My web conference experience fell short of my expectations due to the fact that I postponed this portion of the course until near the end. The number of students logging on to the site over-whelmed the system. Our supervisor did provide a chat between herself and the students. Relevant information was shared regarding course expectations, TK20, as well as, other graduate program questions. Over all my experience was good. I have used web conferencing in the past and realize advantages of distance communication. I will continue to seek opportunities to participate in web conferencing as a teacher and leader.
Sunday, March 27, 2011
Sunday, March 20, 2011
Sunday, March 6, 2011
National Education Technology Plan Summary and Reflection
The two major goals put in place by President Obama in the National Education Technology Plan are to increase the number of 2 and 4 year college degree holders in our country to 60% and to make sure all students graduate high school prepared for college or a career regardless of their race or income. In order to achieve these goals, we must hold ourselves accountable for achieving our clearly laid out agenda, collaborate effectively, and continually assess our performance. In order to appropriately administer this ambitious plan, there is great emphasis on figuring out how students learn, what they need to learn, when and where they learn, and who needs to learn what. By understanding these things, teachers will be better equipped to instruct students and help them reach the prescribed goals. By utilizing technology, the hope is that teachers will be able to work together to teach students instead of working individual. This form of collaborative teaching is one of the more radical ways the National Education Technology Plans hopes to revolutionize education. In order to get teachers engaged in technology and begin evolving their teaching style, curriculum, and classrooms, teachers will be encouraged to learn and manipulate new technology not just in professional workshops or development meetings, but in everyday classroom activities and while delivering lesson plans. Hopefully, with a new focus on applying relevant information about learning patterns and teaching to those patterns in an efficient and collaborative manner by utilizing technology, students will be better prepared when going on to higher education or their careers.
The idea of collaborative teaching really fascinates me. In an environment where schools are becoming overcrowded and the passion for learning and teaching have been replaced by whatever new quick fix method of coercing better standardized test scores is financially feasible for the year, I think a fresh new approach to instruction is more than necessary. By working together and being able to have multiple teachers focused on the various aspects of how a student receives and learns information will definitely breathe new life into the teacher/student relationship. Collaborative teaching also gives students many different opportunities to learn things in a way that is effective for them personally and provides numerous outlets for follow up and demonstration. Technology offers a way for teachers to be able to collaborate in the instruction of every individual student while still maintaining group learning and classroom progress.
Long Range Plan for Technology Summary and Reflection
According to the Texas Long Range Plan for Technology 2006-2020, it appears that we are making progress in implementing technology on every academic and administrative level. There are decreases in the number of schools ranking as Early Technology and Developing Technology and an increase in campuses regarding themselves as Advanced or Target Technology.
While there are several grants available to help districts improve and increase technology in their classrooms, there are still major concerns with technology budgets in general. On my campus, budget is one of the major areas where we fall short on the STaR assessment. While we maintain a good infrastructure for technology, we don’t have the budgetary resources or time allotments to make sure staff is trained on how to use what is at their disposal. Since we also ranked low in the leadership and vision category of the STaR, it seems as if our school board and administrators don’t have enough faith in our technical capability or its importance to allocate a larger budget for technology. Since we are a DAEP campus, it is hard to maintain a curriculum that must be constantly tailored to fit an ever changing classroom. As students come and go frequently throughout the semester, lesson plans become a juggling act. Although technology could ultimately help solve a lot of the problems we have clerically and academically, no one seems ready to make the leap.
The Texas Long Range Plan for Technology mentioned a pilot program called the Texas Virtual School Network (TxVSN) they were testing on JJAEP and DAEP classrooms dealing with the use of online courses for credit recovery. While the program is still in its infancy, I see a lot of potential for the use of this technology in the future education of students, particularly ones that are in and out of the DAEP program. I will be interested to see how the TxVSN model continues to improve and evolve over the next few years.
Infrastructure for Technology Summary and Reflection
Infrastructure for Technology describes not only the equipment in place to utilize technology, but also the budget, staff, and support to maintain it. Our campus has a great ratio of students to computers (2:1) compared to most campuses, especially for being a DAEP campus. By encouraging the use of technology in the classroom and providing professional development on a regular basis, our campus has been afford the opportunity to use technology more than many alternative education campuses.
The entire state seems to be on the upswing in terms of technology. According to the Texas Long Range Plan for Technology and the state STaR charts, Early Technology campuses have decreased by .1% and now make up only 1.1% of schools overall. There is also a 1.5% decrease in schools listed as Developing Technology, bringing them to 30.4% of Texas schools. These statistics show that there have been increases in both the Advanced and Target Technology ranked schools in Texas. Advanced Technology schools now account for 61% and Target Technology for 7.6%.
For our campus to improve in this area, other classroom technology and distance learning would be the major issues to focus on. While we have done a very good job maintaining an infrastructure that puts us in the Advanced Technology category, we are doing extremely poorly in terms of other classroom technology. If we had a larger budget to allocate to this area, I believe we would see immediate improvement in both the STaR assessment and student achievement. As mentioned in the Texas Long Range Plan for Technology, some DAEP campuses are beginning to experiment with online courses for credit recovery. I believe using this method, once it has had a few years to become as efficient and effective as possible, would be an excellent addition to our curriculum in order to improve distance learning on our campus.
Friday, March 4, 2011
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