Star Chart
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Wednesday, November 25, 2009
Long Range Plan
The Texas Campus STaR Chart was developed around four key areas of the Long-Range Plan for Technology, 2006-2020. These four areas are Teaching and Learning, Educator Preparation and Development, Leadership, Administration and Instructional Support and Infrastructure for Technology. The STaR Chart survey assists school districts and schools for future technology plans and staff development.
In today’s blog, I would like to focus on one area of the Texas Campus STaR Chart which is the Teaching and Learning area. I chose this area because my current school, Sartartia Middle School, is showing great improvements in this area over the last couple of years. According to the statewide summary for this key area, the target is a classroom where “the teacher serves as the facilitator, mentor, and co-learner. Students have on-demand access to all appropriate technologies to complete activities that have been seamlessly integrated into all core content areas.” It also includes meeting all the Technology TEKS.
When our school is compared to the rest of the state, we are doing quite well toward our target. Currently, across the state the 70% of the districts are in the developing stage. Our school is at the advanced stage. We were making major progress during 2006-07 by already being at the advanced stage. Then, we got a new IT person on our campus with very little experience compared to our previous highly experienced and enthusiastic IT. During the first year of having a new IT, our school had a dramatic drop in the use of technology among our teachers and students resulting in a drop to the developing stage. However, during the 2008-09 school year we bounced back and moved back into the advancing stage. We continue to see technology being incorporated into the regular lesson plans in all subject areas. We have computer labs throughout our school that must be reserved several months in advance. There is hardly a day that goes by that the computer lab is not being used. Although it is very exciting to watch the students show off all the fun things they are doing in class with technology, it is more exciting to see teachers who were once afraid to use technology get excited about it too!
To continue to move toward our Target, we must continue to train the teachers with a variety of lessons that technology has to offer. We also need to make sure that technology tools are available to use throughout the school. With the increasing use of the computer labs, we may need to look at finding ways to make more labs available to teachers. Our school will be ten years old next year. That is the same age as our computers. We need to update them because we are starting to see many problems with the use. Again, to encourage the use of technology, we must stay up with the times and make sure we have all available technology tools.
In today’s blog, I would like to focus on one area of the Texas Campus STaR Chart which is the Teaching and Learning area. I chose this area because my current school, Sartartia Middle School, is showing great improvements in this area over the last couple of years. According to the statewide summary for this key area, the target is a classroom where “the teacher serves as the facilitator, mentor, and co-learner. Students have on-demand access to all appropriate technologies to complete activities that have been seamlessly integrated into all core content areas.” It also includes meeting all the Technology TEKS.
When our school is compared to the rest of the state, we are doing quite well toward our target. Currently, across the state the 70% of the districts are in the developing stage. Our school is at the advanced stage. We were making major progress during 2006-07 by already being at the advanced stage. Then, we got a new IT person on our campus with very little experience compared to our previous highly experienced and enthusiastic IT. During the first year of having a new IT, our school had a dramatic drop in the use of technology among our teachers and students resulting in a drop to the developing stage. However, during the 2008-09 school year we bounced back and moved back into the advancing stage. We continue to see technology being incorporated into the regular lesson plans in all subject areas. We have computer labs throughout our school that must be reserved several months in advance. There is hardly a day that goes by that the computer lab is not being used. Although it is very exciting to watch the students show off all the fun things they are doing in class with technology, it is more exciting to see teachers who were once afraid to use technology get excited about it too!
To continue to move toward our Target, we must continue to train the teachers with a variety of lessons that technology has to offer. We also need to make sure that technology tools are available to use throughout the school. With the increasing use of the computer labs, we may need to look at finding ways to make more labs available to teachers. Our school will be ten years old next year. That is the same age as our computers. We need to update them because we are starting to see many problems with the use. Again, to encourage the use of technology, we must stay up with the times and make sure we have all available technology tools.
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Pre-K Technology Application TEKS
I guess I always knew that TEKS existed for technology. I just never actually saw them...or at least took the time to look at them. I am amazed at how many there are to choose from. Our campus doesn't tell a subject or grade level what needs to be taught. It is basically left up to the teacher to choose whether or not they incorporate some form of technology in their curriculum.
I have seen some spiraling of technology applications in our middle school. It is through the use of Excel and Power Point. Students started learning how to use these programs in 6th...and maybe even in elementary school. As they begin using them in 7th grade, they begin to "try-out" new things within the programs. For example, they begin to try using a variety of backgrounds, fonts and templates within one presentation. The presentation ends up not being very easy on the eyes. Then, when they get into 8th grade, they begin to learn the tricks and tips of the presentation to make it viewer friendly. The backgrounds and fonts are no longer a distraction. It is through this practice year after year that allows the students to continue to learn news ways of using technology.
I have seen some spiraling of technology applications in our middle school. It is through the use of Excel and Power Point. Students started learning how to use these programs in 6th...and maybe even in elementary school. As they begin using them in 7th grade, they begin to "try-out" new things within the programs. For example, they begin to try using a variety of backgrounds, fonts and templates within one presentation. The presentation ends up not being very easy on the eyes. Then, when they get into 8th grade, they begin to learn the tricks and tips of the presentation to make it viewer friendly. The backgrounds and fonts are no longer a distraction. It is through this practice year after year that allows the students to continue to learn news ways of using technology.
Vision 2020 - Big Plan!!
Wow! What a plan and the vision is that it will be complete by 2020. I don't know if I share that vision. When reading the purpose of the plan, I do believe in what it wants to accomplish. I just don't believe we are going to accomplish it. For one reason, I don't think we will be able to fund it. I work in one of the largest districts in Texas. We are making so many budget cuts. How will they be able to pay for all the new required technology. Another reason I don't believe we will accomplish the vision is because we are working toward a vision that will no longer be important in a few years. The reason it won't be important is because we will need to make a new vision to keep up with the quickly changing digital world. The technology I bought today is already a dinosaur before I can unpack it out of the box.
The biggest need on our campus is embedded professional development. We are asking our teachers to incorporate technology in their lessons yet they don't know how to do this or to use the technology. We need to find a way to catch our teachers up with the knowledge our students already know when they walk in the door. It is going to be tough to know more than our students when it comes to technology.
The biggest need on our campus is embedded professional development. We are asking our teachers to incorporate technology in their lessons yet they don't know how to do this or to use the technology. We need to find a way to catch our teachers up with the knowledge our students already know when they walk in the door. It is going to be tough to know more than our students when it comes to technology.
Technology Skills Assessment
Dinosaur. That is what I am. I started teaching when computers weren’t in schools. I remember learning how to use a Radio Shack Tandy computer in college. Technology is changing quickly. Just look at cell phones. Cell phone plans are set up to get an upgrade within a couple of years of the initiation of the contract. Yet, we will spend hundreds of dollars to get the latest and greatest phone before the available upgrade.
Snail. That is what technology is in schools. Even though we know how quickly technology is advancing, schools are not able to keep up. After completing the two surveys, the Technology Applications Inventory and the SETDA, I have concluded that our school is in the very beginning stage of implementing technology.
In the Technology Application Inventory, I answered “Yes” to 80% of the questions. This was an inventory of my knowledge and use of technology. The SETDA survey was about where my school was in terms of technology use. We are an exemplary campus for our TAKS rating. But, if we were to get rated on our technology use, we should be unacceptable. The computers in our building are the same computers that were installed when the school opened its doors for the first time in 2001. Students do have access to computers throughout the building. We do have three computer labs with 30 student computers as well as 30 additional computers in the library. Each classroom has three student computers and one teacher computer. The science classrooms have five student computers and one teacher computer. But, it makes me very sad to hear a teacher say that the computers in their classroom are rarely if ever turned on. We have Internet and intranet access but due to reasons unknown our district server is sometimes slow and doesn’t work at all. It can be very frustrating. But, my opinion of our biggest technology problem is the lack of professional development for teachers. Our teachers are afraid of technology because they don’t know how to use it or integrate it into their classroom. We have a long way to go but we better go fast because our current students, the digital immigrants, love and need the technology. Just look at how addicted everyone is to Facebook.
Snail. That is what technology is in schools. Even though we know how quickly technology is advancing, schools are not able to keep up. After completing the two surveys, the Technology Applications Inventory and the SETDA, I have concluded that our school is in the very beginning stage of implementing technology.
In the Technology Application Inventory, I answered “Yes” to 80% of the questions. This was an inventory of my knowledge and use of technology. The SETDA survey was about where my school was in terms of technology use. We are an exemplary campus for our TAKS rating. But, if we were to get rated on our technology use, we should be unacceptable. The computers in our building are the same computers that were installed when the school opened its doors for the first time in 2001. Students do have access to computers throughout the building. We do have three computer labs with 30 student computers as well as 30 additional computers in the library. Each classroom has three student computers and one teacher computer. The science classrooms have five student computers and one teacher computer. But, it makes me very sad to hear a teacher say that the computers in their classroom are rarely if ever turned on. We have Internet and intranet access but due to reasons unknown our district server is sometimes slow and doesn’t work at all. It can be very frustrating. But, my opinion of our biggest technology problem is the lack of professional development for teachers. Our teachers are afraid of technology because they don’t know how to use it or integrate it into their classroom. We have a long way to go but we better go fast because our current students, the digital immigrants, love and need the technology. Just look at how addicted everyone is to Facebook.
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