Jesse

.  __Reflection for__ __4/8/10__ I chose to do my reflection on the Code of Best Practices and section three of The Technology Fix. Section three was titled Hit-or-Miss Commitment, and this describes Springdale High School perfectly. Spring Dale has four labs along with specific labs for English, graphics, math, and business. Each of these labs has 30 computers. In every classroom the teacher has a workstation attached to a 34 inch television monitor. Maggie Lewis, the district’s technology coordinator, admitted that the district virtually ignored training, and that there was no urging from the administration to integrate technology into instruction. Every teacher also has the ability to e-mail, yet it is optional. This seems absolutely ludicrous to me. If your district invest a substantial amount of money into technology, you have to make sure that you are implementing it efficiently. This district is getting very minimal return on their investment. That is extremely bad business. The district also purchased online courses for the students. Out of the 30 that started the class, only 8 completed it. Maggie offered an excuse as to why so many students did not complete the course. This is another failure with the district technology implementation. These students should have received more support and been pushed to complete the course, especially since this was the first time that the course was being used. You cannot collect useful data if students do not complete the work. At Harrison Elementary School, many of the same issues arose. The school spent money to put the technology into the schools, and stopped. Harrison’s principal was asked if the computer use helps students perform better on tests. Marshall responded, “I don’t know if technology will help raise scores.” “That’s really not why we’ve made the investment. We need technology because it’s the tool of our age. Kids have to be good information users, and technology makes floods of information available”. I agree and disagree with Mr. Williams’s response. I agree that kids simply need to be exposed to technology and allowed to explore with it. They will need it in the future work force and therefore it is our responsibility to prepare them. With that said, I have two problem areas that I foresee. For the principal to simply say I don’t know if technology will help test scores is unacceptable. You must have data that shows progress, and the principal should certainly be well informed on the progress of their students. Secondly, where do we find the time to efficiently teach technology skills? With high stakes testing, educators are going to be reluctant to use classroom time for technology instruction until it appears on a test or they are held accountable for it. The next three schools all have a common problem. They have no consistency when it comes to the integration or implementation of technology. At Woodvale Middle School the classrooms had varying amounts of technology from room to room. City Academy did have some consistency, but they need to write technology directly into their curriculum, and individual lessons if they are going to use technology on such a massive scale. City Academy showed a different problem as well. This school was a perfect example of how we can be too dependent on technology. Their network went down for three weeks, and the instruction suffered tremendously. In every classroom that the author stopped in, students were not engaged and teachers seemed like they were scrambling for content. This proves to me that there has to be a balance of instruction styles. These teachers seemed like they lost the ability to teach without a computer. We do not want to lose this gift, because as it was stated earlier in the book technology will never replace an outstanding educator. It was refreshing to see staff development at Emerson Elementary. Twice weekly Karen Edwards, the school’s technology coordinator, offers hour long technology talks. Teachers can ask questions and discuss, trouble-shoot, brainstorm, and explore with technology. This is an excellent way to create a non-intimidating environment for educators to learn how to better use technology in the classroom. Finally, at Lambert Elementary it seemed that they were using technology simply to use technology. This school did seem to have a goal or an understanding of how to use technology in their school. As the author states in his viewpoint “content was secondary; teacher and students focused on the how, not the what.” The Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Media Literacy Education is an excellent resource for administrators and educators. I had a lot of misconceptions before reading this. I found it interesting that teachers K-12, professors, and non-profit community organizations are protected substantially under the fair use laws. Before reading the code I thought that teachers were bending the rules almost every school day. This taught me that most of the uses of copyrighted materials are allowed. The three key components that I learned to determine if you are using copyrighted material legally are if the use of the media was transformative, was the amount of copyrighted material appropriate, and was the material used in an educational setting to benefit students. If you have all three of these within your lesson, then you are going to be covered under fair use. It is important to understand that if the educator is using materials subject to a license agreement that they are bound by the terms of the license. Many computer programs fall under this. The fair use laws provide students and individuals with the opportunity to create culture from existing work. In plain terms it keeps copyright from violating the First Amendment.

Jesse Brosious

The ISTE standards serve as an excellent guideline for administrators, educators, and students. They are nicely organized into five or six areas for each participant. I feel that they are realistic and accessible for all levels of people. The standards do restate their goals quite often. The content of the standards does not challenge my philosophy of leadership or technology. I strongly agree with the standards and what they are developed to accomplish. Educators at all levels should have goals set forth for them that they can measure their individual effectiveness and progress. This is extremely beneficial with an area as broad as technology. Even though I find the standards extremely useful, I do not feel that it has challenged me to develop any new philosophies in terms of technology. I work in an upper echelon school district where technology is readily available. I feel that these goals are realistic and achievable for me because of this. However I can understand how under funded schools are having a serious issue when trying to achieve even the exposure standards set forth. I found many of the administrator standards useful. Under visionary leadership I strongly believe that it is helpful to develop a shared vision of technology with your staff and the community. Technology is such a vast area that the more effort and experience you have directed towards it alleviates some of the intimidation. I also agree that administrators must search on all levels for funding to support the technology needs in their building. I would have a committee that was developed to research and apply for funding. Digital age learning culture offered an excellent standard for administrators. Administrators must model and promote the frequent and effective use of technology. It is very helpful to be capable of showing your staff how to implement effective technology in their classroom. The staff will also be more likely to use this technology if their leader has knowledge of it. A building administrator should also hold teachers accountable for using technology and coach them on it. Your staff must also have time and resources allocated to ensure professional growth in technology fluency and integration as listed under the excellence in professional studies section. I found the standard that stated recruit and retain highly competent personnel very helpful. Having knowledgeable staff at your disposal would be beneficial in all areas involving technology. Finally, administrators must ensure that they have a clear and safe use of technology policy in their school. The teacher section of the standards is helpful but somewhat redundant. After reading through the standards for teachers, I was able to summarize what was expected of educators. Teachers should use technology for direct instruction, exposure to real world issues and cultures, exploration of programs and tools, and use technology to foster collaboration between students as well as the outside world. I feel that these would be more beneficial with examples and if they were broken down by content area. One area that I can see being particularly difficult for educators is to customize and personalize learning activities to address students’ diverse learning styles. Teachers are already overwhelmed with differentiating instruction and materials for lessons that do not involve technology. This aspect would either need to replace non-technology instruction or educators must have an extensive amount of training in how to combine the two teaching practices. I felt that the student section of the standards was more of an extension of the teacher section than directly student directed. I think that this is more beneficial to educators. This section breaks down how to go about exposing your students to individual technology areas.

Starting with a committe of stakholders to design a shared vision should be the first step. Reaching out to the community for support is necessary. In Norristown we have the Norristown Education Fund which is made up of all stakeholders. they raise funds to purchase technology for the Smart Classrooms.

Theresa

__Week 2 Reflection__ After reading the first four sections of __The Technology Fix__, I concluded that it did not challenge my philosophy of technology in regards to education. In fact, they confirmed my beliefs and ideas. At St. Mary’s Elementary School I strongly agree with their dedication to finding the necessary resources. I previously stated in a reflection that when I become a principal, I intend to have a committee in my school that focuses on technology and finding resources and funding. St. Mary’s does an excellent job of this. They have hand-me –down computers from local businesses. The technology coordinator Pam McDonald even stated that when they began, she had to make it a goal “to find the money and accept other people’s junk to start with”. This is the mentality that a school must have. It may not be easy for schools to have the resources and materials in place to expose their students to technology. It will take dedication, and creative thinking to find these resources. I feel that the expectations were very clear in this school as well. Teachers knew that they did not want students to develop a dependency on technology either. One of the teachers stated, “We want them to understand that just because something is on the Internet does not make it true.” They have the students find written works that confirm what they found on the Internet. This educates the student for use with technology and hard copied work, which they will need in the work force. At Harriet Tubman Elementary, Principal Peter Malone does an excellent job of tying technology into the school goals. The main school goal is reading. He has found the money from different sources to fund a reading program on the computer. I really agreed with the understanding from administration that technology should make a teacher’s job easier, and not add more work to their already cumbersome responsibilities. I have had numerous experiences when administration would implement new technology claiming that it makes the teachers life easier. When in actuality it adds another task into the already heaving day. This school really exemplified how passionate and dedicated you have to be as an administrator to be effective. The principal found the reading program he wanted, worked hard to attain it, and then was so passionate to parents that students would come into school during the summer when they did not have to, to use it. Longworth High School serves as an excellent example of how to get around the issue of students not having access to computers. Computers are available before and after school to students. I really appreciated the way that this school instilled a strong work ethic into their students. One student answered, “I don’t have a computer at home” when asked what challenges they face in regards to technology. Another student in the class responded, “You’re just making excuses. If you want computer time, you can get it. Get out of bed and get here before school. Go to a library. Don’t give us that.” The support at this school is the reason that technology works so efficiently. The technology coordinator spends about a third of her time on staff development. I barely ever see my technology coordinator. Teachers are more inclined to use technology if they are able to learn from a colleague. Longworth serves as another excellent example of how to find money through grants and other means. Teachers in Longworth agree with my view of technology. “When computers save time, they are good. When they take up time, they are bad.” The one aspect that I did not agree with in this reading was at Washington-Connors Elementary. I feel that technology has to be consistent with its implementation and goals throughout a school. Some teachers in this building had two computers, and others had 5. The programs that teachers were using varied as well. To make technology effective for all students, it must be consistent with every educator and in every classroom.

**__ Technology Fix Part II Reflection __**

It was interesting to see such different approaches from the schools in this section of the book. St John’s High School implemented a vast amount of technology in their day to day classes. I saw problems in two areas. The first being that St. John’s is a public school, and has much more money to allocate towards technology. The first thought that came to mind when reading about their technology was Disney Land. All students have to pay for a home internet connection, a full time aide goes through print outs and separates them into student files. I could not believe this. My district would never pay a full time aide salary if part of her job was to sort through print outs. As a future administrator, I can not justify using a full time aide for this sort of work. Another concern for me is that the technology is being used appropriately. The teachers interviewed mentioned that music, games, and web surfing were all difficult distractions to overcome. This would be one of my top priorities to resolve, because it is impacting student engagement during lessons. A safety issue arises from the wires running all over the floor. During my reading I thought to myself that it must be difficult to maneuver around the classroom with all of the students’ power cords on the floor. Many of the ideas implemented in this school are not realistic for average social economic status public schools. However this school did use technology efficiently in some areas. Educators used online test makers for quizzes and exams. This has two major benefits. It gives the students immediate feedback and saves time correcting the exams for the educator. When technology saves time and allows an educator to focus more time on their instruction, it is extremely efficient in my opinion. Another excellent example of this is Ted Stern, the freshman biology teacher, once spent two weeks on a Darwinism unit. With the access to so many resources through technology, he now completes the unit in four days. Longfellow Elementary sounds like a district that I would love to live in. Their classroom size is very small, and they have tremendous support from the extremely wealthy community. With all of these contributors working to benefit the district, I must admit that I was not impressed with their implementation of technology. It seemed as though the technology used in this district was very basic and not as up to date as some of the other schools in this book. Students have sessions on saving, shutting down, accessing the internet, and using the mouse. Students also use PowerPoint which in my experience has become standard practice. One point that I did find beneficial for the students was that notes must be taken by hand in their own words. No cutting and pasting is allowed. This is another idea that I will expect my staff to use when I am an administrator. I know a lot of individuals whose math skills are very weak, and I feel that a big contributor to that is that they never had to be dependent on handwritten math. When you have to work something out and think about it, you are more inclined to retain the information. The next school that was reviewed was Ludlow Springs School District. The district only has three schools to serve K-12. The spending per pupil is a respectful $12,000. Immediately I could tell that this district implemented more technology than the last. In their lab they not only had computers but several different forms of technology such as a digital camera, computer projector, cable television, and an interactive whiteboard. I love how the district’s main focus of technology implementation is to support test performance. This is an area that has to be looked at very closely. Many districts are using technology for the sake of using technology. This is not effective. You must think in depth about how the use of technology will impact student learning and then find a way to measure this. The district is also going to start a program that requires teachers to take online assessment of their tech skills. The teachers will have to take a pre- and post-test. This is a great way to push teachers into technology integration. It mandates that all teachers are held accountable and provides them with a courseware to learn from. Technology is scary, but if everyone in the building is being held accountable it makes the task less daunting. I will also steal the bear’s signals that they used for help in the computer lab. Students continuously call out in our lab, and this is a great way to keep the lab quiet and still assist the students. Western Hills School District is nationally recognized for its technology planning and implementation. I have to agree with the author that some of their dreams will be realized and others may need to be rethought or modified. The statement that Western Hills is not using technology for technology sake is right on. This district has the most concise vision for data driven instruction that I have read about thus far. The technology system will provide teachers with information on how their 20 assigned students are performing. This will help to better differentiate instruction for every student. This task seems to be very overwhelming to me, but the district has a committed team. That is why I believe that they will succeed in whatever way they choose to implement technology.

//Jesse,

Great reflection and very thoughtful. I especially agree with the "technology for technology's sake" rut that many school entities find themselves in. It only reinforces the leadership model of commitment, vision, and focus when it comes to technology. Thanks!

David //