EDLD 5352 Course Reflection

At the start of this course I had envisioned gaining more knowledge on the specific requirements mandated by law that apply to technology integration. I without a doubt did achieve this outcome. I learned about the Texas Long Range Plan for Technology that I previously was unaware of. I also learned a great deal about the challenges that face full technology integration. Some of these challenges include budgeting, unwillingness to change, and students who do not have the same opportunities as others to access technology outside of school. This course without a doubt opened my eyes to many things that I had previously been unaware of.

I definitely feel that what I learned is relevant to what I am doing in school right now. I do not see how it could not be. With the way today's society is going any coursework that emphasizes technology use in the school is going to be practical knowledge that any educator would want to take advantage of. I am actually using ideas from the readings to change my approach to using technology in the classroom. For example, I now allow my students more random access to assignments rather than me leading them through step by step. This alone has increased student engagement in my classroom tenfold.

As far as outcomes I did not achieve were differing ideas and strategies for how to use technology for course-specific instruction. I would have liked to have seen more of that. I am admittedly not the most creative person in the world, and I feel like if I could have been given more course-specific technology integrated strategies that I could use in my own classroom that I would have benefitted even more from this course. That is really it in terms of what I did not achieve in this course. I feel that if I could have achieved this then I could have collaborated with my colleagues to give them ideas as well that they could try out in their own classrooms and courses.

For the most part I was successful in carrying out my course assignments. The majority of the assignments were very straightforward and I knew what was expected of me. The only thing that threw me off was what was expected during the week three assignment. I would have liked to have seen more modeling of this particular assignment. Thankfully I had other teachers in my district enrolled in the same course, and we put our heads together to try and dissect exactly what it was that we were supposed to do. Perhaps it was even planned to make that assignment vague to increase the need for collaboration among our peers. If that is what the plan was the it worked.

The biggest thing I learned about myself is that I am not as "with it" as I thought I was. I did not realize how easy it is to publish things on the internet, as well as learning all of the terminology. Even this blog for example, before this course I thought a person had to be a computer guru to create a blog. I quickly learned that it is really quite simple and that I was able to do it in about five minutes with the little tech savvy that I have. I still keep an open attitude toward technology integration. As educators we cannot hide from technology in the classroom, we need to embrace it if we are to be successful in getting through to our students in the 21st century.

Blogs can be a great resource for education as we head into the 21st century. That is another thing that I have learned from this course. Heading into next school year, I am going to start out by creating a blog as a tool to communicate with parents about upcoming assignments and tests. I would also like to create a blog where my students can collaborate with one another on assignments that I have given. I feel that using this as a tool will increase learner engagement as well as improving scores. I understand that technology use does not always work the first time, but give me a short trial by fire period, and I feel like I can figure it out.

My biggest concern with blogs and blogging in education is safety. This course opened my eyes to the problem of cyber bullying and online predators. I would want to shelter my students from this as much as possible. I feel I could do this if I could use my blogging site behind some type of district firewall. Then the problem would become accessibility. Not all of my students have access to the internet when they leave school. I would not want to put them at a disadvantage because of something that they have no control over. As big of a tool as blogging could be, there are still several problems that could hinder it from reaching its potential.

As stated before I am going to start out next school year by communicating with my stakeholders through a blog. I will use this blog to post upcoming assignments, tests, and quizzes. I would also like to set up an open forum type of discussion board that I could check to get a feel for the concerns that parents might have. As an administrator I could use this same open forum concept to test the waters on a new initiative to get a feel for what the faculty feels about an upcoming change. The positives to using technology are endless, we just need to find a way to get around the barriers that are preventing full technology integration in our classrooms.

2008-2009 CRMS STaR Chart Data

STaR Chart

2008-2009 CRMS STaR Chart Data

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Infrastructure for Technology (Week 2)

As today's society advances more and more into the use of technology, it becomes more and more evident that the use of technology needs to become a daily part of school life for students. The Texas Long Range Plan for Technology is a method to ensure the advancement of technology standards in the classroom that are to be completed by the year 2020. It requires that students become technology literate by the end of eighth grade.

In order to accomplish this our school infrastructure for technology must remain updated and efficient. The infrastructure is the lifeblood that ensures the movement toward full technology integration in the classroom. My campus does a great job of hiring quality technology specialists that are always available to answer technology related questions, as well as keeping our software up to date. This is a highly necessary part of the infrastructure. Without highly qualified technology personnel, the district cannot take steps forward in any of the other categories. I would like to see technology personnel be given professional status, as well as be compensated as if they were another administrator with similar professional development responsibilities.

The Campus Statewide summary data in the area of infrastructure shows that 57% of all campuses in Texas are in the advanced classification of infrastructure. At this stage there is web-based learning available as well as very small numbers of students to each computer, and there is a shared use of other resources. My campus currently lies in this classification as well, and has taken strides each year toward reaching the target classification in the area of infrastructure.

In conclusion as our society advances into a deeper reliance on the use of everyday technology to get things done new jobs are opening up. There are jobs today that did not exist ten years ago due to the influence of advancing new technologies. Ten years from now, who knows? It is our job as educators to prepare students to be technology literate as they set off into an information rich, constantly changing technological world. This begins in our schools, and quality infrastructure for technology is where it all begins.

Pre-K TEKS

• The Pre-K TEKS for Technology Application was developed to help children get a jump start on the use of technology. The Pre-K TEKS have set guidelines that fall into the categories of social and emotional development, language and communication, emergent literacy: reading, emergent literacy: writing, and mathematics. Each of these categories possess their own subcategories for how to follow the guidelines, as well as suggested strategies.
• These TEKS lay the foundation for student performance in future grades by ensuring that all students have the same opportunity and accessibility to technology as a learning tool. The TEKS suggests activities that will allow students to develop the basic skills needed to communicate and problem solve using technological methods. Ensuring this exposure technology to all Pre-K students is invaluable and will prepare students for what is to come as they progress towards higher levels of learning.
• I would describe a spiraling or scaffolding curriculum as a method of organization. In this organization the experiences that will be had by students are categorized and placed into a specific order of learning. It is used to ensure prior knowledge of a certain topic is in place before building off of it and moving on to something else. This type of curriculum is aligned in a way where a student develops basic skills first and then gradually progresses onto higher skills.
• One example of this in the TEKS is in the technology applications area of communication. This scaffolding takes place in the early stages where students begin simply by learning basic keyboarding skills and become proficient in typing. Building off of this skill students begin using word processing software to communicate. From here students can learn how to use differing multimedia outlets to communicate at a high level. All of this is scaffolded from the simple skills of learning to type all the way up to be able to use different types of media to express ideas, share information, and communicate data effectively.
  

Long Range Plan

The 21st century student is one who is faced with an ever changing environment. They have access to technology at their fingertips, and prefer technology rather than the traditional methods of gathering information. In order to respond to this change in society teachers must be able to get through to their students through different methods than once used in the past. Teachers today must have available technology resources and professional development.
The Long Range Plan has set goals for ensuring that all students are technology literate by the end of the eight grade. This means that changes must be made in budgeting for technology resources, as well as professional development that is made available. Teachers need constant updating of strategies that can be used in their classroom in order reach their students.
Data shows that the use of technology in the classroom improves learner engagement. A survey also states that the majority of teachers feel that technology in the classroom has a positive impact on student learning. Is this not our goal? I feel these findings should urge teachers and campus leaders to work together to continue finding ways to integrate technology to improve learning in the classroom.
Using this new knowledge I want to make myself available to teachers who may have questioned the importance of using technology. I am also going to find more ways to incorporate technology in my own classroom. I would like to sit down also with my colleagues and brainstorm together on different lesson plans that can go across curriculum and integrate the use of technology.

Reflections for week 1

Upon completion of the three self assessments: Technology Applications Inventory, Sedta Survey, and The Rubric for Administrative Technology Use I learned a great deal about where I stood in terms of my knowledge of how technology should be used in the 21st century classroom. Upon completion of the Technology Applications Inventory Survey I found that my strengths lay in the Foundations Domain. These are skills and knowledge pertaining to knowing the differences between operating systems, as well as being able to distinguish between different document formats. My weakness in this survey lay in the Domain area of Communication. This especially applies to communication when it comes to publishing. I do not use publishing software in the classroom or personally. This would be an area that I could seek to improve in. One big weakness that I would notice on my campus as a campus administrator would be that there seems to be no method of ensuring that all students have equal access to technology outside of school. I think administrators seem to assume that all students have this luxury, but in reality there are always some who do not.
I do agree with the information I received upon completion of these surveys. They allowed me see my technological strengths as well as areas for improvement. They also gave me the opportunity to look at things from the perspective of a campus leader. This allowed me to see that there is a need to be able to know that students have equal access to technology outside of the classroom. If not I feel that these students be given certain accommodations to complete assignments that require the use of technology.