In completing the Technology Applications Inventory and the SETDA survey, I am stunned by how much I don't know about technology. I have always considered myself to be technologically astute, however, seeing how poorly I scored in the Solving Problems domain of the Technology Applications Inventory has made me reconsider my assessment of my skills. Additionally, I realized that because my campus does not track the correlation of technology and student achievement, we may be missing an important source of data. I understand from my campus technology coordinator that technology data as it impacts student achievement is not collected at the elementary level in our district.
I think we should be collecting this data at the elementary school level because technology skills that must be mastered by Grade 8 must be formed in elementary school. If we track this data in elementary school, we can better predict how our eigth graders will do on their assessment in Foundations, Information Acquisition, Problem Solving, and Communication. Further, we can use the data to formatively assess our students' performance and address skills that need more instruction to assure mastery.
The Technology Applications Inventory indicates that Foundations and Information Acquisition are my areas of greatest expertise. I agree with the results of my survey especially since Foundations assesses the most basic computer applications and Information Acquisition is a skill that has evolved as I have kept up to date with current technology. As a technology leader on my campus, I will need to strengthen my Solving Problem skills such as learning spreadsheet and desktop publishing programs.
In analyzing the Long-Range Plan for Technology, 2006-2020, I have become aware of the need to improve the technology skills of our students so that they will be successful in careers that we, as educators, may not even be able to imagine. As an instructional leader, it is my job to make sure that all teachers are using technology in the classrooms and that all students are being exposed to, and are having hands-on experience with many forms of technology.
In examining my own practice in the classroom, I see that I am guilty of not promoting the Long-Range Plan for Technology in that I have only been teaching the basics and have not allowed my students to communicate in our technology-enriched society. I now realize that to ensure that our students are competitive in the emerging global economies, we need to give our students multiple opportunities to experience technology. While I don't think that I am resistant to technology, I do understand how many teachers in the Teacher Voices section of the Long-Range Plan for Technology expressed their reluctance to use more advanced forms of technology. The problem is that most teachers feel pressured to teach the TEKS that are tested on the TAKS tests, and technology is not a subject that teachers focus on at the elementary level.
As an instructional leader, it will be my duty to require that teachers are incorporating the technology TEKS in each of their lessons so that we will create a technology-literate group of students who are well equipped to enter the 21st Century job market. Additionally, I will need to provide instruction and on-going training to all teachers so that they will be comfortable teaching technology and imbedding it in all subject areas. Further, I will have to allocate funds to make sure that my campus has the most up-to-date forms of technology and that my students have time to utilize technology in each of their classes.
Finally, in reading the Long-Range Plan for Technology, I understand the critical nature of making our students technology-literate to compete in the global economy of the 21st century. While many of our students are exposed to technology at home, many of our disadvantaged students only use technology while at school. As an instructional leader it will be my job to make sure that our students are participating in distance learning opportunities and are able to communicate and collaborate using technology in order to have our students fully engaged in technology and learning, and thus meeting the goals of the Long-Range Plan for Technology.
The Pre-K Technology Applications TEKS state that Pre-K students must be exposed to a variety of technology so that they will expand their ability to acquire information, solve problems and communicate with others. Pre-K students will benefit from using engaging, age-appropriate and challenging software that will increase their learning of curriculum content. The Pre-K Technology Applications TEKS are provided to give young students a springboard for learning technology throughout their lives. Pre-K students learn that technology enhances are lives and will be exposed to technology including computers, voice/sound recorders, televisions, digital cameras, personal digital assistants, MP3 devices and/or iPods. It is this exposure to basic technology that helps young students feel comfortable with using technology and confidents in using technology throughout their lives.
The Pre-K Technology Applications TEKS begin with the students exposure to a variety of computer input devices, such as mouse, keyboard, voice/sound recorder, touch screen, and CD-ROM and moves to the student being able to use software to express and create the student’s own ideas. The TEKS finally move to where the Pre-K student is able to recognize that information is accessible through the use of technology.
A spiraling curriculum is a curriculum that exposes students to a wide variety of concepts over and over again and at varying degrees of difficulty. A spiraling curriculum is the basis for the TEKS. After completing a vertical alignment of the TEKS, I discovered that the TEKS spiral or scaffold as the concepts learned in one grade level are repeated in the subsequent grade levels; however the level of difficulty has increased in the subsequent grade levels. For example, Matter is taught in Kindergarten, however, in each of the following years, the TEKS become increasingly more sophisticated and the students are expected to build on their prior knowledge so that they can comprehend the more sophisticated concepts of buoyancy and density.
The Technology TEKS are also spiraling. The Pre-K TEKS for technology expose the students to basic technology that is grade-level appropriate. Because each child learns at a different rate, the spiraling curriculum of the Technology TEKS allows for children who are not ready to understand that they can create their own ideas using technology to further learn that concept in subsequent grades. In the spiraling curriculum the student does not stay at the level until he/she masters the concept, but moves on and then revisits the concepts in the following years.
The Pre-K teacher will model and discuss how to obtain information from websites. If the child is unable to understand the concept, the child will learn more in K-2. The K-2 student will be able to use a variety of strategies to acquire information from electronic resources including applying key word searches to acquire information and select appropriate strategies to navigate and access information for research and resource sharing. The Grades 3-5 student will then be able to acquire electronic information in a variety of formats, including acquiring text, audio, video, and graphics. The Grade 6-8 student will then be able to identify, create, and use files in various formats such as text, bitmapped/vector graphics, image, video, and audio files and will demonstrate the ability to access, operate, and manipulate information from secondary storage and remote devices including CD-ROM/laser discs and on-line catalogs. These skills will be strengthened in high school where the high school student will be able to acquire information in and knowledge about electronic formats including text, audio, video, and graphics; use a variety of resources, including foundation and enrichment curricula, together with various productivity tools to gather authentic data as a basis for individual and group programming projects; and design and document sequential search algorithms for digital information storage and retrieval. Each of these TEKS scaffold on one another and the opportunity to learn the technology concepts occurs in each year after Pre-K; however the level of difficulty and sophistication of technology use increases each year.
I really like your daughter's comment. Allow me to use an internet lingo - LOL! Don't you think our students would react the same way if we show them that we are capable of doing "cool" things such as blogging? I think so. I believe our students would feel that eventhough we are digital immigrants, we are capable of embracing their digital world. This is not to say that we need to do this impress them with our new found skills and talents but more so to show that we can relate to them. Knowing that teachers are capable of speaking the same lingo would allow our students to feel that schools are not so different from the real world. We want to hear - "School is cool!" - for real.
I think I may have saved this correctly and it will be able to be viewed by other people.
ReplyDeleteIn completing the Technology Applications Inventory and the SETDA survey, I am stunned by how much I don't know about technology. I have always considered myself to be technologically astute, however, seeing how poorly I scored in the Solving Problems domain of the Technology Applications Inventory has made me reconsider my assessment of my skills. Additionally, I realized that because my campus does not track the correlation of technology and student achievement, we may be missing an important source of data. I understand from my campus technology coordinator that technology data as it impacts student achievement is not collected at the elementary level in our district.
ReplyDeleteI think we should be collecting this data at the elementary school level because technology skills that must be mastered by Grade 8 must be formed in elementary school. If we track this data in elementary school, we can better predict how our eigth graders will do on their assessment in Foundations, Information Acquisition, Problem Solving, and Communication. Further, we can use the data to formatively assess our students' performance and address skills that need more instruction to assure mastery.
The Technology Applications Inventory indicates that Foundations and Information Acquisition are my areas of greatest expertise. I agree with the results of my survey especially since Foundations assesses the most basic computer applications and Information Acquisition is a skill that has evolved as I have kept up to date with current technology. As a technology leader on my campus, I will need to strengthen my Solving Problem skills such as learning spreadsheet and desktop publishing programs.
I logged into my blog from my office computer and it appears this URL is working properly.
ReplyDeleteIn analyzing the Long-Range Plan for Technology, 2006-2020, I have become aware of the need to improve the technology skills of our students so that they will be successful in careers that we, as educators, may not even be able to imagine. As an instructional leader, it is my job to make sure that all teachers are using technology in the classrooms and that all students are being exposed to, and are having hands-on experience with many forms of technology.
ReplyDeleteIn examining my own practice in the classroom, I see that I am guilty of not promoting the Long-Range Plan for Technology in that I have only been teaching the basics and have not allowed my students to communicate in our technology-enriched society. I now realize that to ensure that our students are competitive in the emerging global economies, we need to give our students multiple opportunities to experience technology. While I don't think that I am resistant to technology, I do understand how many teachers in the Teacher Voices section of the Long-Range Plan for Technology expressed their reluctance to use more advanced forms of technology. The problem is that most teachers feel pressured to teach the TEKS that are tested on the TAKS tests, and technology is not a subject that teachers focus on at the elementary level.
As an instructional leader, it will be my duty to require that teachers are incorporating the technology TEKS in each of their lessons so that we will create a technology-literate group of students who are well equipped to enter the 21st Century job market. Additionally, I will need to provide instruction and on-going training to all teachers so that they will be comfortable teaching technology and imbedding it in all subject areas. Further, I will have to allocate funds to make sure that my campus has the most up-to-date forms of technology and that my students have time to utilize technology in each of their classes.
Finally, in reading the Long-Range Plan for Technology, I understand the critical nature of making our students technology-literate to compete in the global economy of the 21st century. While many of our students are exposed to technology at home, many of our disadvantaged students only use technology while at school. As an instructional leader it will be my job to make sure that our students are participating in distance learning opportunities and are able to communicate and collaborate using technology in order to have our students fully engaged in technology and learning, and thus meeting the goals of the Long-Range Plan for Technology.
The Pre-K Technology Applications TEKS state that Pre-K students must be exposed to a variety of technology so that they will expand their ability to acquire information, solve problems and communicate with others. Pre-K students will benefit from using engaging, age-appropriate and challenging software that will increase their learning of curriculum content. The Pre-K Technology Applications TEKS are provided to give young students a springboard for learning technology throughout their lives. Pre-K students learn that technology enhances are lives and will be exposed to technology including computers, voice/sound recorders, televisions, digital cameras, personal digital assistants, MP3 devices and/or iPods. It is this exposure to basic technology that helps young students feel comfortable with using technology and confidents in using technology throughout their lives.
ReplyDeleteThe Pre-K Technology Applications TEKS begin with the students exposure to a variety of computer input devices, such as mouse, keyboard, voice/sound recorder, touch screen, and CD-ROM and moves to the student being able to use software to express and create the student’s own ideas. The TEKS finally move to where the Pre-K student is able to recognize that information is accessible through the use of technology.
A spiraling curriculum is a curriculum that exposes students to a wide variety of concepts over and over again and at varying degrees of difficulty. A spiraling curriculum is the basis for the TEKS. After completing a vertical alignment of the TEKS, I discovered that the TEKS spiral or scaffold as the concepts learned in one grade level are repeated in the subsequent grade levels; however the level of difficulty has increased in the subsequent grade levels. For example, Matter is taught in Kindergarten, however, in each of the following years, the TEKS become increasingly more sophisticated and the students are expected to build on their prior knowledge so that they can comprehend the more sophisticated concepts of buoyancy and density.
The Technology TEKS are also spiraling. The Pre-K TEKS for technology expose the students to basic technology that is grade-level appropriate. Because each child learns at a different rate, the spiraling curriculum of the Technology TEKS allows for children who are not ready to understand that they can create their own ideas using technology to further learn that concept in subsequent grades. In the spiraling curriculum the student does not stay at the level until he/she masters the concept, but moves on and then revisits the concepts in the following years.
The Pre-K teacher will model and discuss how to obtain information from websites. If the child is unable to understand the concept, the child will learn more in K-2. The K-2 student will be able to use a variety of strategies to acquire information from electronic resources including applying key word searches to acquire information and select appropriate strategies to navigate and access information for research and resource sharing. The Grades 3-5 student will then be able to acquire electronic information in a variety of formats, including acquiring text, audio, video, and graphics. The Grade 6-8 student will then be able to identify, create, and use files in various formats such as text, bitmapped/vector graphics, image, video, and audio files and will demonstrate the ability to access, operate, and manipulate information from secondary storage and remote devices including CD-ROM/laser discs and on-line catalogs. These skills will be strengthened in high school where the high school student will be able to acquire information in and knowledge about electronic formats including text, audio, video, and graphics; use a variety of resources, including foundation and enrichment curricula, together with various productivity tools to gather authentic data as a basis for individual and group programming projects; and design and document sequential search algorithms for digital information storage and retrieval.
ReplyDeleteEach of these TEKS scaffold on one another and the opportunity to learn the technology concepts occurs in each year after Pre-K; however the level of difficulty and sophistication of technology use increases each year.
Mom you're so cool with your own blog.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteI really like your daughter's comment. Allow me to use an internet lingo - LOL!
ReplyDeleteDon't you think our students would react the same way if we show them that we are capable of doing "cool" things such as blogging? I think so. I believe our students would feel that eventhough we are digital immigrants, we are capable of embracing their digital world. This is not to say that we need to do this impress them with our new found skills and talents but more so to show that we can relate to them. Knowing that teachers are capable of speaking the same lingo would allow our students to feel that schools are not so different from the real world. We want to hear - "School is cool!" - for real.