Slide 2 The 21st century has changed the way people work, live and communicate.

Information is now at our fingertips. Brain research has opened up many mysteries of learning, social interaction, and cognitive processes. With all our advances, it seems education would have made monumental leaps in the last two decades. However, here in Badger County, we have only embraced the 21st century as far as entertainment and mobile devices are concerned. The schools' technology is antiquated, and the new hardware and software recently purchased, although a good step in the right direction, needs far more training and support to become effective tools in promoting learning for all our students. It is imperative, that in light of our changing world, that we have a comprehensive technology Use plan that will not only address the hardware and software problems in our district, but will put us on the path to using this technology as an integral part of the learning process. slide 3 The first part of any plan is finding people who are keenly invested in being a part of the process. A planning team should include all stakeholders: administration, Instructional technologists, teachers, paraprofessionals, parents, and community members. A strong team that is dedicated to creating a comprehensive plan will be more likely to set realistic goals, follow through, and adapt the plan when things do not work.

administration instructional technologists teachers paraprofessionals parents students community members

slide 4
The process of creating a technology use plan consists of five components. According to the guidebook for developing an effective Instructional Technology Plan, the first phase of the process is to recruit team members of which I discussed on the previous slide. The second phase is research where team members will identify the technology needs of students and staff and subsequently find technology that will meet those needs. The third phase is to create a technology plan based on the findings of the research. In this plan will be a mission statement that will define the technology focus for the district. The fourth phase is to formalize the plan by adding all the fine details of each task, how goals will be met, and a specific time line for completed tasks.

The final phase is the implementation of the plan and evaluation as the plan is set in motion. During this phase, there will be revision that addresses unanticipated roadblocks.

slide 5 Badger County School District strives to have educational technology be an integral part of the learning process. By this infusion of technology, students will be better equipped to be part of an expanding world that has technology in every aspect of life. Through technology our students will become prepared for today's opportunities. Through technology, we will meet the needs of the diverse learner, improve communications, facilitate our data gathering process, and encourage cooperative learning.

Integral part of the learning process Equipped for an expanding world Prepared for today's opportunities Meet the needs of the diverse learner Improve communications Effective data gathering Encourage cooperative learning

slide 6 These are the goals and objectives for the coming year. Goals are black bulleted and objectives are clear bulleted. The first and most important goal is to improve student achievement in literacy, math, and science. More specifically, we aim to raise ISAT scores using our PLATO technology to fill in the gaps that students have with math, language usage, and science. The second goal is to provide flexible professional development that will meet the needs of all our staff. There are many online forums for technology training that will accommodate everyone's schedules and the technology training should be mandatory. This will, in turn, increase the confidence in using technology in the classroom and otherwise. The third goal is to increase technical support and maintenance. The needs of our current technology adoptions will no longer suffice with two technicians. Many staff are losing out on many opportunities simply because it takes weeks for a technology issue to be resolved. Another way to support this is to implement technology helpers in each building that are trained properly for the many small glitches that will arise with technology. The last goal is to improve communication between students, staff, parents and the community. This can be done through a weekly or monthly newsletter on the district website. This will increase awareness of the school environment, offset problems before they occur, and decrease the workload of the teacher.

Improve student achievement o raise ISAT scores o increase involvement in robotics

Professional development o mandatory technology training o increased confidence in using technology

Technical support and maintenance o additional full time technology support person o technology helpers in each building

Improve communication o increased awareness of the school environment o weekly or monthly newsletter on website

slide 7 The following areas are where we need continual assessment to ensure the highest benefit of technology. The first is Curriculum integration. What is our current curriculum's strengths and weaknesses? How are they aligned to state standards? What is the current procedure for using technology to fill in gaps in the curriculum? How are teachers integrating technology into their lessons? And how are students using technology in the schools? The second need is professional development. What is the current training available to staff, what more needs to be offered, and how will we measure the effectiveness of this training? The third need is equitable use of technology. Is technology available to all students and staff? How much time is it available, and do we have adequate assistive technology to address our special needs population? The fourth need is infrastructure. What is our current infrastructure? How effective is it in meeting our goals? What additional infrastructure do we need to meet the current goals? The last need is administrative. Hoe does administration use technology for data collection, decision making, communication, record keeping, and professional development? Curriculum Integration Professional Development Equitable Use of Technology

Infrastructure Administrative slide 8 Here are some suggestions for staff professional development. We need to get beyond the standard looking at the website for our curriculum adoption and give instructors a vast toolbox of the availability that is out there. Having training in web 2.0 tools such as blogging sites, google searches, and creating websites is becoming not just extraneous details, but an important part of living in the 21st century. This video gives a glimpse into the expanding world that is increasingly digital. It is a little big brother at times, but you will see how fast our world has been changing. (show video full screen) Another focus of our professional development should be curriculum resources beyond the textbook adoption. Here is a short video that shows an active professional development from Hopkins Minnesota School District (show video in full screen). As you can see, preparing our educators to teach students 21st century skills involves looking beyond entertaining websites developed by textbook companies. Professional development should empower educators to create relevant, timely, and engaging lessons for all students. slide 9 So now that we have a plan, how are we going to evaluate the plan? By collecting data tied to our objectives such as raising ISAT scores, we can begin to see if our plan is meeting our goals. We can also create a rubric that scores the effectiveness of each objective. And finally, the team members would create a summary of all data collected to help measure effectiveness and adjust the plan as needed for the next year.

Data Collection

Rubric Summary slide 10

The last step in designing a plan is to create a timeline.

What do you need to do first? How long will that take?

Once that is completed, what are the next steps? How long will it take to complete those steps and so on. Timelines are usually divided into months with respective tasks to be completed each month.

Here is an example of a timeline from PALOS VERDES PENINSULA UNIFIED SCHOOL DISTRICT. You can see the specific objective tied to each month.

slide 11
In conclusion, it is imperative that we create a technology Use plan that will address the needs of the 21st century classroom. This will ensure our students are getting the skills needed to be productive citizens in our global economy. This will also attract families to our district in a time where choice is abundant for education in Idaho. slide 12 My Technology Use presentation was created with the help of these resources: Classroom Clipart, Google images, Partick Lepoidevin drawing, Youtube, Guidebook for Developing an Effective Instructional Technology Plan, and Wikipedia. Thank you for your time. Photos provided by Classroom Clipart Google images and Patrick Lepoidevin Videos provided by Youtube The machine is Us/ing Us Cyber Summit on 21st Century Skills Process Slide adapted from the Guidebook for Developing an Effective Instructional Technology Plan Needs assessment slide is based upon Wikipedia Strategic technology Plan <iframe src="https://docs.google.com/present/embed? id=dcjhn9k7_1f5wc7d8s&interval=5" frameborder="0" width="410" height="342"></iframe>