Technology+Facilitator+Standard+VIII

= Technology Facilitator Standard VIII – Leadership and Vision =

__Reflection__
I must confess that initially I looked forward to the technology coursed and dreaded the administrative ones, however I have been made a better educator and potential administrator from these courses. It is good to have knowledge, but if your do not have a clear vision, and the leadership skills to make the vision a reality it does not matter how much you know about technology. I also have learned how important research on currently instructional technology tools, educational psychology and instructional design is to solving current problems. From my coursework and internship opportunities, I have found that many of the issues prevalent in education today, existed over 60 years ago, and have been researched and addressed already. I think many times we have a problem and set off to solve it not considering that we may be inventing the wheel. Administrators are already wearing a variety of hats, with many responsibilities and time management issues. It saves valuable time to begin with research. I have also found that research gives your solution credibility. For example while discussing class size verses computer availability, I was taken more seriously when I could show research studies and scholarly documents concerning technology availability and student learning. The Texas Long Range Plan was also useful in showing that we need to head toward one-to-one student access not away from it (TF-VIII.A.1, TF-VII.B1.1, TF-VII.D.1).