After reviewing the four areas on the Texas Long Range Plan for Technology, and reviewing my campus' STaR Chart, I chose the area of Leadership, Administration, and Instructional Support to discuss. This area refers to leaders implementing and improving technology innovations, technical support, budget and funding, and staffing. From a personal perspective, I would have predicted this area as being the weakest area on my campus, but surprisingly, it was close to being the strongest area.
Locally, the teachers in the district rated leadership as still being at the developing level, and this has not changed for the past three years. State results showed the Leadership area to be the strongest area and classified as borderline being advanced. The statewide trend indicates the results to be developing, and increasing, but not drastic enough yet to be labeled as Advanced Tech. Locally, the results highly indicate that the district's leadership level is still at Developing Tech, and has been constant over the past three years.
My recommendation would be for the administrators and leaders to start taking a more active approach in helping to integrate technology into the classrooms. I would suggest that the administration integrate more professional development on ways to integrate technology. Our campus needs to create a technology committee that would find ways to improve our technology program. Instead of a technology technician, our district needs a technology leader that helps locate and create activities that will be easy but effective for teachers to integrate into their curriculum.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Teresa,
ReplyDeleteYour point about administration facilitating growth in integration is a good one. The Burns article we read drove home the point about not feeding us more than we can swallow at one time. That really resonated with me. Teaching teachers how to use software in simple, but meaningful ways can be a doable goal for an administrator. Good job!
Teresa,
ReplyDeleteYou stated two points that caught my attention. The first was that the rating for Leadership, Administration and Instructional Support remained the same for the three-year period discussed. I was wondering if there were any other areas of note associated with this lack of progression. My questions include what has been the level of turnover on your campus; either with teachers or administrators over the same period, and has the administration expressed a vision that details the role of technology within the curriculum. The second point was your statement that the district needs to identify a technology leader to assist with finding and creating activities teachers can use to enhance the curriculum. I would suggest that each campus has potential technology leaders that may not be identified who could serve in this capacity. Having a technology leader on campus would provide teachers with a resource more readily available than a district resource. Addtionally, campus technology leaders could work in a collaborative manner in creating district programs or activities that come from the ground up versus having many activities forced on the teachers with minimum input from the classroom teachers.
Kelvin
Teresa,
ReplyDeleteI noticed that just like your school, my school has maintained the same rating in that area for the past 3 years which is Advanced Tech. And like you I was surprised that we rated that high. You make an excellent point about leaders and administrators needing to take a more active approach in integrating technology in the classroom. That is a need at my own campus so I can relate to your view on that. By you mentioning the need for a technology committee, brings a question to mind as if our district or campus has on? I am not certain that we do or at least I have not heard of one. So now I am interested to find that out.
Teresa,
ReplyDeleteI think your ideas for improvement are spot on. Sometimes being exposed to different technologies is great, but unless you are shown how to use them in your current setting they can be useless. In-services could be set up where teachers are grouped into subject areas and are asked to come up with some innovative way to integrate technology into one of their more "dry" topics. Not only would that cover the goal of tech integration, but it should also incorporate some life into those "dry" topics! Grouping would be key, because those of us who are younger teachers have a lot more experience with the current technologies, more often than not. Those more tech-savvy teachers could be a great help to others who don't feel as comfortable with some of the new technology items used.
Stephanie