Building a sustainable ed-tech culture in your school or organization

by Anna Ponterosso

The Internet has provided a number of resources for research and professional development that was not readily available a decade ago. Hence, today’s students, both the adult learner and k-12 are using different methods of learning than those used in prior years. To keep up with the pace of technology, today’s teachers and facilitators are incorporating new technologies in their system of teaching. However, in order for teachers and facilitators to make such changes in their teaching methods, they must learn how to use the technology.
Below is a professional development strategy that will work on establishing a Community Learning Center.

The professional development team will consist of the following:
Superintendent
Principals from each of the schools within the district
One Secondary Teacher from each school
One middle school teacher from each middle school
One elementary teacher from each of the elementary schools
3 Parents from PTA
One Student from each level (elementary, middle, and HS)
Instruments that will be used to analyze the needs of the project:
Surveys, completed by parents
Surveys, completed by teachers
Surveys, completed by students
Focus groups involving all constituents in the school district
Follow-up:
Analysis of data collected from surveys
Incorporate suggestions from focus groups
Identify needs, resources, funding

Program goals:
Provide surrounding community educational instructions at a low cost
Provide adult learners the ability to improve computer skills
Teach adult learners how to communicate via email
Provide a nurturing adult learning community where individuals feel safe and comfortable
Encourage teachers and students (HS, middle, and elementary) to participate in volunteer programs
Provide a location with technology that will be leased, upgraded and maintained.

Superintendent, Dr. Margaret Keller-Cogan is one of the many educational professionals committed to developing a sustainable educational technology culture in the Clarkstown Central School District of Rockland County. In 2007, she organized a committee to develop a strategic plan that focused on developing PD sessions for teachers and administrators. As a result, fifty-one PD sessions were offered through a program called My Learning Plan. The committee also organized a conference day for teachers that included thirteen PD sessions. The conference was developed from suggestions and feedback from parents, administrators and teachers. Additionally, fifty-three PD courses were offered for Teaching Assistants.

To insure continued professional development throughout the school district, in 2008 teams were established with the responsibility to plan for on-going support of professional staff training at each of the schools. The PD sessions were based on the individual needs of each school within the district and with the consultation of the principals. The Clarkstown Central School District also established a Community Learning Center and interest in its programs tripled since it was first created. Dr. Keller-Cogan believes that this is “a testament to the importance of providing such an important service to our community.” (ccsd.edu)

Educators and administrators, such as Dr. Keller-Cogan that have the vision to see how technology can improve the status of the school district are the type of individuals we need to encourage and empower teachers to learn and develop skills that they can integrate in their courses. However, there are a number of challenges that districts face when trying to provide the support needed for the professional development projects. Such challenges include: funds, infrastructures, equipment, staffing, time, lack of cooperation, fear, and poor technical support.

In order to insure that a PD project is successful it is important to follow the guidelines set by the NSDC thereby creating a learning community that understands the goals of the school district, provides leadership, and collaboration of resources, while using the process and content standards to improve the learning of all students and teachers.

Therefore, the first step that must be taken when planning a professional development project is to form a committee to assess the needs of the institution or school district, its students and teachers. The committee should include members of the administration, teachers, facilitators, parents, students and support staff, as stated in my example above. In addition to examining the needs of the organization, the committee will also be responsible for establishing goals, finding resources and setting a timeline for goals to be met. Furthermore a system, to measure the effectiveness of the PD program should be established, as well as, provisions to make any necessary amendments to set procedures. The committee should also plan for future and continued PD sessions by organizing resources such as staff time, equipment and its continuous maintenance, and allocate funds that will sustain goals.

Professional Development programs will provide not only better skilled and technology informed educators that understand the learning methods of our children, but also create an encouraging learning environment with higher academic accomplishments (nsdc.org). This belief is also shared by Patrick Hockey who is the Technology Administrator and Cyber School Principal in Phillipsburg Osceola (Pennsylvania school district). In an interview with Ed tech magazine, Mr. Hockey stated that teachers “must be able to adapt technology skills and knowledge to improve instruction. It’s all about quality control; teachers must take an analytical or evaluative approach to determine how to implement technology in the classroom”. (edtechmag.com)

At High Tech High, teachers are using technology to instruct students on how to use the internet for researching, and “producing documentary films”, “making robots”, and “presenting their work publicly to real audiences, so the technology for us does help to achieve those goals” (edtechmag.com). Mr. Daley, who is the Chief Academic Officer at High Tech High, also states that technology is not the solution to the challenges of American education, and by just adding new technology to schools it will not necessarily improve the quality of teaching. I agree with Mr. Daley, since technology is only the instrument or tool to facilitate teaching methods.
School districts across the country, such as Pennsylvania’s School District of Jenkintown, are finding ways to educate students through technologies that are native to the students. For example, the teachers at Jenkintown School District use YouTube to “illustrate points about the principles of government. YouTube is able to give the students, who are primarily visual learners, an ‘Aha!’ moment”(edtechmag.com). The teachers in this school district also use YouTube for their comedy course and part of the assignments are to find video clips that show the “principles of comedy that the teacher is trying to get across” and “ to write essays on that topic” (edtechmag.com) . This is a very interesting approach of incorporating new teaching techniques into course assignments making them more interesting than simply sitting listening to a lecture.

In the public schools of Great Neck, New York, they installed wireless devices called clickers to assess students learning ability while class is in session. Part of the district professional development plan involves getting “teachers to think about how they could specifically integrate this technology into the classroom” and “make sure they have time to meet and discuss when they would use the device and what data they could collect.” (edtechmag.com)
This plan seems to insure that teachers not only have the appropriate skills to use the clickers, but also accounts for time management which sometimes is forgotten. This idea is also supported by the following statement: “determining and understanding this culture enables professional developers to plan programs that are relevant and consistent with the staff’s daily working context (Caffarella, 1994, 2002 Preparing For The Journey, Dr. King, p.71)

Hence, professional development sessions that include strategies on how to incorporate new technologies into the curriculum, must be well planed to insure that the technology fits the need of its constituents. It is also important to provide adequate technical support and continued funding, not only for the technology, but also for the continuous training of teachers, administrators, and support staff. Presenters providing the professional development training must also be experts with the technology to insure a comfortable learning environment.

As I look at my current professional setting and the implementation of a new system in the next year or so, I understand that there are plans for professional development of support staff, administrators, faculty, deans, and students. However, at the moment the plans are not completely clear and do not seem to follow the NSDC’s standards. In fact, I am disappointed with the lack of organization and lack of knowledge from some of the IT staff and training facilitators. I would like to see a more structured and balanced professional development training project that includes less convoluted information and more concise procedures. To insure the success of the training, I plan to be involved in all aspects of this project and provide as much feedback as possible so that my colleagues and support staff are training in a comfortable environment.

References:

Lisa Fratt. Technology today.www.edtechmag.com/k12/issues/may-june2008/technology-today

Ron Schachter. Changing Habits.www.edtechmag.com/k12/issues/may-june2008/Changing-Habits

King, K. P. (2002). Keeping Pace with Technology: Educational Technology that Transforms, Vol 1: The Challenge and Promise for Educators. Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press. (K-12)
NSDC's Standards for Staff Development. (Revised,2001)http://www.nsdc.org/standards/index.cfm

Dr. Margaret Keller-Cogan. A message from the superintendent. http://ccsd.edu/district.cfm?subpage=24