GPHS Texas STaR Chart Presentation

Here's my power point, hope you enjoy!

Texas Long Range Plan (Opinion Piece)

The following is a description of one of the four areas in the The Texas Long Range Plan for Technology, which consists of Teaching and Learning; Educator Preparation and Development; Leadership, Administration and Instructional Support; and Infrastructure for Technology. For my opinion piece I will speak about Teaching and Learning. This domain measures the patterns of classroom technology use, the frequency and design of the instructional setting, how technology is making connections to content areas, the correct TEKS implementation, student mastery of technology applications, and on-line learning. Progress in this area has been slow at my campus. That comment is based on the fact that this domain has remained steady and is currently not experiencing any growth. At the state level we see that close to 70% of schools (5327) are currently classified as Developing Technology. The trend locally shows us that there will probably be little or no growth in this area in the 2009-2010 school year. The state trend, however, indicates that a small minority (25% or 1947) of schools have managed to achieve the higher classification of Advanced Technology. My personal recommendations to improve in this area is to provide professional development in reinforcing the Technology TEKS K-8 that students have acquired before coming to the high school. Also, I would promote proper technology training as to encourage the more timid teachers ot increase the patterns of technology use in their classrooms.

Pre-K Technology Applications TEKS

A Pre-K child receives some basic instruction that for the most part is making the child comfortable with the use of technology. The expectations for these young children are the following: uses age appropriate software; can identify a computer screen, mouse, printer, and CD Rom; can insert and play a CD; creates digital writings or drawings; and the child learns new information because of the use of technology. These basic skills will aid the child in developing even more complex skills that will be needed as the content gradually becomes more challenging. The scaffolding of these skills is and essential element since the children will eventually be expected to not only carry out such tasks on their own, but to someday manipulate the technology for work, personal, or play.

Week 1 Assignment

The following are my interpretations of my the two surveys taken for my first week's assignment. The first is called the Technology Applications Inventory, and second was titled SETDA Teacher Survey. The first survey was brief and only consisted of yes or no responses. The second was much more detailed and for the most part was made up of questions that measured attitude or rating scales. I personally found the second survey to be the more effective tool in measuring technology proficincies. I actually found that the first survey gave a false sense of profiency since most of my answers were yes. However, when faced with the same questions I found that proficiency level was at the beginner or novice level. Some of my strengths are with the familiarity with technology in the workplace and home. I find that I am not only willing to implement this technology, but that I have the skills necessary to do it effectively. Weaknesses that were identified by the two surveys is that the district and/or school site have no clear direction of what they expect technology implementation to look like in our classrooms. What has happened is that each teacher has been left alone to haphazzardly use and implement technology as best they can. Also, both surveys have demonstrated a need for improvement in being able to apply technology to track student progress (other than formal assessments). I believe the findings to be accurate because I anwered honestly on all questions without fear that my appraser would actually be reading the survey afterwards. As a side note, as part of this years progress towards tech. implementation we were asked to take an on-line survey very similar to the SETDA (STar Chart). I answered honestly on that survey as well because we were told our answers were anonymous and would help with future acquisition of technology on our campus.