Technology Use Planning Overview

Definition of technology use planning:

        If you are the head coach of a sports team what is your ultimate goal? The answer is to reach the epitome of success with a championship. For the National Football League this is the Super Bowl and for the Boise State Broncos the BCS championship. What can a coach do in order to achieve their goals? They can start with an overall objective, for example win the BCS.  A good team usually has one main objective and supporting plans to achieve it. For success the coaching staff will put together a season agenda. It could be win every home and certain amount of away games.  To meet this goal, coaches will create a week-by-week plan. Personal goals are similar, we begin with the primary objective, produce secondary objectives to support our vision, and then adopt a systematic approach to help accomplish our goal.  To me technology use planning is the same concept. You start with your goals, begin your map for success, and break the map into smaller digestible pieces. Always keeping in mind the road trip is easier with good directions.  

How might the new national educational technology plan 2010 be an effective and powerful resource for technology use planning? 

For every "what should I do?" a teacher must ask, "Why Should I do it?" technology use in the classroom is no exception. (Shoffner, 2007) 

        The ability of technology to help us in the classroom is being revealed daily.  The missing ingredient for most teachers and educators is the "why". Why do we use technology? A great lecturer can engage students with stories through the power of his or her presentation.  A great teacher can challenge you with words alone. Some feel that is the necessary recipe for classroom success. Those people are just as correct as those who fight for technology integration. If the overall goal is learning, then what difference does it make if it takes three blended online applications to get the “AH HA” experience or it takes one powerful lecture to stimulate that same moment. Both avenues are a success for student learning. The issue is, not all teachers are power lecturers, and not all technology helps in learning. The beauty of the educational plan is it provides a reason for both types of teachers to care. The plan can suggest support that aides in powerful lectures and answers the "why" to the educational technology question.  

        The importance of the government supporting this program cannot be overstated. Historically if standardized testing scores were the only top down concerns then schools would only concern themselves with standardized test preparation letting classrooms run as they would. Some teachers would try to adopt educational technology, and some would continue their seasoned lesson plans. The solution is a technological divided school and district where one teacher trying to adopt a learning structure supported with technology does not have the community support of other teachers adopting a similar policy. After an integrated class those students then have a fifty/fifty chance of whether or not another teacher actively uses technology to assist in learning.  When the government now says it is time to adapt and change, they have taken the bad guy out of the room at the district level for those who disagree with implementing technologies. The district is now just following the countries new educational objective.  This is the type of report that could be the fire some districts needed to begin their planning and could be the formula for success those that find themselves surrounded by a lack of professional motivation towards changes need. 

        When I read Technology-based learning and assessment arrangements will be pivotal in improving student-learning part of me said “yes, but only to those fortunate to have access to this technology”.  Their assessment model is a great idea. My question is what types of accommodations do they plan on making for those who still fall in the digital divide? That divide still states twenty percent of American households are without Internet access. How we can assess the achievements of those children without deepening their digital inequality to other students not part of the twenty percent? 

Do you agree with See about tech use plans needing to be short, not long term? why? 

       When I first read the article, I did agree.  A valid point made was the speed in which technology changes. It is true the landscape in which technology planning exists changes daily. However, without a long-term goal or established outcome what can a plan accomplish?  Shorter smaller plans are important to monitor the successes or failures.  A longer plan can demonstrate the seriousness of the administration's adoption of technology.  It is necessary to have an overall objective. Without an overall expectation, how would we incorporate or measure smaller short-term goals. Sometimes it is hard to see the forest through the trees but it is important to know which forest you are in if you want to find a way out.

       Below I have detailed my technology planning experience and provided two examples. The first example was a quick short-term solution to a class objective. The conclusion was a failed class experience that did not meet my objective. The short-term solution costs me the benefits of the long-term outcome I wanted from the class. My second example detailed the reward of joining secondary objectives to primary ones for a long-term approach.  I suggest a hybrid approach that details long-term goals with the ability to adjust shorter term as technology changes. For instance, my long-term goal is to establish a faculty community blog. In the short term, we will create a blogger.com account for all staff. If our plan is yearly and  blogger.com shuts down (much like Google reader has), should we change our long-term goal? The answer is no. The right choice would be to go forward toward our objective in this case a community resource for faculty, by changing our short term to a different blogging source. 

       Ultimately, I think a blended approach that pays attention to short-term details with a long-term objective will help keep everyone on an achievable approach. It is important to be flexible as the changes occur, but the flexibility and approaches should still represent the districts overall goals for their technology program.

What do you think about his comment that "Effective technology plans focus on applications not technology"

       Technology is more than the hardware we use.   Plans that just focus on tangible technology limit the student experience. If the only focus is on new keyboards and screens the world of educational technology is passed by like a missed highway exit.  Imagine if you were given a hose and before that moment in time, you have never seen a hose before in your life. You have no fundamental knowledge of its benefits or drawbacks. The person giving you the hose shows you how to operate it and then directs you to go spray the dirt off the sidewalk. Previously you have cleaned the sidewalk with a broom.  In that moment you use the hose for the first time you are speechless by the efficiency the hose creates for cleaning sidewalks. What if that was the only application of using the hose, you ever learned? To continue with this example imagine one day you were cleaning the sidewalk, and across the street, a small fire started, a small fire with the potential to spread and cause great damage. You look around and ask if anyone knows how to extinguish the flame. Out of nowhere, someone runs up to you and snatches the hose from your hands. You watch in amazement as the hose puts out the fire. If your initial teachings of the hose had focused on more than one application of the technology, you would have been able to identify the tool you had all along to combat the fire.  As far-fetched, as that example may seem the basics remain the same. Focusing on applications paired with the technology allows us to reach a wider utilization perspective. Technology itself does not make learning easier or students smarter. The application of how we use that technology does. It could be to give them a better understanding of theory and concepts or an online flashcard study aide.  "Just as articles are read before they are assigned, technology should be used before it is incorporated" (Shoffner, 2007) this makes the focus on technology just as important as the applications. Is the article more important than the book it is found in? No, my thoughts are both should be mutually exclusive and beneficial to study. It is incorrect to focus on one and not the other. They should be compliments of each other

 What experience have you had with technology use planning and what have been your experience in terms of outcomes (both good and bad)

         I have had two different experiences in technology use planning. The first experience I will discuss centered on using a game simulation as a learning aid.  The simulation I used was based on real time stock market trading. It challenged students to buy, sell, and trade stocks over a twelve-week period. The student with the highest net worth at the games end would have their lowest quiz grade dropped. Initial student reactions to the game were positive.  However, problems arose when the class faced frequent interruptions of service from the game’s servers. The first time the experience caused concern for me was when the game shut down for a one-week period without notification.  A similar service interruption happened several more times in the coming weeks.  The games reliability issue caused students to become frustrated.  By the sixth week student negativity reached a tipping point.  The main focal point of the game became a distant memory.   Upon reading comments and reviews of the simulation from other teachers, I came to realize the failure rested on my shoulders.  The comments all shared a common theme centering on the games lack of dependability for classroom application.  If I had not rushed to implement the game into my lesson plan, I could have taken note of the problems. 

      My second experience in technology planning was much better.  In the beginning of last summer, a key focus for faculty was a universal grading system.  A problem with adjuncts final grade packets became a source of aggravation for our higher academic department. There were many times grade books were not legible and grade weight breakdowns were not mathematically correct. My task was to come up with a solution and implement a standard grading system at little to no cost.  The type of system I was being asked to find is generally very expensive.  This was my first experience learning technology planning does not always have to focus around computers and the students.  Planning also accounts for making the teachers' lives easier which in return enhances the classroom environment.  After spending time researching options I decided to pursue a resource called Engrade,(  www.engrade.com) Once the decision was made to adopt Engrade, I set about the planning process. The first step of the plan was for me to adopt Engrade for one semester before presenting it to the faculty. My thought process behind this was to test drive the product. A lesson I learned from trying to do too much in too short a time period is detailed in the above example.  During the semester I logged Engrades benefits and drawbacks.  I studied Engrade from the inside out and all of the intricate progam details.  My next step at the semester's end was to make a plan for faculty adoption.   I decided to break Engrade down into small compartments instead of as a large program with many facets.  Looking back, this was important to its reception and success.  The first component I detailed was the grading aspect.  I left out all of the classroom management benefits and features. In the grading aspect, I trained the staff to be able to weight grading, log grades, and input different categories. it was important to provide a gradual introduction for instructors that were nervous about the adoption of something new to their lesson plan. By breaking down the features into smaller manageable chunks, they were able to digest the value and implement it without feeling overwhelmed. The instructors were told to implement this new system by the spring semester giving them the winter break to get comfortable with the program. By the end of the spring term, we had full utilization of Engrade and positive feedback, even from those reluctant at first to the idea. The second phase of the implementation is now taking shape. During the summer months, we plan to introduce classroom management tools every two weeks. The main tool we are going to start with is using the calendar for student assignments. From there, we will explain how to upload power points and lecture notes directly into the calendar, and finally how to open assignments so that they can be turned in digitally through Engrade.  While I agree that technology implementation should be short cycled because it changes so frequently, I also disagree that it should not have a long-term goal affiliation.  The way we introduced Engrade would not have been successful if we did not take our time and slowly implement it over a longer period. If we would have rushed the implementation and dumped large amounts of information on our faculty all at once, we would have had information overload. I no longer think about technology planning as a computer lab and computer numbers issue. 

Reference

Shoffner, M. (2007). Preservice english teachers and technology: a consideration of weblogs for      the english classroom. Contemporary Issues in Technology and Teacher Education, 7(4), 245-255.