Saturday, March 10, 2012

ET8050 Week 2 Assignment, Part 3: Blog Posting # 2 District Technology Plan

         My school district’s technology plan’s purpose is “to improve student achievement through the effective use of technology as an enhancement of the teaching/learning process and record keeping/reporting procedures” (Terrebonne Parish School District Technology Plan, 2007). There are four action steps aimed at achieving this purpose:  Strengthen Leadership, Improve Teacher Training, Support E-Learning and Virtual Schools, and Encourage Improved Access and Technology Usage. 
          In order to strengthen the leadership, the parish shares information with employees on grants and other funding opportunities, professional development opportunities, provides time for employees to attend workshops and/or conferences.
          Improving teacher training is provided with professional development opportunities at the school, parish and regional level.  They receive grants to provide trainings such as INTECH and Tech Train.  Online K-12 database resources, online lesson plan resources, and lesson planning tools focused on integration of technology are available also.
          E-Learning and Virtual Schools are offered to both students and employees.  Employees can utilize online professional development through companies such as Pearson Connected Trains and Renaissance Learning.  Students have access to software that can be personalized to their individual learning needs in grades K-12.
          Improved access and technology use is achieved with internet access, training opportunities and sharing of information regarding funding opportunities, and integrated data systems.
          A majority of the evaluation methods to track our action steps occur annually.  Our strengths in the plan are that the district offers a network manager at each site, a comprehensive academic computer program at all schools, access to automated TLC programs in all libraries, and gigabit bandwidth to all classrooms.  Our major weaknesses that need to be addressed are that the network was set-up for one computer per classroom, the number of obsolete computers still being used that need to be replaced, and self-assessments are not done on a regular basis.
          Funding is aided by E-Rate funds and District sales tax monies.  These are enabling us to upgrade the network, bandwidth, and electrical so that we can move toward creating Model Classrooms in as many classrooms as possible to help us achieve our purpose of “improving student achievement through the effective use of technology as an enhancement of the teaching/learning process and record keeping/reporting procedures” (Terrebonne Parish School District Technology Plan, 2007)

Terrebonne Parish School District Technology Plan, April 2007.

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