Start with defining technology use planning--how would you describe it?
Technology use planning is creating a plan to implement the use of technology into everyday classroom uses. In creating this plan there must be an importances of the need and vision of the educational organization that the plan is being created for.
How might the new National Educational Technology Plan 2010 be an effective and powerful resource for technology use planning?
After looking over the National Educational Technology Plan 2010 I think that it can be a great resource for technology planning. Looking at the plan overall, there are excellent observations about where the future of teaching and learning is going and how it needs to have a relationship with technology.
As a technology planner, an understanding of the challenge of our education system is essential to creating a complete and successful plan. Using the NETP as a guide, a student centered learning plan is the future within education. As the plan looks at assessment, the plan states that having technology-based assessments will allow conditions of learning to be modified for the students. Using these assessments, student learning becomes more focused on the individual. This being said, I believe that this is still in the future. This is not an argument for more standardized testing, but rather for an assessment supported by technology that allows us as educators to become student centered.
The Plan also goes into details about teaching and the importance of having quality learning experiences for teachers in regards to technology. The plan mentions that it is evident that education is behind in both training our teachers and our students within technology. The ability to train our teachers in new technology uses will allow our student's to grow in their learning as well.
The National Educational Technology Plan 2010 is a great framework resource for implementing a technology usage plan. Each area that the plan touches on (learning, assessment, teaching, infrastructure, productivity gives excellent framework to help guide an implementation plan. In using this plan, there would be differences of use depending on the vision of the school, parents, students and teachers.
Do you agree with See about tech use plans needing to be short, not long term?
Thinking about tech use plans I believe that goals have to be short. John See wrote that technology moves to fast for a long term plan to be effective. I agree with See in his idea that if a school creates a 5 year plan and invests in a specific technology, there is more than a possibility that the technology purchased is going to be out of date.
What do you think about his comment that "effective technology plans focus on applications, not technology?"
When I read this quote in See's article I found myself agreeing fully with the statement. The fact is if we give a computer to a student, that student will be able to learn a great deal of information. The information though might not be conducive to their learning. If the technology plan is focused on the outcome of what the students will achieve greater success will be seen both in students and teachers.
Do you agree/disagree?
Personally I agree with See's argument that tech plans should be focused on the outcome and not the technology. In order for the integration of technology to be successful it must be something that can help achieve the vision. If we choose the purchase the technology before we have the vision of how it will be used, we will be burdened with a big bill and no direction to go. The application must be the most important part of the tech plan because we are not cantering our learning around technology but rather we are enhancing our learning with the help of technology.
What experiences have you had with technology use planning and what have you seen for outcomes (both good and bad?)
Currently our school is in the midst of a technology change. Currently this year we are testing having laptops 1:1 within our classrooms. There are 4 test teachers, each using a classroom set of laptops for a quarter. After they are done with their quarter, they report on their experience with the computers. I believe that 1:1 is where our school needs to be. Unfortunately the weakness of this change is the preparation for teachers. As I look ahead at the proposed 1:1 plan within our school the adjustment is not going to come from the students, they are already very technologically literate, the adjustment will need to happen within the teachers. our teachers are not being given the training of altering our curriculums to be 1:1 friendly. For example, if a teacher uses many paper worksheets, then an adjustment might need to happen on how those assignments are supplemented . Also, decisions need to be made on the applications that we are using. For example, google drive, Evernote skydrive, dropbox are all applications that can be used to take notes. If a student with a 10 class schedule is using a different program for each teacher, the student becomes distracted and confused. I hope this plan is coming, but we will see what comes from it.
