The 21st Century Learner

Technology Integration Action Research Plan

Development of an organization chart integrating technology

Job Title	Role & Responsibilities
Superintendent	1.To look at incoming and outgoing data over technology used by teachers and students. 2.To help determine what new technology needs to be integrated and the professional development that needs to go with it. 3. To help school board and campuses come to an agreement when creating the district and campus level Technology Plan 4. To look at and aide in creating technology budget based on data received from campuses, school board, and the State.
Technology Director	1.To look into new technology that can be used in the classroom by the teachers and students 2.To buy existing technology for classroom use 3.To ensure that technology is installed correctly for classroom use. 4.To create, co-create, and implement professional developments over technology, new and used, for teachers to better understand the technology’s full capabilities for classroom use.
Curriculum Director	1.To aide in creating professional developments over technology, new and used, for teachers to better understand the technology’s full capabilities for classroom use. 2.To provide resources, both technological and old school, for teachers and students to use in the classroom based on content being taught.
Principal: needs to observe and evaluate what his/her campus instructors are doing within the classroom, reporting back his/her results to Central office. Plus he/she needs to communicate effectively with campus expectations for faculty given by Central office.	1.To look at lesson plans, data received from testings, and evaluate technology being used. 2.To ensure that teachers are implementing the use of technology in the classroom on a regular basis through class observations 3.To create a report of technology needed for campus based on student & teacher need, as well as creating a technology budget for the campus.
Assistant Principal	1.To assist the principal in his role and responsibilities
Certified Classroom Teachers	1.To follow content TEKS, and technology plans from the State and Federal Government. 2. To create lessons that allow for students to use and master technology. 3. To teach students how to use sed technology correctly and ethically.
Librarian	1.To aide the students in using various technologies.
Certified Special Edu. Teachers	1.To help struggling students, identified as special edu, with how to use technology per classroom instruction and as a useful tool for their own learning.
Classroom Aides	1.To help any struggling student with how to use technology per classroom instruction and as a useful tool for their own learning.

Professional Development Planning

1. Create a needs assessment survey given to all faculty members to see what they need help in learning how to use specific technologies for their classrooms.

2. Based on Needs Survey, create a professional developments, both in person sessions and online sessions, for those technologies identified as needing help in order to use effectively in the classroom.

· Create beginning, intermediate, and advanced level PD’s to ensure all levels are being addressed for differentiated learning amongst the teachers.

3. Create and implement small group PD’s over how to use the Campus website effectively in the classroom as a tool for holding students accountable to their own learning and as a means to communicate with the parents.

4. Create and provide a more in-depth and continued PD pertaining to the analysis of specific data and how it relates to overall class development and student development.

· Should include data analysis using TELPAS results, TAKS results, Gradebook, Attendance, and other various but pertinent data from resources are our hands.

5. Create and provide long term PD support with an online aspect for specific technologies that are used in the classroom regularly and periodically.

6. Have teachers come up on a specific date and showcase the technology they use in class and how they use it to other faculty members.

Evaluation Planning for Action Plan

1. Needs survey for technology professional developments is one assessment tool to be used at the beginning and ending of every school year.

2. Compare sign-up’s sheet for technology specific PD’s to the sign-in sheets the day of PD’s.

3. Principals & Assistant Principal monthly to weekly classroom observations to double check that technology is actually being used in the classroom by both instructor and student.

4. Lesson plans should include what technology is included in lesson.

5. Get monthly report on who uses Campus Website, and report to both campus faculty members as well as central office.

6. For all PD’s, have faculty fill out two surveys, one upon entering to gage teacher awareness of technology covered in PD; and second one upon leaving PD to gage how comfortable teacher feels implementing this piece of technology in the classroom after PD.

7. Create a teacher and student survey for the end of the year, content should include what technology was used by instructor and student most often, how comfortable they each feel using this technology, and what technology do they still feel they need more practice with or help learning how to use.

Royal High School's STaR Chart Results

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National Education & Technology Plan

In the National Educational Technology Plan, it discusses how to transform American education using technology efficiently and cost effectively in these down-trodden economic times. It doesn’t actually come out and tell the districts how to use the technology around us cost-effectively, just that it can and should be used in such a manner. I agree that technology needs to be used more, but more so by the students, and less by the teachers. I’m not quite sure that I’m totally on board with personalizing each individual’s learning experience within the classroom setting, as I have over 100 students and only 45minutes to engage them in the learning process. In order to do as this plan suggests, I believe there needs to be a major overhaul on how our society sets up the academic calendar and day. I know from experience that creating 5 lessons for one class period, which is expected for differentiation purposes, is pretty much impossible to do every day 6 times a day. So, I’m guessing 100 different lessons to create is not going to happen; I sound cynical, well I am. At this point, most teachers are over worked and very much under appreciated, I know in my district doing a fantastic job, creating an engaging lesson, and doing your job doesn’t count for much. There are plenty who do nothing, and still have the same evaluation as I do; it’s enough to make me want to quit this profession.

However, I digress, in this particular plan it discusses how people learn, how we should teach, how we should assess, the infrastructure needed, and lastly, the concept of productivity. Of course, it’s goals and recommendations are as vague in guidance as can be.

The goals of this plan are:

1. Learning

“All learners will have engaging and empowering learning experiences both in and outside of

school that prepare them to be active, creative, knowledgeable, and ethical participants in

our globally networked society” (10).

2. Assessment

“Our education system at all levels will leverage the power of technology to measure what

matters and use assessment data for continuous improvement” (10).

3. Teaching

“Professional educators will be supported individually and in teams by technology that

connects them to data, content, resources, expertise, and learning experiences that enable

and inspire more effective teaching for all learners” (3).

4. Infrastructure

“All students and educators will have access to a comprehensive infrastructure for learning

when and where they need it” (11).

5. Productivity

“Our education system at all levels will redesign processes and structures to take advantage

of the power of technology to improve learning outcomes while making more efficient use of

time, money, and staff” (12).

For it’s recommendations, starting with the “learning goal,” it recommends that the states, districts, and teachers, redesign their curriculum to look more like the real world in the 21st century using technology as a means to engage, guide, and develop self-reflective, motivated, ethical, and life-long learners.

Recommendations for “Assessment” are something that I could get behind. I have never thought that one standardized test can measure what a student has learned, and this plan’s first recommendation is to do just that. It says, “ Design, develop, and adopt assessments that give students, educators, and other

stakeholders timely and actionable feedback about student learning to improve achievement

and instructional practices” (10). It furthers discusses the idea of using technology as a tool for us to better our assessment materials, assessments, etc. It disgusts me to see some teachers only teaching to the TAKS test this day in age, however it does happen. Some ideas that are given as a means for possible research into feasible assessments are gaming technology, virtual worlds, simulations (like SimCity), collaboration environments (like wikis). And of course, us educators need a way to analyze the assessments that follows privacy laws, but still uses technology to disperse the information to the student and parents.

“Teaching” recommendations are easily briefed up, like students, we educators should use the technology as a means to share and connect with fellow educators to ensure that the curriculum taught is relevant to today’s learners. I feel that the “Infrastructure” and the “Productivity” are a little self explanatory. Basically the plan wants every student and teacher to have access to all necessary resources and technologies needed round the clock. One major issue with this is, I work in a very low socio-economic area, where most of my students don’t have computers, or if they do then they don’t have internet capability. I worry that teachers will begin to rely too heavily on technology and these students will be left behind because they don’t have the same silver-spoon as others. And with “Productivity,” the plan wants the local districts to come up with a common vision that reflects the communities goals whilst still complying with the Federal plan.

SAVE ME!!! Campus Leaders Need to Step Up & Help All Learners Keep Up w/ Technology

“Help me!!! I don’t know how to use this new software or technology!!!” This is an almost daily shriek from some on my campus, yet my administrators seem deaf to it. Don’t get me wrong, my administrators are great listeners in the moment, but the follow through seems to be some what lacking.

While we educators are getting used to new trends and fads coming at us every which way, people, and by people I mean administrators, need to realize that when massive new software is thrust upon us it is unrealistic to expect mastering of the new technology in less than a week with less than an hour’s training over the technology/software. Yes, that did happen in my district. Now come to find out, after many stressful nights and days, attempting to finish what was expected of us, we learned that they never expected us to master it within sed deadline.

According to the Texas Long Range Plan for Technology, 2006-2020: Teaching and Learning; Educator Preparation and Development; Leadership, Administration and Instructional Support; or Infrastructure for Technology, one of the administrator’s major roles is to, “provide opportunities for sustained, relevant and timely staff development…” (30). When in a leadership position, one must realize that the needs of the learners, be they the educators or the students, are vast and varying. One must act like a leader and lead his/her campus every day by example. I hear my administrators say that on a regular basis, yet they have fallen short on their end when it comes to leading by example.

In this technology driven world, the state of Texas, the Federal government, the global community, all realize the importance of using technology as a tool for engaging our students in the learning process. It is vitally important that the leaders of every school campus create a shared vision, using students, parents, teachers, staff members, community members, etc., for how the district will embark on meeting the demands of the ever changing world of technology and still meeting the mandated requirements by state and federal law. We all believe that it takes a village to raise a child, so let’s use that village when coming up with our vision and plan for technology use within our schools, it can only help us all understand the importance of continuing our education after high school. The administrator/leader also has the added stress of mapping out a budget, and monitoring it as well as the vision and plan that has been created and adopted by all within the community. The administrator must not just provide opportunities for their staff to keep up to date, but must make sure the environment of the school is conducive to keeping up with the evolving technology, and that students have access to the resources they need. Lastly, since it is expected of teachers to use data effectively in their lesson planning, it must also be used by administrators to review what the teachers need help with, further impacting more of what the students will learn and master.

My advice, I leave you with… LISTEN UP!!! Listen to your faculty, they need your help, just as much as the students need our help!