Our district uses an abundance of tools to collect various data to identify campus curriculum, instructional and professional development needs. We gather information from the School Technology and Readiness (STaR) report, Annual Yearly Progress (AYP), the Academic Excellence Indicator System (AEIS), the Data Management Software for Assessment and Curriculum in Texas Schools (DMAC) reports to identify campus and district needs. The STaR chart tracks the campus and teacher progress toward meeting the Target Tech goal in four areas; teaching and learning; educator preparation and development; leadership, administration, and instructional support; and infrastructure. AYP reports shows our campus performance and where we are in terms of meeting the guidelines established by the Federal No Child Left Behind (NCLB) law. The AEIS system shows campus and district performance as compared to other state campuses and districts. The AEIS breaks performance down by grade levels as well as numerous sub-pops and provides information over the course of several years so progress can be easily tracked. The DMAC program allow teachers and administrators to run reports that track student progress on campus benchmark assessments, TEK assessments, and state exams. All of these tools combined allow the district to track progress and expenditures, assess needs and develop goals towards meeting the State Long Range Plan for Technology.
The director of technology for our district discusses needs that are not revealed through the STaR chart. She says, “…the need for continuous on-site training…requires staffing [.] [Because] districts loathe to hire [we] thus revert to ‘train the trainer’ model which is great IF time permits. However…time is not permitted for teachers to go around and help others. The truth is that the state has lessened the importance of technology by doing away with requiring kids to take a technology course for all graduation plans. It just sends a terrible message about the value of technology. I have written the legislators on their decision to take this requirement out of the curriculum. I [do] use the STaR chart every year to put my number one requirement in...the District Education Plan - the hiring of instructional technology people.” (M.Morrison, personal communication, December 2, 2009).
Technology is integrated on our campus in a variety of ways to deliver and enrich instruction. Last year interactive Smartboards were installed in every classroom K-8th grade providing teacher more diversity in instruction presentation and delivery as well as giving students the opportunity to interact and participate in the lessons more. Accompanying the Smartboards are electronic airliner tablets, document cameras, voice projection equipment as well as United Streaming and online tutorials provided through Smart’s website to name just a few. Students also visit the computer lab three times a week and engage in River Deep math and language arts lessons. Having learned so much through this course it is clear to me that the technology that we have available and that we use is still very much teacher directed and lacks in the student developed product. The availability we have through the Smart technologies does enhance instruction however it does not lend itself to integrating technology into student work. Knowing how to create a blog as well as wikis and podcasts now opens new avenues for me as an educator to enrich my classroom and enhance my students experience even more.
Upon the installation of the Smartboard equipment each teacher attended a full day of training on its functions and uses. Following the first year an additional day of training was offered as a refresher and advancement in usage. The technology director is in the planning stages of presenting training on various uses of technology with our curriculum. The use of virtual manipulatives, online lesson planner, training on various hardware and software available through the technology department, just to name a few. She says, “I want to set up a Moodle server and present demos of equipment use for teachers. They then could log on at their convenience and watch how to do something. We would create a file system for all the videos that would be accessible anytime, anywhere.” (M.Morrison, personally communicated, December 2, 2009). She continued by saying she would love to eventually see the use of NetBooks in every classroom.
Technology is used continuously everyday in the classroom. Teachers are constantly finding and using technology in different and new ways. Through the Smartboard hardware and the Notebook Technology interactive lessons are designed and presented daily along with fun and exciting review games. Teachers are using the electronic airliners to accompany the Smartboard that gives them freedom of movement through out the room. Science teachers are integrating document cameras and projecting images through the Smartboard projection. Susan Eschete, 5th grade science teacher and SBDM member, states, “I use so much technology every day it’s difficult to itemize all of it. If it’s available and I can get my hands on it I am going to use it to better my instruction.” She continues, “…we are so lucky to work in a district that makes technology a priority through its campus improvement plan and by providing outstanding technical support by have an on campus technology person to assist with all of our needs the moment we are in need.” (personally communicated, December 3, 2009).
As I stated before I feel that the availability of technology has dramatically increased for teacher use over the past three years in my district however, I feel as though it is continuing to remain largely reserved for instructional assistance and administrative tasks rather than integrated into student assignments and student products. We take attendance online through a system that was just installed this year. This same system allows teachers to access an abundance of information regarding each of their students from their contact information, their absences over time, course schedule, ethnicity, and their report card grades. Eventually this system will open a parent portal so that grades can be accessed by parents in real time. Mrs. Hutchinson, assistant principal reminded me that, “…we also have 2 portable carts each containing 30 laptops, wireless internet connection and printer for check out at the library along with a couple sets of the Quizdom digital quiz and answer buzzer for instant teacher feedback during class review.” She went on to say that, “teachers are required to keep an updated webpage through the district website to better facilitate parent communication and provide the most up to date information to parents regarding their child’s classroom expectations.” (personally communicated, December 1, 2009).
We as a district are changing and improving however, I think that there is still a lot more that we should be doing with technology that will enrich our student’s classroom and learning experience. I have ongoing conversations with many professionals within the campus and my district regarding technology and their biggest frustration is the lack of training as well as the lack of time to integrate what they know into lessons for their students. Our district has also adopted the C-Scope curriculum for use K-12, all core subject areas. There is a very strong push for full integration of this curriculum in every classroom which is heavy in scripted lessons. Although the lessons are in-depth and very rigorous the curriculum does not allow for any modification, differentiation, or technological integration. Right now there is a push to improve technology integration in the classrooms paralleling the push for the use of a cookie cutter curriculum. Teachers are finding it very difficult to accommodate both expectations.
When I visited with students from my campus I learned that they would very much like to see and be able to interact with technology more often while at school. I asked them if they would prefer the opportunity to demonstrate their learning by producing work through the assistance of technology and they overwhelmingly responded yes. The stated that they would much rather have the opportunity to create a blog or a podcast to demonstrate learning and suggested such activities related to the social studies lesson I am teaching them right now. They are learning about New England colonies and last week I had them write an article as though the were reporters our interviewing members of the colony. One student, Noah, stated that he thought that, “we should all take our articles and create a podcast!” (personally communicated, December 2, 2009). When I asked the students how they felt about getting the opportunity to “teach” teachers how to use technology that they know how to use they responded with much enthusiasm and excitement. I feel giving students the opportunity to participate in the teaching just as much as in the learning enhances their retention ten-fold. I asked the students if they would like to participate in a project that involved collaborating with other students from other locations in the country and their excitement matched that of being able to “teach” the teachers. This activity from the State Long Range Plan for Technology would be a wonderful learning experience for students however, within our district student technology use is very limited therefore, in order to accomplish this, the usage policy would have to be revisited and rewritten to remove the restrictions on student internet use.
I asked the students what their thoughts were on technology usage at school and their response was negative and full of frustration. They stated that just recently they were able to use the laptops in their language arts class to do a research paper on a state of their choice. They stated that one of the biggest problems they faced was the lack of charge the laptops kept. The teacher of that class reported the same frustration. I personally used the laptops for a research project last year in my classroom and after experiencing the same problem, I eventually had to run extension cord from every outlet in my classroom and keep all 25 laptops plugged in continuously (defeating the purpose of laptops in my opinion). Otherwise they would die and student work would be lost. The other problem that surfaced was the intermittent accessibility to the internet through the portable wireless modem. There were times that it took up to 10 minutes to log in and locate a signal which then allowed internet access. When asked about their opinion of their computer lab requirement and the software they were required to do again, their response was negative. They commented that the River Deep program was boring and “too easy”. They said that they would much prefer going and working on teacher assigned project or even better playing educational online games.
The majority of the students interviewed reported having access to the internet at home, having their own email address and many reported having their own Myspace / Facebook page for networking. They reported that they mainly used the internet to interact with friends, download music and play games. They stated that they only accessed the internet for school related information only if they had specific assignment that required them to. Almost all of them stated that they had cell phones however, they did not bring them to school for fear that they might accidentally leave them on and it go off in class resulting in confiscation and a fine. They stated the main use they had for the phones were for text messaging and accessing the internet although many of them stated they still used them for making phone calls but only when absolutely necessary. “I so prefer sending a text, that way I can talk to my friends and not have to actually ‘talk’ to them. Besides, I can text them anytime while I am doing anything and I don’t have to stop and have a conversation with them.” (personally communicated, December 2, 2009).
As I stated before, teachers experience many frustrations when it comes to technology on our campus. With as many positives they could state there were just as many negatives if not more. Not only does our curriculum not allow the integration of technology into the scripted lessons, the instructional focus documents and the scope and sequence does not allow for any additions in instruction. Due to the many websites that the curriculum requires teacher to access the district lifted the fire wall and granted teachers (only) full internet access however there is still now student created products through the use of technology or teacher facilitated lessons are tremendously lacking. The curriculum simply directs teachers to visit specific websites to acquire certain information for a particular lesson, not to facilitate students through a technology rich lesson resulting in and electronic production of learning by the students. Teachers also expressed extreme frustration with the computer lab requirement. Students are required to attend the lab 3 times a week however, time is not allotted for this in the schedule. Core area teachers therefore, have to give up instructional time to take students and sit them in front of a program (River Deep) that they, as well as the students, all think is an absolute waste of time. Lastly, speaking to the new teachers in the district I could sense how overwhelmed they were with all of the training they had to go through in a short period of time. One such teacher, Patricia McDaniel, stated, “I have been trained on so much in such a short period of time that my head is spinning! It will be a long time before I will able to effectively implement all that crammed down my throat this week” (personally communicated, September 1, 2009).
Technology training and integration should be an ongoing and incremental process. Those of us that have been with the district for years have had the opportunity to go through this in an incremental fashion however; those that are new don’t get that opportunity. I feel that there should be a continuous professional development plan implemented that offered continuous trainings to refresh as well as update technological skills. The director of technology’s vision of setting up a site that can be accessed by teachers on their own time with training seminars available for all that the district has to offer in terms of technology hardware and software applications would be a step in the right direction and change the face of technology integration in the district dramatically.
In summary, all of the interviews I conducted described the same barriers to integration of technology; lack of accessibility, training, time, and professional freedom in lesson planning.
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