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.
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Has anyone asked for that teacher with the great website to give a presentation?
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