Goal+7+Parents+and+Community+-+Tracie

Goal Seven: Parents and Community


Tracie Weisz EDET698 Master's Portfolio Goal 7 Spring 2014

One of the benefits on a larger scale of the Alaska TOOLkit is its appeal as a framework for schools to adopt as a model of technology integration. The structure of the TOOLkit is aligned clearly and distinctly with the New Alaska Standards, but because of the nature of the integrated technologies in the database, it lends itself easily to work in the classroom that is integrated across content areas. The structure of the TOOLkit provides procedures and strategies for teachers, schools, and even districts to develop a shared vision of what technology integration best practices can look like.

As districts go through the process every three years of writing and revising their district technology plans, the Alaska TOOLkit is a fit within several important elements of a good technology plan. For the element of Goals, Standards, and Strategies, the top two criteria state that,

1. The district will set specific and measurable goals, aligned with state academic content and performance standards, for using advanced technology to improve student academic achievement. Goals address specific state content and performance standards across several areas, not only educational technology.

2. The district will develop strategies for improving academic achievement and technology literacy of all students. Specific strategies will be identified to improve academic achievement and technology literacy of all students.

The Alaska TOOLkit is a fit for both of these criteria. Under the first, the learning goals supported by the tools and strategies are the New Alaska Standards themselves. The technologies meet the level of "advanced" in that they are the workflow and "power" tools that are cross platform and have multiple uses. The TOOLkit strategies not only directly address the Standards, in and of themselves they also align clearly with ISTENets. Under the second criteria, the emphasis is on strategies for improving achievement. The tools included in the TOOLkit are not just weblinks, but give a description of the instructional strategies or performance assessments that can be employed in the classroom to integrate the technology and to meet the standard. A teacher searching for ideas will not find links to drill and kill games, or self-contained read-and-quiz sites. They will find ideas for instructional strategies performance assessments that are varied, challenging, differentiated, and authentic (real-world application of the technology).

Another element within the Technology Plan is Technology Integration. The criteria state that, The district will use curricula and teaching strategies that integrate technology effectively leading to improvements in student academic achievement that are based on a review of relevant research, aligned to the Alaska State Content and Performance Standards, lead to improvements in student academic achievement, and include a timeline for integration.

Adoption of the Alaska TOOLkit meets the criteria for this element, as it is a database full of strategies aligned to Standards. The strategies and tools included are based on best practices and are already "classroom proven" - that is, they have been used personally by many of the teachers who have input into the building of the TOOLkit's database. A good integrated curriculum is one that is content rich, engaging, authentic, differentiated, challenging, and applicable in many situations. The tools and strategies in the TOOLkit provide this basis for curriculum planning.

The third element within the Technology Plan is Access. The criteria state that,

1. The district will ensure all students and teachers have increased access to educational technology in all schools. 2. The district will encourage the development and use of innovative delivery strategies through the use of technology. 3. The district will ensure effective use of technology to promote parental involvement and increase parent communication. 4. The district will describe how its schools will develop technology- based programs in collaboration with adult literacy services.

As teachers begin to work with the elements within the TOOLkit and experience success and transformative teaching in their classrooms, it is natural that such teachers would be front line advocates for increased access to technology in their schools. When advocacy comes from within and is focused, specific, and based on experience and results, these are the ideas that usually gain support. Teachers who begin experiencing levels of success with technology integration are also more likely to use innovative technologies that lead to transparency and open communication in their teaching. These are the teachers who will be more likely to host class websites, support student blogging, use course management systems, and a host of other platforms for sharing and workflow. Not only do these platforms increase differentiation and engagement within their classrooms, they also open up the learning in their classrooms to administration, parents, and the community.

Professional Development is the fourth element that must be addressed in the district's Technology Plan. The criteria for this element state that, 1. The district will provide ongoing, sustainable professional development for teachers, principals, administrators, and school library media personnel to further the effective use of technology in the classroom or library media center.

2. The district will ensure that teachers are prepared to integrate technology effectively into curricula and instruction.

As has been described and supported in previous goals for this project, professional development was the foundation of the idea for the TOOLkit to begin with, and is a selling point of it's major strength. The kind of professional development it provides is the highest quality - that which teachers are motivated to seek out for their own learning needs.

The Resources element of the Technology Plan addresses monetary resources and hardware resources, but also places emphasis on curricular resources. The Alaska TOOLkit is primarily filled with free and open-source web resources. More importantly, it provides the support teachers need to build the skills to innovate and create their own resources that meet the needs of their students.

Schools and districts that are looking for professional development, technology integration, and transformative instruction will find these elements with implementation of the Alaska TOOLkit as a platform for curriculum and teacher resources.

__**ARTIFACTS**__:

The following are documents are collected from work I did throughout my EDET program which include re-writing our district's technology plan, evaluating the plan, and my personal journey with regards of my understandings of technology integration from an administrative point of view. The technology plan informed much of our ideas of structure with regards to what we wanted the Alaska Toolkit to accomplish. The personal journey describes my viewpoints on practice, which greatly influenced the work I did on the Alaska Toolkit project.