What's Up for July?

What's Up for July?

Hot New Rover Wheels!

Hot New Rover Wheels!

Mars Rovers Talk Via Audio Files

Mars Rovers Talk Via Audio Files

Summary & Reflection of NETP Draft

Summary and Reflection of the National Educational Technology Plan
Summary:
The National Education Technology Plan (NETP) was released in the form of a draft on March 5, 2010 in response to a national agenda for education improvement and reform. This document is a declaration to the imperative integration of technology into the national education system. The plan prioritizes two main goals: (1) raise the proportion of college graduates, and (2) close the achievement gap among students of different race, income, or neighborhood. The document clearly states that “just as technology is a 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.”
Five fundamental areas are presented with goals and recommendations for states, districts, the federal government, and other stakeholders in our education system that addresses learning, assessment, teaching, infrastructure, and productivity.
Learning should be personalized and focused on relevant/real-world knowledge and facilitated and supported by technology available to all students
Teaching should shift to a model of “connected teaching” in which educators have continuous support and access to resources, data, and critical collaborative dialogue via technological avenues
Assessment should be technology-based applications that provide immediate insight into the active learning process of a student
Infrastructure should be a continuous effort to provide and sustain the availability of technology to all students and educators
Productivity combines the learning, teaching, assessment, and infrastructure into a systemic initiative to attain the indicated goals

Reflection:
The experience of reading and analyzing this document has provided me an opportunity to view efforts above and beyond a familiar state level of educational reform. A clear message of needed change and a strong sense of urgency of the magnitude of the importance of technology into learning, teaching, and assessment resonate in my daily thoughts as I work with teachers to improve student achievement in science.

Summary of Huntsville ISD Technology Plan

Summary of Huntsville ISD Technology Plan
The Huntsville ISD Technology Plan is a very comprehensive document that begins with a declaration of what technology is, what technology should do, and finally, how technology will be embraced by all stakeholders in the organization. This clarification ensures that all readers of the document, and more importantly those involved in implementing the plan, have a clear understanding and a common definition from which to begin implementation of the plan.
The goals of this plan are noble in effort and clear in design. First and foremost, is the recurring theme throughout all educational initiatives, to increase student achievement. Hunstville ISD however, added an additional component to this resolute goal, to narrow the gap between all subgroup populations. This to me adds a fundamental issue of equality intended to be directly addressed through technological integration.
Strategies included in the technology plan are as follows:
Technology Acquisition Plan (TAP) was developed to address teacher technology competencies
Administrative Directives to Teachers to ADD Technology into Classroom Instruction
Technology Trainings for All New Equipment Purchased
Availability/Employment of Five Instructional Technologist
A significant portion of this plan is dedicated to specifying and clarifying the critical need for effective and sustained professional development for administrators, teachers, and staff members. Strategies for professional development include:
Staff Development is Ongoing and Systematic
All staff members are provided with technology trainings that promote progress from functional computer use to advance levels of proficiency
Trainings and Workshops will include examples of model lessons that demonstrate integration of technology in the content areas
The Technology Director will be responsible for the evaluation of the progress of this plan that will include formative and summative assessments that will be communicated to the Superintendent at mid-year and at the end of the budget year.
Budget resources include:
· Software is purchased at the campus level through site-based budgeting procedures
· Teaching and Learning
· Educator Preparation and Development
· Administrative and Support Services
· Infrastructure for Technology
Ongoing evaluation will be formative assessments that ask the following questions:
Are we meeting our defined objective?
Are the activities listed in the plan adequate to meet the objectives?
What changes should be made in the technology plan?

• Technology Assessment of Teachers and Students
  I believe assessment to be a “good thing.” Formative and summative assessments can be a critical aspect of any program, not only to set a base-line of performance level, but to also implement attainable goals over a specified period of time. This applies seamlessly to teacher and student proficiencies in technology. To achieve the greatest impact/results, we must assess where the teachers and students are with respect to technology skill levels and standards that have been designed to establish clear expectations of a shared vision of the stakeholders. Once an initial assessment has been administered, the data can be used to scaffold teachers and students to reach the indicated goals in the standards.
  Within any system there are pros and cons. Assessment of teachers and students technology skill levels is no different. The benefits that can result from this assessment would include the following:
  · Ability to Establish a Base-line of Performance (What do they know?)
  · Ability to Set Realistic Goals Based on Base-line Performance (How far can we take them this year?)
  · Ability to Address Specific Areas of Concern Determined from the Assessment (Where are they struggling?)
  · Ability to Identify Specific Areas of Strengths and Weaknesses
  
  Some disadvantages of assessing teacher and student technology skill level would include the following:
  Inability to Identify Causes of Deficiencies
  Accuracy of Participant Responses
  May Lead to Unrealistic Expectations