Tuesday, February 21, 2012
Web Conference Reflection
This has been one of about 5 different web conferences I have experienced throughout my term here at Lamar. Due to technological difficulties, I was unable to attend and just read the chat script. That was interesting to me because I definitely had other questions after reading the chat. I found that most peoples' questions were not regarding our course but rather the entire internship/degree in general. It seems many people are confused about the vast array of requirements and where to go to meet these requirements. I was quite surprised at the cost of the ILD, being $600, this was definitely a big surprise to me. I found that others were surprised by this cost as well. Much of the conference was about resolving concerns about the LCE and other questions like this. We have received an email about where to find the LCE in blackboard and so some were confused, as I was, about where and when this needs to be done. Others were confused about the Tf20 requirements for the course and if we needed to submit to epic and tk20. There were also questions about our week 5 assignment, given that it changed at a fairly late date. However the web conferences are instrumental and are another example of things we could implement in our own teaching.
Tuesday, February 14, 2012
Monday, January 30, 2012
Opinion Piece on Long Range Technology Plan
I have chosen to analyze the area of Leadership Administration and Instructional Support for the Long-Range Plan for Technology 2006-2020. This area pertains to the development of leadership in schools and districts through technology. Leaders are expected to model the appropriate use of technology, provide resources (capital and otherwise) to their districts and champion the use of technology in their schools. Leaders are a major catalyst for this movement and as such, are expected to find areas which need technological improvement and put necessary support and resources in place to make this happen. Leaders are expected to make data based decisions while being innovative in their schools, provide effective professional development and budget appropriately among many other things. Progress, as was defined through the progress report conducted in 2010, has been positive. First, using the STaR Chart as an assessment tool, numbers in Developing Tech decreased by 5.2%, giving us positive feedback as schools are moving to Advanced Tech or Target Tech. This gives us every indication that things are moving in the correct direction. Resources are being provided, instructional technology leadership is occurring and schools are improving because of it. While districts are making improvements, many more are yet to be seen. Many districts have made the request for programs and services which will allow districts to effectively plan and assess student learning. All the Region Service Centers are providing various levels of service. A few examples are the following; Region 2 makes ongoing efforts to try to provide for this by researching different programs. Region 3 is championing interactive learning tools by providing them free of charge to districts. Region 4 is a major leader in this field doing everything from over 500 course reviews to developing web-based applications for educators. Region 7 has partnerships with software and hardware companies to keep costs down and build support for technology initiatives. My recommendations for improvement in Leadership Administration and Instructional Support are to put more focus in our leaders. Our leaders need to understand the importance of modeling the appropriate technology throughout their workday. Leading by example can be so effective with this type of initiative. I also think it is important to have ongoing professional development which has a component to provide support to teachers after they have learned the initial information. Often, I will not use technology because I forget all I learned in the professional development and don’t know how to access assistance. Also, leaders need to put effort and support into finding ways to implement technology into classrooms. For example, give instructional specialists within departments the charge of finding ways to implement technology and support teachers in doing so. The way a leader could support their instructional specialist is by giving them an extra planning period to handle this initiative and/or putting them in contact with the right places and people. Finally, it is important to have a network with other schools to know what they are doing, what methods are effective and ineffective and how to improve them.
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