STaR Chart Power Point Presentation

View my STaR Chart power-point presentation by clicking HERE.

A Peek at the National Educational Technology Plan

I want to take a quick look at the "National Education Technology Plan" drafted by the Office of Educational Technology which is a part of the Department of Education. This plan was drafted in March of 2010 and is available for all to read at http://www.ed.gov/sites/default/files/NETP-2010-final-report.pdf. The goals of this plan as set forth by our present presidential administration are; (1) raise the proportion of college graduates from 39% to 60% and (2) close the achievement gap so that all students graduate from high school ready for college. The plan is comprised of five areas of concern; learning, assessment, teaching, infrastructure, and productivity. They are based in the "model of 21st century learning." Their are "Grand Challenge Problems" that the Department of Education realizes need to be addressed.
The plan calls for reforms to education on many levels and is very progressive. As ambitious as the plan is I hope that it does not override the everyday life of education. Part of the problem I perceive will be the funding of these changes and where those funds will come from. How will we help those under-performing campuses meet the needs of there students and have those students college ready without funds? How do we get educators to buy into this way of educational life? How do we encourage and instill in those students the love of learning when they are not getting their basic needs met? Technology can be one of the keys to this needed reform to help produce the life-long learners we want and need in our world. It is a way of life that I live in daily and will keep on trying to help others buy into this way of life. Hopefully I can be a small part of the big plan.

Technology, How are we doing so far?

How are we doing according to the 2010 Progress Report on the Long-Range Plan for Technology,

2006-2020? I waded into this 152 page document not really knowing what to expect. There is quite a bit of information to take in, ponder on and reflect about here. What I have found is several things that I knew very little about until now. I had only heard small bits of information on the different grants like; the Vision 2020 Grant, The Target Tech in Texas (T3) Collaborative Grant, the Connections grant and the Professional Development for Schools, Teachers, Administrators and Regions (STAR) Grant. All of these make funds available to meet the needs of our technology issues in Texas. I also had not heard much about all the pilot programs like; the Technology Literacy Assessment Pilot, the Technology Immersion Pilots and the Online Tutoring Pilot. These programs help to meet the needs of students in meeting their needs and helping them to be successful using technology in their educational lives. It speaks to how all these parts fit into the four key areas: teaching and learning; educator preparation and development; leadership , administration, and instructional support; and infrastructure. The infrastructure was an area that I thought would be a tough one to fulfill but I was surprised to see the high percentage of broadband availability to households. I knew a little about the Computer Lending Pilot Program as my campus has been on the receiving end of refurbished computers for our students supplied by the state. The report seems to show that there is progress being made in all the areas and more advanced tech ratings as the days go by. So that leads to my next discussion of the National Educational Technology Plan.

What is Leadership to do in a 21st Century Technological World?

The School Technology and Readiness Chart, STaR Chart, is a great tool for a local campus to help understand where they are technologically. I have been looking at the area of Leadership, Administration and Instructional Support as it applied to our campus technology because I considered it to be a strong point for our campus. What I found was some very strong areas and some areas in need of improvement. Our campus ranks right along with the majority of campuses in this area where 55 % (4444 of 8087) of all reporting campuses are at the Advanced Tech level of progress. This level is described as having several apparent components. First, there is board approval of our campus technology plan and that our superintendent supports the plan. Our school board and central administration do a good job in support of our individual campuses. Secondly, we do meet the 1 technical support staff for every 500 computers in our district with 1640 computers and 4 members on our technical support staff. We also have a full-time district technology director. Not only that but it looks like this year our campus technology representatives will not have any classroom responsibilities but will be our local technology experts. This is a big breakthrough for each campus and they should be able to help us in several of our technology needs. Third, we do have a technology allotment, with some grants and local funding. This is one part of this area, budget, that we are rated early tech with a 1. This area is a tough one which I believe we should be looking for alternative ways to meet our technological needs. Some of our teachers have done so on an independent basis since we have no real community stakeholders to reach out to in this area. Our campus is located in a small rural community roughly 8 miles from our central office and no large businesses to reach out to. This is something we will need to delve into to help take up the shortfall we see in our local budget. The strongest part of this area of leadership is the leadership and vision realm. Our administrative staff does a great job in providing data, modeling how to use the data, and making time for us to disaggregate the data and collaborate over what the data points to. Well, enough of this for now and next on the agenda is a look at the progress report of the Long-Range Plan for Technology. I wonder how we have done so far.