ADVIS Strategic Planning for Technology - 10/12/2006

Creating Models for Professional Development
October 12, 2006

To Do ("Takeaways")
These are somewhat random ideas I want to consider implementing (or at least give more thought to) that were inspired by the presentations or by comments from other technology folks. Nothing is set in stone. These are just ideas, at least for now.

• Make digital cameras more readily available. We may need more and we need to make folks more aware of them, since it seems they are very popular in other schools, yet seldom used around here.
• Appoint Department Technology Coordinators that would be responsible for bringing needs of their Departments to our attention and for communicating information (about new software, etc.) to their departments. These people could also be responsible for coordinating technology training and maybe even conducting it during department meetings.
  - Ideally, this people would be paid extra for their service (Springside spreads the pay for one "virtual" member of their technology staff over 8 people who do part time work like this for their department)
• Send a tip making teachers aware that we can create shared folders for them on \\fs1\students\.
• Increase access to computers for classes that need them for projects. This would include making enough machines available and easing setup and retrieval of laptops.
• Focus on the use of technology as a time-management tool during future (maybe next year) training sessions.
  - This could coordinate with general (non-technology) time-management techniques, which would be a good idea for Professional Development Days next year, since teachers often talk about not having time to do new things.
• Make the Technology Plan more visible.
  - Posting it in public, sending an "executive summary" to faculty, staff, and maybe parents, and having representatives talk more about the Plan in department/division meetings could help in this area.
• Teachers should include at least one technology goal in their "Success Plans."
  - We should be aware of what these area.
  - That might also suggest that these "Success Plans" should be posted in a shared location where all faculty and staff, or at least all administrators could see them.
• Consider subcommittees of the Technology Committee.
  - This might a include separate groups that deal with curriculum and with infrastructure.
  - It might also make sense to make the Assistive Technology Committee one of these subcommittees.
• Consider "virtual" committee meetings. These would be topics that we could post and respond to using online discussions groups, making it easier to solicit opinions from large groups without having to find times when everyone can physically meet.
  - Actual meetings would be limited in scope.
• Make teachers aware that they are adapting to the new grading software better than other schools. One said that their online grade book rollout took two years.
• Communicate our guidelines for using school equipment. This would include the following:
  - What equipment is available?
  - How do I request it?
  - What are the "rules" for its use?
• Figure out a may to differentiate between legitimate high priority technology emergencies and things that appear to be a high-priority for one person, but are not schoolwide high priority problems. The Help Desk form should reflect this new priority (and make this clear to someone entering a case).
• Focus on regular professional development for the Technology Department. I feel I have not spent enough time on my own personal development and think we should all make sure we identify areas we want to learn more about.
• Consider the Cyber School idea for faculty professional development.
  - Could we subscribe to a service that could support faculty training, even for non-technology topics.
• Examine Blackboard to see if it can offer the same functionality as the teacher web sites that Lauren created.
  - I think our current system is easy to use and will work very well, but Blackboard would probably be easier to setup/maintain and would offer additional features. I don't know if that benefit would be worth the cost of learning to use new software. I do know that now is not an ideal time to launch this, but if we want to use it in the future then it would be good to decide that sooner rather than later.
• Schedule regular meetings with Learning Specialists (like we plan to do with Division Heads). This could be used to:
  - Identify faculty in need of technology professional development to produce more interactive or multi-sensory lessons
  - Identify student technology needs (for accommodations)
  - Training about software that might be of use to classroom teachers they support

Notes from Presentations

Germantown Academy (Joe Scherrer and Carol Siwinski) talked about the following:

• In the past they were able to fund all requests for outside technology training, but as interest in technology has increased they have not had the budget to support all requests.
• They implemented Blackboard last year.
  - Most of their formal professional development days focused on this last year
  - This year they are doing more one-on-one mentoring
• They switched e-mail software this year.o Attended department meetings to introduce this
• They have regular (two per division per year) training sessions with different departments after/during lunch throughout the year.
  - Someone arranges coverage the teachers' classes during this time
• They are trying to use more student created movies in classes this year.
• They are using podcasts.
  - These are available through iTunes by searching for RadioGA (not to be confused with Radio Ga Ga)
• They believe "a lot more" comes from one-on-one training
  

Moorestown Friends School (Julie-Ann Morris) talked about the following:

• They teach technology classes in grades K-12
• Some of their teachers were motivated to use certain technologies when they found out how much money the school invested in that software or hardware.
• They talked about finding the training method that works best for each teacher.
• They offer candy jars in the Computer Room to make it more inviting. Some people stop by for candy and then ask questions they might not otherwise bring up.
• They have used screen-saver tips of the day (or week). Some of these were offbeat to draw interest to the tips.
• They encourage "structured observation" by teachers of what other teachers are doing.
• Teachers were required to take one online course in any subject they chose (through a service that the school subscribed to).
• They published technology standards for teachers. These included specific skills that indicated whether they were beginner, intermediate, or advanced.
  - Each teacher was required to include in their annual goals developing at least one technology skill to move them into a higher category.

Norwood-Fontbonne Academy (Bernadette Hennessy and Tom Shaw) talked about the following:

• Offering Act 48 credit helped motivate teachers to seek technology professional development.
• They offer training in 20 minute sessions.
  - They had started with 10 minute visits for novice users (after school, during lunch or recess). These kept people from being overwhelmed with more information than they could use, but were considered too short.
• They have "power users" on the technology committee and encourage these folks to seek outside training.
• They will "practice" presentations about technology topics by showing them to faculty who they anticipate will not understand the material or might have questions or concerns.
  - This helps head off personal gripes/questions during the presentation to the rest of the faculty, while also helping to better address anything that might not be clear in the presentation.

Upcoming ADVIS Events
We will probably receive separate listserv messages about these, but they gave us a list of events that are coming up. I believe these dates are accurate.

• Thursday, 11/2 – Small School Technology Brown Bag Lunch
• Tuesday, 1/9/2007 – Annual Retreat (theme will be Emerging Technologies)
• Tuesday, 2/6/2007 – Curriculum Integration
• Tuesday, 4/24/2007 – Interactive Technologies
• May, 2007 – "Field Trip" to Microsoft School in Philadelphia