EDLD+5306

EDLD 5306 Concepts of Educational Technology

__Texas Long Range Plan for Technology__
The most intriguing aspect of the Texas Long Range Plan for Technology is the component of Teaching and Learning. My interest is founded on the prospect of the conversion from the typical classroom to an online learning environment, such as the one that I am engaging in at Lamar. I had the mindset traditional is best prior to reading the article “Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants” by M Prensky. With all that, I have learned and experienced throughout this course I now know better. Really if you look at it, education has made dramatic changes over the past five years. I now have access to technologies in my classroom that I would have never dreamed of prior. There are aspects that I already see functioning in classrooms such as the use of information and communication to collaborate and construct solutions to real-world problems. Research based strategies are taking place in HISD overall, and is moving beyond just the core classes. Diversity of information has been the trend for many years nationally since the introduction of No Child Left Behind. There are some major hindrances to “all students” having access to relevant technologies, tools and resources on a 24 hour a day seven day a week basis. I see this component as the goal and the other components as the necessary pieces that must fall into place to make this vision a reality. Taking into consideration the declining costs of techology, funding will still be a major factor in the success and failure of this endeavor. It will take a partnership with industry to make the vision a success.

__Reflection__
The essential knowledge imparted from this course dealt with the Texas Long Range Plan for Technology, and the Texas STaR Chart. The essential skill for this class was the ability to create a Wiki, invite and manage members, and as a group create an agenda and meeting. Prior to this course I had never heard of the TLRP, had filled out the STaR chart for several years, and had no idea what it measured or its purpose. I realized during this course the reason many teachers feel so disconnected from the system, is in lack of knowledge and explanations of critical concepts. Most often, this knowledge stays at the top, but teacher buy-in would dramatically improve through sharing this knowledge. Not all of the teachers in my department knew what the Star Chart was for until I explained it to them.(TF-I.A.1) I realized then that administrators have a duty to inform and empower teachers. I found the Wiki to be a great collaboration tool and the group worked well to accomplish our task. All of the Lamar members were engaged, many of my staff members had to be remineded to visit the site via email and conversation.The only issue we encountered is that we could not all meet at the same time and for the sake of convenience we needed to keep meeting open for several hours to accommodate the varied schedules.