Action Plan

Progress Report for the Texas Long-Range Plan

The Long Range Plan for Technology 2006-2020 was created because we need to prepare our students for the technology rich global marketplace. It is important to recognize that for student success, our education system must stay ahead of the technological changes being implemented into our students' daily lives. Educators have the responsibility of ensuring the learners of today have access to technology, know how to use it to gain access to information, and to also make sure the information is being applied in an ethical manner.     

Digital tools in Texas classrooms are a fundamental part in differentiating and creating more individualized learning for our students. Being able to use distance education with tech resources have equalized the learning field and have enabled our students to communicate, network, and be exposed to more cross-culture curriculums no matter where their location is or what background they come from. Educators need to use more student initiated technology projects instead of having it just as a classroom support. Technology can increase student motivation, engagement, and critical thinking in real-world situations. Teachers can access instant data such as student progress and this is then allow teachers to provide students with feedback and also more personalized instruction.

The Progress Report on the Texas Long Range Plan for Technology includes results from the Texas STaR Chart. The STaR Chart is used to evaluate campuses in meeting the goals of technology implementation. There are four main summary areas which include Teaching and Learning, Leadership and Administration Support, Educator Preparation and Development, and Infrastructure. Many campuses surveyed are in the Developing Technology level but there is a gradual increase of schools reaching the Advance Technology level. Many schools have a strong infrastructure for Technology but the weakest area seems to be in Teaching and Learning. This seems to be because many educators are "digital immigrants" themselves and actively implementing technology into the classroom in which it is in the hands of the students themselves, is a harder process to overcome. Educators are consistently under a short time frame to teach content and it can become even more difficult to go to tech trainings as well as create lesson plans that will include technology. The Progress Report shows we are maintaining and on a consistent path to reach our goals but this may not be enough since technology changes at such a rapid pace.

National Education Technology Draft Plan

This article outlines a technology learning model for American education to prepare for the 21st-century. The goals for the plan are for more application of advance technologies into our entire education system so that we can improve student learning, adopt effective practices, and use data for continuous improvement of school campuses. The National Educational Technology Plan identifies that the most essential feature of future U.S. education is to use technology to help educators follow a more differentiated and personalized student learning. The draft plan does highlight combining the Universal Design for Learning principals into the American education system to have more representation of ideas has well as support technological processes. One setback is that the draft plan includes students who are English language learners, low socio-economic, and/or at-risk students but the draft plan does not specifically mention helping our students with disabilities.

 

For my district, I believe barriers consist on our system's focus on excess standardized testing and many of our campuses lack student access to technology. We are beginning see more resources but still not enough where we can fully implement technology into the hands of every student. We use technology more of a learning support then making it student centered research/interaction.

South Houston STaR Chart Presentation

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South Houston STaR Chart Presentation

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Teach and Learning with Technology

In the Texas Long range Plan for Technology, 2006-2020, the area of Teaching and Learning is focused on having technology in the hands of our students. Texas students come from diverse backgrounds and thru technology we can assist all of them access rich academic information and instruction resources. We can build multiple avenues for students to gain knowledge by increasing our students use of technology in the classroom. Distance education is a way to give our students equal access as well as create more collaboration/ networking opportunities in the learning environment. For the Teaching and Learning plan, students should have access to technologies including digital tools and services for interactive classroom learning. These tools should be used by learners for group collaboration, not restricted to peers on our campus, but collaboration with educators and students anywhere in the world. Technology can facilitate our students in solving real world problems while increasing their ability to communicate effectively to various audiences. On our campus, this is our weakest area. I believe it is due to educators not having enough time to fully incorporate technology in which students are the ones using it. Most of our teachers use technology to support learning mainly in creating visual aids for lecture notes and/or showing educational videos in class. Very few educators have mastered the art of placing the digital tools into the hands of our students- in which the students are facilitating their own learning and interacting with technology for research projects or comprehensive discussions. According to our STaR chart rating of Advanced Technology, as a campus, we are improving in this area mainly due to the fact that our district has been supportive into getting teachers the resources they need. Educators do have many chances to take tech related professional development and our campus even has our own tech specialist on site holding trainings or helping individuals troubleshoot any tech problems that may arise. I recommend more teachers having opportunity to meet and collaborate on how to integrate more student center tech usage in the classroom. Educators need to have time to plan out how to place technology usage into lesson plans and the educators are experience enough to where they are comfortable in using the digital tools- we would be more successful in the Teaching and Learning area of the Texas Long Range Plan.


http://starchart.esc12.net/

http://www.tea.state.tx.us/technology/lrpt/lrpt_lrpt.html

Introduction

Hi,
My name is Vi and I have begin this blog site as a grad class assignment. This blog is to help me express my thoughts on why technology (such as blogging) can be beneficial for us as educators and even our students! I hope you find this site useful- if not leave me a nice comment in which I will respond in kind. =)