because such capabilities were part of their construction. Ensure that the technology plan steers new technology and technological infrastructure to the schools with the greatest need.
The evaluation should have multiple measures for assessing the implementation and goals of the technology plan. Examples of evaluation measures can include the number of computers in school classrooms, the number of computer labs, level of Internet access, students' knowledge of technology and teachers' ability to integrate technology into classroom instruction. Often, evaluators can measure the first three indicators with data from the district's technology office or technology coordinator. They can use short surveys to measure student and teacher knowledge and use of technology.
Collect data on an ongoing basis to evaluate the implementation of the technology plan. Prepare interim evaluation reports (at least once a year) to assess the school district's progress toward meeting the goals outlined in the technology plan. Write all reports in clear, concise language that readers, regardless of technological knowledge, can understand. Where applicable, use charts and graphics to illustrate key findings.

National Educational Technology Plan 2010

Education is the key to America's economic growth and prosperity and to our ability to compete in the global economy. It is the path to good jobs and higher earning power for Americans. It is necessary for our democracy to work. It fosters the cross-border, cross-cultural collaboration required to solve the most challenging problems of our times.

Just as technology is at the core of virtually every aspect of our daily lives and work, we must leverage it to provide engaging and powerful learning experiences, content, and resources, and assessments that measure student achievement in more complete, authentic, and meaningful ways. Technology based learning and assessment systems will be pivotal in improving student learning and generating data that can be used to continually improve the education system at all levels. Technology will help us to execute collaborative teaching strategies combined with professional learning that better prepare and enhance educators' competencies and expertise over the course of their careers. To shorten our learning curve, we can learn from other kinds of enterprises that have used technology to improve outcomes with increasing productivity.

The NETP presents a model of 21st Century learning powered by technology, with goals and recommendations in five essential areas: learning, assessment, teaching, infrastructure, and productivity. The plan also identifies far-reaching "grand challenge problems" that should be funded and coordinated at a national level. The challenging and rapidly changing demands of our global economy tell us what people need to know and who needs to learn. Technology makes it possible for us to act on this knowledge and understanding.

Progress Report on the Long-Range Plan for Technology

The Texas Education Code, Section 32.001, has required the State Board of Education to develop a long-range for technology. The Progress Report provides documentation of the States’ progress towards meeting the goals set in the Long-Range Plan for Technology, 2008-2020. The Texas Long Range Plan for Technology is composed of four parts: Teaching and Learning, Educator Preparation and Development; Leadership, Administrations, and Instructional Support; and Infrastructure. The goals of the plan are to give students access 24/7 to the digital tools and resources that are tailored to their own individual needs and learning styles. The plan wants to provide parents with a more direct participation in the education of their children as well as access to student information. The plan also works towards providing educators with on demand student information that will help individualize instruction, increase communication and collaboration with parents and the community, and provide 24/7 professional development opportunities.

The Teaching and Learning section shows how technology can impact student achievement by providing the tools and resources for administration, teachers, librarians, and students. The areas of Technology Applications TEKS for Grades K-12 are: Technology Foundations, Information Acquisition, Work in Solving Problems, and Communications. The plan has recommended that TEA continue to support the implementation and revision of TEKS in all of the content areas. The Educator Preparation and Development section focused on educator prep programs, on-line assessments, and distance learning. I feel that I have worked towards this goal as I complete my Lamar Master’s Program online. In the area of Leadership, Administration, and Instructional Support, the focus was placed on embracing technology by budgeting and using technology for daily tasks. For the Infrastructure section, focus was placed on a 1:1 ratio of student to computers in the school, secure and accurate data, and on broadband 24/7 connectivity for all users.

Challenges in Teaching and Learning

The tradional modeling of schooling with the teacher choosing what is to be learned and then serving as the source of knowledge as the student acts as the receiver of that knowledge is not adequate for the 21st Century world-class eduation. Roles of teacher and learner must continue to change. In the Digital Age the sheer volume of information means that Texas students cannot be passive recipients of instruction; rather, Texas students must become active participants in the learning process. It is vitally important that students know how to be sure that their sources are credible. It is important that students gain skills for collaboratively constructing, using, and communicating the knowledge they need for a chosen task, project, or other learning pursuit. Learning and teaching must focus on connecting to students' lives and reflect what research reveals about how people learn.

Information and communications technologies empower learners to undertake authentic projects for learning and productivity even in early grades. These technolgies make possible collaboration of diverse work and learning groups and provide access to rich resources and expertise previously unavailable. Indeed, these technologies enable us to learning and student productivity that extend far beyond the walls of the classroom and far beyond the rigidity of traditional school schedules. Our challenge in teaching and learning is to move from the traditional teacher-led learning model to a student-centered collaborative model in order to empower our young citizens to succeed in a global and digital world of information. This transformation is not a simple undertaking, but it is one that must occur if we are to prepare young Texans for their future lives.

Educators and Blogging

Educators can successfully utilize the technological benefits of "blogging" by creating a sort of cyber space workshop. The aspect of reaching almost unlimited numbers of fellow teachers and administrators gives blogging awesome potential. Unlike other forms of communication, blogging gives up to the minute feedback on topics that educators will find interesting and helpful. I look forward to learning how to use this tool to become a more effective teacher.

Action Research

Action research is a reflective process of progressive problem solving led by individuals working with others in teams or as part of a "community of practice" to improve the way they address issues and solve problems. Action research can also be undertaken by larger organizations or institutions, assisted or guided by professional researchers, with the aim of improving their strategies, practices, and knowledge of the environments within which they practice. As designers and stakeholders, researchers work with others to propose a new course of action to help their community improve its work practices (Center for Collaborative Action Research). Kurt Lewin, then a professor at MIT, first coined the term “action research” in about 1944. In his 1946 paper “Action Research and Minority Problems” he described action research as “a comparative research on the conditions and effects of various forms of social action and research leading to social action” that uses “a spiral of steps, each of which is composed of a circle of planning, action, and fact-finding about the result of the action”.

Action research is an interactive inquiry process that balances problem solving actions implemented in a collaborative context with data-driven collaborative analysis or research to understand underlying causes enabling future predictions about personal and organizational change (Reason & Bradbury, 2001). After six decades of action research development, many methodologies have evolved that adjust the balance to focus more on the actions taken or more on the research that results from the reflective understanding of the actions.

Action research challenges traditional social science, by moving beyond reflective knowledge created by outside experts sampling variables to an active moment-to-moment theorizing, data collecting, and inquiring occurring in the midst of emergent structure. As educators, we can effectively uses Action Research by analyzing data and implementing strategies to use this data to affect student achievement. As a future administrator, I am especially interested in analyzing Math scores to determine if there is a statistical difference among the various student demographics and subgroups. If this difference does exist, findings instuctional methods to eliminate these gaps would be paramount to building a successful school community.