My Final Reflections on Technology and Educational Leadership

When I first read the description for this class, I became a bit scared. I really did not know what to expect. Technology savvy is not a characteristic that people who know me would use to describe me. I had not realized the importance of technology today or how it is expected to become in the future especially if a person wants to become a great well rounded educational leader.

When I first read the syllabus for the class one of the main outcomes I envisioned was to learn the basics about technology. By basics, I mean learn about different educational technology websites, continue working together with others on the discussion board, compose a PowerPoint, set up a blog and keep up with it throughout the five weeks of class but most importantly, learn about the Technology TEKS and the Long-Range Plan for Technology and how it will greatly impact education in the long run. Overall, I believe I achieved those outcomes plus more. As a technology director, I must have the knowledge of all the different technological aspects that are being offered and know them first hand so that I can teach the administrators and classroom teachers how to incorporate it in their everyday teaching. The actual course outcomes aligned with those those that I envisioned. The most important outcome I had and did not realize how much would be a part of the class was the "hands on" process.

To the extent that I achieved the outcomes, I truly believe that they are relevant to the work I do in my school. As a technology director, I must be the example but most importantly the teacher to everyone in the district which not only includes administrator, teachers, support staff and students but also the parents and the community. After reviewing the Long-Range Plan for Technology, I have a large task ahead of me. The Long-Range Plan for Technology began in 2006 and is suppose to be met at its full capacity by 2020. It might be ten years away but we have to remember that time flies. Everything that I have learned in this class will become even more relevant as we get closer to 2020. I believe this process is not being taught and followed through as much as it should but little by little, we will get there.

I believe that I achieved all the outcomes that I wanted to achieve but the only problem that I had is that everything seemed so rushed. I would have loved to have maybe taken two weeks on each assignment so that I could have had more hands on practice. I know this class is only five weeks long but I believed the five weeks were only long enough to learn the minimal basics of technology. I had worked off of someone else's PowerPoint in the past but never from scratch. I loved going through the process from the beginning to the end. As a technology director, I would want to make sure that all administrators and teachers would be properly trained in putting together a PowerPoint. The veteran teachers and administrators probably never learned that in their education classes so a training would be great. I also believe that letting all educators but especially parents and the community know about the Long-Range Technology Plan would open up every one's eyes to how important technology is going to become in the future.

I believe I was successful in carrying out the course assignments but overall I think I could have done better. Time was very crucial in this class. I took this class during the busiest time of the school year and I have an eighteen month daughter. This class made me learn, the hard way, how to balance a full-time job, sponsoring extra curricular activities, a family and a home. When I first would read the instructions to each of the assignment, they seemed very hard and overwhelming but after posting my first blog during the first week assignment, I started feeling a bit more excited and less overwhelmed. As a technology director, one must be ready to re-assure the administrators and teachers that it is not as hard and complicated as they might think. I would never have known how easy it was to set up a blog if it was not for this class. The only thing is that you have to make the time to keep up with it. Time is always the problem or excuse.

I learned so much about myself from this course. About myself, I learned that I have to stop making excuses and just do it. I want to make sure and use technology in my classes and talk to my colleagues about how important it is to integrate technology in their teachings. I have also learned that I need to learn so much more about technology. I need to make sure and keep up with what is out there so that I can learn from it and become a better leader. Before taking this class, my attitude was not the most positive when it came to technology. I have never used technology in the classroom or in my small learning community meetings. I now want to make sure and incorporate it as much or as little as I can with my students and my fellow colleagues. Any type of technology I can incorporate in the classroom is great. My students would love it so much because that would make my class even more exciting and would keep their interest throughout the course.

After learning so much about blogs and blogging, I have learned that there are so many educational blogs out there. I believe that the educational value that blogs and blogging has to the 21st century learner is that everyone needs to learn to expand their ways and be open to different options and opinions. When we did the assignment of the STaR Chart power point, it was great to see the different ways that everyone presented the overall assignment. Looking at the different presentations gave me ideas to improve my power point and getting comments from other students in the class was a great way communicate and feel like someone cared enough to take the time to complement you or give you ideas. In the section of Introducing the 21st Century Learner of the Long-Range Plan for Technology, some of the key ideas tell us that our students need to be able to communicate every way possible and I believe blogging is a great way to do this so long as it is educational.

Some of the concerns of blogs and blogging in education is that people believe that it is like blogging on My Space. My Space and Face book have given blogs and blogging a bad name and would probably never associate blogs and blogging to education. Our school district has trained all the teachers how to start up a blog but there has not been too much follow through. As a Technology Director, one must make sure and train the teachers appropriately and make sure they understand everything about blogs and how blogging can become a great way to teach students so much more about the positive and educational uses of technology. Our school district uses blogs but not all the teachers and administrators are on board. Our students want variety. Blogs and blogging would be a great way to get our students more involved in their classes but instead of blogging about their everyday life they would blog about their assignment in class.

There are so many ways to use blogging to communicate with school stakeholders. Our school district set up a twitter page this school year and it is really great to go in there and read over the comments that the community places on the page. I believe it would be a great idea for all principals to have blogs to communicate with their teachers, students and parents. Being a teacher myself, I would love to get online and read weekly blogs that my principal might post and be able to post my comments. I believe this could bring us closer as a staff. Principals are probably not to keen to this idea because they do not want it to become a complaints blog but if the principal sets us rules and make sure the teachers abide by them, it should not become a gripe session blog. I believe a blog would make those teachers that do not like to speak out loud in front of their colleagues feel a bit more comfortable in communicating by using the blog.

Our school district, has a web page that they keep up with daily. The web page is one of the best information tools that our district uses. After taking this class, I have learned about pod casts. Our school district website has recently posted a podcast from our superintendent and school board president wishing everyone a great holiday season. It is short and sweet and I am going to suggest to my principal that she should post a pod cast at least once a month. Overall technology is something we cannot just put aside for a later time. It is becoming bigger and bigger and we see it everyday when our students are texting and using their phones as their information portals. We need to keep up with the technological advances and use them in the classroom so that our students become more technology savvy.

Technology Action Plan

Organization Chart

District Technology Director: Oversees and is in charge of all aspects of technology in the entire school district from elementary schools, middle schools and high schools plus central office and all other district departments.

District Technology Trainer: Train district personnel on technology concepts and skills, serve as a resource person for the utilization of technology, district web master, assist campuses with special technology projectas and serve as the liaison between the Technology Director and the Campus CIT's with respect to trainings and campus websites.

District Technology Integration Specialist: Helps facilitate the integration of technology in the district, serves as a resource person for the utilization of technolody as a tool for delivering the content area curriculum, assist campuses in special technology projects and servs as the liaison between the Technology Director and the individual campuses.

CIT(Campus Instructional Technologist: Main person in charge of instructing the Faculty, Staff, Students and Parents about the use of technology.

Computer Lab Managers: In charge of managing the computer labs that each content area uses. They help out the classroom teachers use technology for classroom instruction.

Campus Librarians: They handle all the computers used in the library used by the teachers and students throughout the school day.

Instructional Technology / MIS Support Staff: Assigned computer technician from the MIS Department.



The Role of the Principal
The Principal is in charge of making sure that the Technology Department meets their mission which is to make sure there are plenty of profession development opportunities, have technical assistance when needed, and make sure that all the employees, especially the teachers become “informed and fearless users of technology”.


Professional Development Planning

At the beginning of the 2008-2009 school year our school district divided all the schools in our district into Area Vertical Academic Teams. Each area consists of a high school and all of the elementary schools and middle schools that feed into the high school. The Technology Department has assigned the District Integration Specialist to assist each team for one week every month. The Technology Director and Integration Specialist along with the Campus CIT’s assist the individual campuses with the integration and implementation of technology and technology resources into the curriculum. As per our District Plan of 2009-2011, all teachers are required to complete a mandatory nine hours of technology training every year.

• In week three’s report, I mentioned that each classroom in our school is equipped with a Smart Board, Wireless Smart Pad, Document Reader, Data Projector, a computer and laser printer. The first technology staff development I would want to make sure was offered was how to use each of these great resources. You would be surprised to know how many teachers still do not know the proper way to use some of this technology or all the perks they offer.
  
• Once the teachers go through the staff development of the simple use of all technology, I would like to offer a resource staff development. Many of our teachers do not know what resources are out there that can be used toward the content area they are teaching. I was in awe with how much software is out there for all four content areas that can help integrate technology in everyday teaching. Our school district subscribes to “Education Appreciation” which offers the best education sites on the internet. Other websites and excellent references used by our district are “United Streaming” and Easy Tech by Learning.com.
  
• Web page training would be another staff development to offer. All teachers are required to create and maintain a classroom website that will reflect classroom instruction. This sites will be use to communicate with not only the students but also their parents. Teachers can have their students turn in their assignments through the website. The teachers can set up blogs or podcasts for class. The web is not just for e-mailing or researching; the teacher can use it as a way to integrate a class assignment. The content areas have computer labs they can take their students to so they can use the software available to enhance what is being taught in class using technology.
  
• The “Grade Book” is a staff development that all teachers need. We have a great grade book program but not all teachers know how to use it properly and those teachers that have been around need to refresh their minds. This staff development must be offered every year.
  

Evaluation Planning for Action Plan

For all educators, providing assessments of all the staff developments offered is crucial. A principal needs to make sure the teachers understood the staff development and must follow through and make sure the teachers are using what they learned in their classroom. Different ways of evaluating are as follows:

• Staff Development participation reports
• Training Logs
• Teacher participation in the summer institutes
• Computer lab reports and attendance logs
• Timelines for core curriculum areas
• Scope and Sequence for core curriculum areas
• Teacher lesson plans with Integrated technology skills
• Reports from the online Technology Applications (Easy Tech)
• Increased number of teachers using technology (Program Reports)
• Show an increase in the rating results of Star Chart
• Increase in the number of students using technology (Program Reports)
• Increased technology training sessions held at the campus level (ERO Reports and Training Log Sheets)

The Texas STaR Chart - Working

"TOGETHER"

Towards A Technology-Enriched Future

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The Texas Long Range Plan for Technology, 2006-2020

My eyes have been opened wider and I am learning so much. After reading and learning more about the STaR Chart, it has made me change my mind on how seriously I should take this yearly survey at my school. We have been taking this survey for quite a few years and the majority of the teachers feel it is just a waste of time. Most of the time some teachers just answer Developing Technology all the way because they want to hurry up and finish the survey and go back to what they were doing. After looking over the results of our survey for the past three years, I have concluded that our school needs the most work on Educator Preparation and Development.

The key area totals for the three years were 10, 8 & 11. Some people might think that it is weird that we went down in the middle year but I really do not. I believe that we went down from developing tech to early tech because in 2007-2008 we were concentrating more in getting out of Level 5 AYP status and technology was left in the back burner. Presently we are back at developing tech but we need to work harder to advance more every year. Our school district and school are very luck to have top quality technology equipment and software but what we are lacking is more staff development and follow through. The technology is out there to help all teachers with their content area and I believe if the school district were to use one of the staff development days at the beginning of the school year for technology training, the teachers would be more receptive to use technology more.

Our school offers technology staff developments during our conference periods but it is usually having to do with our grade book or our website. They have shown us how to have our own web page so that our students and parents can look at what we are doing in class. We have one English teacher that is great at using his web page as part of the his class. His students have to log in and turn in their assignment to him online. He keeps it updated as often as possible. His name is always brought up as a great example but what our administration and technologhy coordinator needs to do is have him present a staff development on how he sets up his home page and what he expects his students to do when they enter his homepage.

Overall, our progress is slow. I believe we have some of the best technology around. Our teachers all have smart boards and Eiki machines in their classrooms which I am sure every teacher in the state would love but now what we need is the time and people to teach us to explore what is out there. Once we explore and learn about what technology can do to improve our way of teaching than the sky is the limit.

Summary of the Pre-K Technology Applications TEKS

As a child begins their educational career, Pre-Kinder is probably the most important grade level for a child in Texas. The 2008 Texas Pr-Kindergarten Guidelines feature five very important domains that a child needs and will use throughout elementary, middle school and high school but most importantly in college and in the real world. The five domains are: Social and Emotional Development, Language and Communication, Emergent Literacy: Reading, Emergent Literacy: Writing, and Mathematics. These are the five basic domains a child will hopefully take with them as they go from one grade level to another.

After reading about a spiral curriculum, I have come to the conclusion that it is when a teacher teaches or exposes a student about a certain topic for a short period of time and then brings is up again a few weeks or months later or even a year later. If the student does not understand or pick up the topic the first time, then maybe he will understand it when it is brought up a later time. Reading over the Technology Applications TEKS (K-12), one example of spiraling curriculum are in Grades 3-5 and Grades 6-8. In the Grades 6-8 TEKS, the students build on the Grades 3-5 knowledge and skills. The students continue to demonstrate keyboarding proficiency in technique and posture while building speed. A second example of spiraling curriculum is from Grades K-2 and Grades 3-5. In Grades K-2, students learn the basic skills of keyboarding and inputting information; they use technology to access information and make projects. In Grades 3-5, the students take what they learned in Grades K-2 and expand on it by using the technology to solve problems and using the correct keyboarding techniques.

Overall if the student does not learn keyboarding that well in the 1st Grade, then maybe he or she will pick it up better when he or she is the 2nd or 3rd Grade. The student might not have picked up keyboarding too well in the 1st Grade but he or she will know the basics so that when he or she is in the 2nd and 3rd Grade keyboarding will become a bit easier and understandable. There has been time that I am discussing adjectives in my theatre class because I want them to use them when describing a certain character in a play. There are times when I get the question "What is an adjective?" so I tell them that they should have learned what an adjective was when they were in elementary but I go ahead and give them the definition and refresh their minds. Most of the time, refreshing our students' minds is all a spiral curriculum does. We teach it once and then come back to it later.

Responses and Reflections - Two Technology Assessments

After taking the Requisite Technology Skills Assessment and the Teacher SETDA survey, I was a bit shocked at the results. The results of the two assessment have shown and proven to me that I am not a technology guru. First of all, this was the first time that I had ever placed my eyes on the Technology Applications TEKS. I am a theatre arts teacher and you would think that I would know so much more about the technology world but I do not. What needs to happen is that I need to make sure and research the technology that is out there and use it to become a better educator but most importantly a better leader.

In the Requisite Technology Skills Assessment, I did well in the Domains of Foundations and Information Acquisition. Out of the eighteen Foundation Domain questions, I responded "yes" to fourteen and in the Information Acquisition Domain, I responded "yes" to eight of the ten questions. Those two domains deal with the basics of technology that we use everyday which are the use of the computer for the basics of writing memos, assignments and using the Internet. Once I got into the Domains of Solving Problems and Communication the number of "No" responses were larger than the "yes" responses. One of the main issues I have is that I do not know how to work with spreadsheet documents. I do not know anything about using formulas in a spreadsheet. I do not use spreadsheets in my classes. I use them for my own teaching purposes like attendance and grade book but they have already been formulated by another teacher. Under the Communication Domain, I have made posters for our play productions but they have not been as elaborate as I would want them to be because I have not learned to use some of the publishing software that is available.

After taking the SETDA Teacher Survey, I have learned that technology is becoming greater in our school and our district. Our school, like all schools in our district, has a technical coordinator that is in charge of all the technology aspects that are used throughout the schools and the district. The technology coordinator of our school sends us reports of how many times people got on our school's website. She gives us inservices on new technology the district is wanting us to use. We take different surveys every year like the Star Chart Survey. The SETDA Teacher Survey has made me realize that I am not using technology enough in my content area. I use it with my advanced competitive theatre art students but I do not use it with my regular classroom students. I know that all our content area teachers are in the computer labs constantly using the Internet and classroom software that will help the students learn more about the content area being taught. As I mentioned before, we are offered technology inservices but what is lacking is the follow through. Since I do not teach a main content area, technology inservices are not offered to us as much as the content area teachers. I know the inservices are out there and I know my principal will allow me to attend; I just need to make the time.

Overall, I agree with the results of the assessments. I need to change my ways when it comes to the use of technology. I have noticed that principals that have been around for a while and were teachers before the Internet are not as technology savey as the new principals coming in to the profession. I was surprised to see that this class was one of the classes we needed to take. I wish that back when I was taking my education classes to become a teacher, this kind of class would have been offered. All I can say is that it is never too late to learn. I am ready for the challenge!