Course Reflection

           My first course with Lamar University comes to an end and I feel like it was very beneficial. When I first started with the masters program in Educational Technology Leadership, I was not sure about the outcomes or if I would continue with the program. The first week was especially demanding and strenuous. Initially, I didn’t see the purpose in taking six self-assessments. As I continued reading and learning in the following weeks, I started to appreciate every assignment I was completing.

            In the beginning of my “5306/5311 Concepts of Educational Technology” course, I expected to study curriculum related concepts concerning technology in the field of education. These expectations got covered as well as practical knowledge regarding implementation and hands on experience with tools I will be using to inspire teachers and administration during my internship.  For instance, the “Multiple Intelligence Inventory” assessment will be an excellent tool to use with teachers and students in the beginning of the school year. The hands on projects incorporated into our weekly assignments helped me to broaden my horizon. In examining tools like wikis, blogs, and Web 2.0 elements, I experienced the full benefits of technology used in the (virtual) classroom. In this regard, I learned more than I anticipated and the outcomes were greater than what I have envisioned.

            Although I do not have my own classroom yet, I believe that my learning outcomes in this course will help me with my future career. I have discussed and shared the course content and my enthusiasm for the newest educational technology possibilities with my side mentor and staff at the school where I will be doing my internship. Everybody, including myself, is very excited about the upcoming prospects. My assistant principal and I have for example talk about technologies like wikis and the usage of cell phones as educational tools. Among other things, I will be assisting teachers to integrate technology to support learning and implement new strategies and/or ideas for the 21^st century classroom. Our district just disbursed iPads to all middle and high school students and many teachers have difficulties implementing this technology into their everyday teaching. I’m looking forward to be able to smooth the path for those teachers and students to increase learning outcomes for students.

            The internship following right after the very first course took me by surprise. I realized this in the second week of our Concepts of Educational Education course and was in a shock/ panic like stage for a few days afterwards. After all, I was planning to start the internship at the end of the masters program and not in the beginning. However, the first fear subsided after contacting my site mentor and talking with her about my upcoming internship, she was thrilled to hear that I would like to conduct my internship at her school. Now with completion of my internship plan and the principal competencies chart, I’m looking forward to this new challenge. During the internship, I’m planning to work on my leadership skills. I do not think that the course prepared me in a way that it strengthened this ability.  Looking back at my Leadership Skills Assessment, I don’t feel that the course improved any of the abilities where I am lacking, like formal pubic speaking or project budgeting. Of course, I will have the opportunity to focus and work on those skills during my internship.

            Regardless of my beginning struggle with the accelerated speed of this program, I’m looking forward with confidence toward the next classes and my internship. From the “Keirsey Temperament Sorter,” I’m aware that I’m an idealist. This means that I have high expectations concerning my future as a teacher and myself. Therefore, I can say that I did everything in my power to succeed in this course. Even if that meant to stay up late at night, ask my in-laws for help to take care of my 11 month old or eating suppers at my in-laws house. The workload was immense but still doable. What took some tolls were details within the assignments but I was pleased with the results. The feedback's (regarding the assignments) by Ms. Littrell-La Puma, the instructional associate, were very helpful. For the most part, I will have to examine my APA Publication Manual Book. I’m not proud to admit that there is still some room for improvement concerning the correct use of the APA style.

            Overall, I’m very pleased with the learning outcomes of this course. In the beginning of the course, I learned a lot about myself from the self-assessments. I now know that I’m an idealist with the ability to learn best with and by music. I’m aware of my deficiencies in leadership skills, like project planning. I also know that I would like to improve my knowledge in network and database skills. From the “Digital- Age Work and Learning,” I will need to refocus my classroom lessons and use higher order thinking, engaged learning, authentic connections, and technology within existing lesson plans. With the help of blogs, educational technology websites, and other relevant publications that I discovered on the Internet during this course, the knowledge about my inefficiencies will lead me to improve those skills in the future. I’m not a professional yet, but I feel that the course has broadened my horizon tremendously, which will enable me to succeed in my future 21^st century classroom. 

References

Adaptive technology resource center (2001/2002). Multiple intelligence inventory. Retrieved from http://www.ldrc.ca/projects/miinventory/ 

Keirsey Temperament Sorter. Retrieved from http://www.keirsey.com/sorter/instruments2.aspx?partid=0

LoTi connection (2011). Loti digital-age survey. Retrieved from http://www.lqhome.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/lotilounge.woa

Mills, L. B. (2007). The next wave now: Web 2.0. The Education Digest, 73(4), 4-5. 

Scott, P., & Mouza, C. (2007). The impact of professional development on teacher learning, practice and leadership skills: A study on the integration of technology in the teaching of writing. Journal of Educational Computing Research, 37(3), 229-266.

 

E-Rate & Technology Plan Presentation

E-Rate & Technology Plan Presentation

View more presentations from Anna Lyons.

Technology Assessments

Technology has become a part of our everyday interactions and there is no way to return to the days where computer literacy was a special class. The 21st century students are a generation of technology natives which starts at infancy.  As infants, children are exposed to baby laptops, baby smart phones, baby DVD player systems and CDs - you name it. In my opinion, in order to ensure high levels of teacher competency, teachers need to self evaluate and assess their technology knowledge continually. In doing so, chances are greater that teachers with a basic understanding of current technology applications and hardware will engage their students in meaningful learning. I discovered that taking technology assessments help me to stay somewhat up to date with the newest developments.  Lead teachers and teachers that are working in computer labs need to stay current with technology on a 24 hour, seven days a week basis. These teachers have leading roles on their campuses and need to be knowledgeable in technology questions to support and assist their colleagues. I believe that ongoing staff development and staying current through content relevant media supersede assessments in their cases. Professional development not only informs about latest trends but also shows how to implement them into curriculum. High involvement ought to be the credo.

In my opinion, today’s students are over tested.  For technology, I believe that students should be assessed at the beginning and at the end of the school year. Since our students come from diverse backgrounds and have different skill levels, a beginning assessment will give teachers information necessary to develop instruction to meet student needs. At the end of the year, students should be assessed to determine improvement and areas that still need improvement.  From this end of school assessment, the teacher should self evaluate and make adjustments to improve her instruction program.

National Education Technology Plan

The lofty goals of the National Educational Technology Plan of 2010 are that “By 2020, America will once again have the highest proportion of college graduates in the world,” and that the plan will close the achievement gap, regardless of income or ethnicity, so all students will graduate prepared to succeed in college or careers. The plan states how the Secretary of Education and the Department of Education will accomplish this goal.  The plan calls for the use of advance technologies in our daily lives and applies this to the entire education system to be data driven to improve the education system for all students.

The plan consists of five goals with recommendation for all stakeholders, which includes the states, the local districts, the federal government and others including community leaders and others interested in improving education.  For each goal for Learning, Assessment, Teaching, Infrastructure, and Productivity, one of the five essential components of learning powered by technology is address.

To have continuous improvement, the technology plan must address learning changes of students and evaluate the successes and address the failures of the plan, and address ever-occurring changes in technology equipment and applications. 

It is essential that the infrastructure and the technology equipment are available to students.  It is essential that teachers are provide with training to address how learning must be addressed to teach students to use technology and use global data to develop critical thinking skills.  With a shortage of funds at the federal, state, and local levels, the delivery of education using technology must become more productive and efficient. To accomplish this, it is essential that the Federal Government provide the necessary funding and resources to accomplish the National Educational Technology Plan of 2010.

A major issue at the national level, state, and local levels that will affect the success of the Plan is funding.  With the present economy, educational funding is being reduced which affects money available for staff, training, infrastructure, and equipment.  This will, in my opinion, cause different levels of learning opportunities and not close the learning gap as fast as desired in the Plan.

Another issue is the skill levels of teachers, which varies just as the skill levels of students do.  Training to address the differences in skill levels of teachers will be just as difficult as it will to address the different skill levels of students.

Another issue is the federal governments involvement in education at the state and local levels, and the resentment at these levels of being told what to do by the “Feds.”  The local districts want local control without the strings attached to federal funding.
To achieve the lofty goals of the 2010 Technology Plan, the Department of Education must provide the leadership to coordinate, implement, evaluate, and provide the funding.
Through common goals by all levels involved, there will be a better opportunity for success.

Reference

US Department of Education. (2010). National Education Technology Plan 2010. Retrieved   from http://www.ed.gov/technology/netp-2010

District Technology Plan

McAllen Independent School District’s technology plan consists of four main goals: 

The first goal is to meet the instructional needs of teachers and the learning needs of the students. The strategy to implement this goal is to develop a plan that evaluates teachers and administrators technology standards and provide training on SBEC technology standards.

The second goal is to provide training of staff in using technology to teach and learn through professional development. The strategy to implement this goal is to develop a professional development growth and incentive plan for teachers and administrators to address integrating technology into the classroom.

The third goal is to merge technology into our school districts community.  The strategy to implement this is by establishing a grade reporting system for the district and expanding access of district data through the internet (Web Hosting Service, Skyward Attendance and Gradebook, and AEIS-IT TAKS Data) and offering online access to student data. 

The fourth goal is to establish, maintain and update our infrastructure for technology in all district schools. The strategy to implement this is to develop a schedule and budget for purchase of new hardware and software.

To implement these goals, each year our District Instructional Technology Director Carmen Garcia schedules professional development for the district’s teachers.  She is allocated a budget ($55,000) to ensure that staff is up to date on current technologies.  This past year the district purchased iPads for the majority of its students, which has required a major staff development program be implemented for the teachers to learn how to use iPads to deliver instruction in the classroom to students. 

The technology staff  (responsible for telecommunication services, hardware, software and other technology services) continually assess the technology plan using the results from the Texas teacher and Campus Star Charts, District/Campus hardware inventories and District Professional Development Statistics to ensure improved student learning and by establishing, maintaining and updating an infrastructure in district campuses.

This year our district’s beginning technology budget was $6,587,224.00. Because our district has some old and outdated equipment and has not reached some of its goals of student to technology ratios, I do not believe that our budget is sufficient to acquire and support the non-discount element of our plan but with the present state of Texas school finance was the best that the district could do this year. 

MISD Technology Plan is a continuous evaluation process that enables the district to monitor progress toward the specified goals and does make mid-course corrections in response to new developments and opportunities as they arise.  The plan does require continuous adjustments.  Responses to new developments in technology, adjustments in educational funding and operating revenues or expenses, and changing needs in our environment will drive annual revisions of our Technology Plan each year. Each campus has a technology committee to annually monitor the impact of the campus technology plan, which will align the campus plan to the district’s plan.  

The district’s technology plan is evaluated on student achievement and targeted goals. This information is reported yearly in the Annual Reports for each campus. The district technology committee updates the district plan annually and campus technology plans are updated bi-annually by campus technology committees. The district technology committee meets quarterly. In an effort to keep our community informed, the District Technology Plan is made available on the district website.
 

Reference:

TEA. (2012). View/Create/Edit/Update a Technology Plan for McAllen ISD. Retrieved from https://www.sedl.org/cgi-bin/mysql/eplan/eplan.cgi

Web Conference Reflection

Yesterday for the first time, I had the opportunity to participate in a Web conference via Adobe Connect.  Prior to this experience, I have attended several Webinars for professional development. I use Skype and iChat on a daily base for personal communication with my family overseas. With 6 through 8 grade Fossum students, I have witnessed, a live webcast from the International Space Station in space, which was followed by a Q&A session with the astronaut Michael E. Fossum.  I have to say, I am amazed how far technology has come!

For the Web conference, I anticipated difficulties, like delays in connectivity or too much background noise.  Difficulties I often encounter when using the Internet for communication, after all most of us regular people don’t have T3 Internet connections. However, except for some minor beginning problems, which were quickly solved, the whole conference went very smoothly.

The conference was a great experience. We started of with an introduction by a great group of people with diverse backgrounds. Followed by an overview of course requirements, assignments, the degree plan with an emphasis on the internship and internship requirements, and ended the conference with a Q&A. 

I can see how this format could be of benefit for school or university campuses. Teachers, professors, and administrators could collaborate with each other, either on the same campus, within the school district, and nation wide. By the use of this format, schools will save time and money. I believe that students will be the prime beneficiaries from this format, like in project-based assignments, meeting with other schools and students around the world etc. In my opinion, the benefits of this format will be limited only by the imagination of people involved.