Krause Week 4 Report
District Technology Facilitators
The role of these facilitators is to provide training and support for teachers and administrators throughout the district. They are organized by grade levels and work with the coordinating personnel. Facilitators lead campus technology training and also will work with individuals upon request. They also distribute mass emails with technology tips and information on commonly used applications.
Campus Technology Facilitators
The main role of this individual is to trouble shoot and problem solve for all faculty and staff on a specific campus. He also does all of the equipment set up, including classrooms, computer labs, networking, peripherals, and anything else dealing with technology. He also may lead some technology based training.
Administrators
The role of our administrators is to promote technology use in the classroom to enhance learning and model technology use during professional development, staff meetings, and provide the teachers with training opportunities to support increased technology use. Administrators are also responsible for the completion of such tools as STaR charts, and also breaking down technology data for our campus and creating ways to improve. The principal should also observe teachers using technology, and provide collaboration time and sharing ideas among teachers to increase the use of effective learning strategies that utilize technology.
Teachers
Teachers are responsible for integrating effective technology into their classrooms, and collaborating and sharing best practices with their colleagues. Teachers also should seek out professional development opportunities that focus on technology.
I learned that my school district and campus have made progress towards utilizing technology to enhance learning, but have not tapped the full potential of technology in many aspects. One of those areas that really need significant improvement is our professional development and training. I believe at this point, nearly 2010, every inservice needs to include technology. Even when we are discussing AEIS and AYP reports and setting goals and making plans, technology needs to be integrated into it. Moving professional development into computer labs or using laptops is the first step in the process. Instead of using poster board to create lists and visuals, we should be creating charts and data graphs on spreadsheets and powerpoints. I also believe that professional development is more effective when it is organized in subject specific groups. This is important when gathering and analyzing data because teachers want to work with student data that is relevant to them and what they teach. I like the idea of offering training online and opening it for a window of time and set the expectation that every teacher complete it in the time allotted. When we meet as a large group or as a department, discussion and integration of what was learned is the main goal of the meeting.

I think to improve decision making in the integration of technology would start with an improvement team or committee. An administrator, technology facilitator, and a handful of teachers, possibly department chairs, would make up the group. The main focus would be improving the weak areas of our campus STaR chart. This team would lead and model technology use at professional development sessions for the rest of the faculty, and be open to trying new and innovative things in the classroom. Appropriate funds would need to be allocated to ensure as many resources as possible were available.
In order to evaluate the integration of technology that occurs in my school, several actions will occur. First, extensive professional development and training must occur across the board. Reflection of what was learned is necessary to implement new strategies into the classroom. Documentation of the transfer of these strategies and ideas from trainings to the actual classroom is a part of the evaluation. If the professional development was beneficial, how do the teachers specifically use what they learned?
Another great evaluation tool is observations. Not only administrators observing teachers, but also teacher to teacher observations, focusing again on what technology is integrated into the learning. As we have learned in this course, our students are digital natives and need technological applications to stay interested and motivated. Coinciding with observations is collaboration. There can be sharing of ideas from department to department about the effective use of technology.
Using our individual and campus STaR charts is an important self evaluation tool. The chart identifies the strengths and weaknesses of the utilization of technology, and can give us focus and definitive goals for technology improvements. I would also create a more school specific assessment chart, including lesson plan documentation, technology applications and the frequency of technology use in the classroom, and roadblocks to using more technology.
We need to document the frequency of technology use in every department and classroom, and devise strategies to improve the percentage of teachers utilizing technology consistently in their classroom. I think teacher input on why they don’t use technology more often would open the discussion on what changes could eliminate those roadblocks.