Technology Integration Plan Options

In week 3 of my Innovative Leadership course, we are asked to compare and contrast Technology Integration Plans. We were provided 5 samples to examine:

• Oklahoma Educational Technology Trust/K20 Partnership - 2019 Grant Application Guidelines
• California K-12 Education - Technology Plan Template, Criteria, and Guiding Questions
• NYSED - 2018-21 Instructional Technology Plan Framework and Guidance
• Scientific Learning - District/School Technology Plan Template
• Hanover Research - The Digital Divide: Technology Integration in School Districts

The OETT/K20 Application, CK12 Template, and NYSED Framework are all comprehensive and very detailed. The OETT/K20 Application provides a list of guiding questions and lists requirements and the process for application submission. OETT/K12 also offers a scoring guide for the 11 criteria by which the application is evaluated. The NYSED Framework provides a step-by-step guide on completing their online application, including what the options will be for specific questions with drop-down menus or multiple-selection items. NYSED also provides additional guidance about where information might be found and what information appropriate responses might include. The CK12 Template provides gridded examples of adequate and inadequate details in a plan. CK12 goes into further detail by providing more specific questions and examples of what might be included in each response category.

The Scientific Learning Template provides a very basic fill-in form and checklist to self-evaluate the proposed plan. I feel like this form would be appropriate for a teacher to use to submit a proposal to their principal, or for a team to have individuals complete before comparing thoughts on a plan - overall a great starting point.

The Hanover Research Brief provides a succinct 5-step process and a diagnostic tool: 

1. Set Vision 
2. Develop a Technology Integration Plan
3. Provide Tailored Professional Development
4. Integration into Daily Instruction
5. Evaluate Technology Integration
   
   Diagnostic: 21st-Century Digital Learning Model Assessment

The infographics used by Hanover Research make their Brief easy to read and make it more friendly than the text-heavy guides developed by others. Hanover Research also provides exemplars and makes sure to include acronym explanations, that other developers assume readers already know. The 7-question diagnostic tool is also very user-friendly. This Brief would be a great way to engage stakeholders with the process.

When developing a Technology Integration Plan, we must involve a variety of stakeholders and maintain their engagement throughout the implementation of the Plan. Sheninger (2014) shares that 2-way communication is now the preferred method of communication and is elevated over paper mail, paper or digital newsletters, websites, and even email. He recommends using free social media applications to engage stakeholders and to direct them to resources that provide more details. Developing and sharing how-to documents and infographics for stakeholders to have guidance on the use of the social media tools of choice is also critical since not all of them already know how to create or use accounts for the wide variety of social media tools available. Interacting in this hyper-digital format requires leaders and organizations to have professional accounts with each provider. In addition to creating professional accounts, Sheninger (2014) also recommends holding workshops for stakeholders, sharing accomplishments of both students and teachers, curating resources for stakeholders, and dedicating a phone line for stakeholders with a service like GoogleVoice.

Gura (2018) provides there are ten roles of a Digital Change Agent: evangelist, advocate, great explainer, myth buster, coach, praise singer, vision quester, grand organizer, leader, and change agent. Being all of these sounds exhausting, but the TEACH method, shared by Julianne B. Ross-Kleinmann in (Gura, 2018), and the guiding question, "What technology can enhance this lesson?" (Gura, 2018, p.68) will be helpful to anyone filling any of the above roles. Add the idea that digital leadership "focuses on finding innovative solutions to deliver authentic learning experiences and support to continuously provide the best learning opportunities for students" (Sheninger, 2014, p.177), and I believe we have great tool-set to use when trying to initiate and implement digital changes.

Build Trust

Create Equity

Advocate on Their Behalf

Collaborate with Them

Be Humble and Infuse Humor

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Technology Needs Assessment Thoughts

Technology Needs Assessment - I feel I need to start small, and build from there. I will focus on instructional staff and students on our middle school campus to start.

Things to consider:

• Time teaching/Age of student
• Time teaching varies 
• Age of students - 11-15 
• Current hardware used & suitability for instruction/learning
• Teacher desktops & connected Interactive White Boards (IWB)
• Chromebooks (teachers & students) 
• Current software used & suitability for instruction/learning
• Microsoft Office (teacher desktops only) and Google Suite 
• Variety of apps and other software 
• Connectivity available on campus for devices
• Mostly wireless; few hard-wired labs; teacher desktops hard-wired

Time teaching/Age of student

Our innovators are typically our more experienced teachers (5+ years teaching), most teachers in their 1st or 2nd year of teaching are trying to stay afloat for the first few years. A few of our most experienced teachers (15+ years teaching) are happy to keep doing the same as they have have been for the last many years. Fortunately, most teachers are willing to try new technology, and many welcome it. We need an advocate for new technologies that can clearly explain, demonstrate, and help teachers try it so they can experience how it can be utilized in the classroom. Having a teacher on every campus, willing to continuously learn and share new technologies, and dedicated to providing that support to teachers would be amazing. 

Some students coming to the middle school setting consider themselves pros when it comes to technology, and others have hardly had access to devices. One thing I've noticed that most students can work on is their typing skills. They're so used to typing with their thumbs that they haven't bothered to learn how to use a keyboard. With students, we also need to be concerned with accessibility and privacy since some sites require students need to be 13+ or have parent permission.

Hardware

Our campus could use more devices capable of photographing student work - hand-held devices like phones or tablets. Many of our students don't have personal devices. Also, we frequently have students that use one assignment for more than one class. If they turn it in for one class though, it's not available for the other. If they could take a decent photo of the assignment they could turn in a digital copy and keep the original for themselves, or vice versa. Each students could also use earbuds/headphones with mic and a mouse. It would also be helpful to have charging stations available in common areas. 

Our 10-15 year-old teacher desktops are ancient in technology terms! I reboot my computer each morning and it slows to unresponsive almost daily. Since it's so unreliable I tend to use it only for projecting to the IWB - which isn't really all that interactive because of the slowness of my desktop. 

Software

Do we really need to pay for Microsoft Office or Canvas when Google Suite is available for free, and it auto saves? Surprisingly, some teachers don't even know about Google Suite and that it is free and accessible anywhere! If we are going to have our students working in Google Suite, our teachers need to learn it too.

App use varies by department and teacher. The most frequent complaint of teachers is that students are off-task, playing games. Monitoring software has been discussed on our campus. Our hard-wired computer labs have software so the teacher can monitor use and even close tabs/windows on student devices from their teacher desktop. Something like this could certainly be useful in ensuring students are working on assigned material instead of playing games. However, would it end up making the teacher a desk-jockey and inhibiting face-to-face interaction with students?

Connectivity

Most days, our connections are sufficient for those of us that consistently have students use their Chromebooks in class. The only times I've noticed any problems are when we are doing school-wide testing or surveys online. We may need a bit of an upgrade to be sure we can consistently accommodate all 1100 students and staff on our campus simultaneously.

Summary of Needs

• Advocate willing to train teachers on new technologies
• Students to be taught/practice keyboarding 
• Photo-friendly student devices
• Efficiency accessories for students
• Teacher desktop upgrades
• Transition to Google Suite
• Solution ideas for off-task behavior
• Increase bandwidth to accommodate 1100+ full-time users

I will also be conducting a Technology Survey with stakeholders on my campus. I'll post those results later.

Digital Leadership & Technology Integration

Digital leadership doesn't actually start with technology, but instead with collaborative leadership. It's about including all stakeholders in the formulation and implementation of a technology plan. It's about everyone being part of the process instead of just being told what to do.

To develop a technology integration plan, (Sheninger, 2014) says that digital leadership is about a change in mindset that causes a professional behavior change. He also discusses how collaboration, modeling, supporting teachers, encouraging risk-taking, and providing relevant professional development opportunities is critical to success of a technology integration plan.

Research performed by (Williams, Atkinson, Cate, & O'Hair, 2008) at the K20 Center for Educational and Community Renewal at the University of Oklahoma focused on developing professional development protocols that focused on innovations in teaching and learning. They received funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and were ranked third in the nation for the change they saw in student learning during the course of their study! They focused on building leadership and support systems before pushing technology to the forefront.


Many technology integration plans start with a survey of stakeholders. Who would those stakeholders be? For middle school level of students and above, I would want to survey teachers, administrators, students, and possibly parents. For elementary level, I'd definitely want to include parents since younger students may not fully understand all of the questions or needs.

Many communities are also looking to help residents by developing WiFi networks that are free and open to the public outside of places like libraries and other public buildings. In Denton, the city has made WiFi available to anyone within a radius of approximately 2 city blocks of the court house. Having this resource available would certainly help those that may not be able to afford access at a household level. A collaboration between public schools and and other community resources makes sense. Having hot spots like that in high student-population areas would be amazing for our students!

Collaborating with providers of services like free WiFi to collect data about peak usage times, device type, location, what type of content they're accessing, and any demographic data available would help guide direction for when to boost available bandwidth or where to make services available. Using data about consumers that return to the same locations could also help determine effectiveness of particular levels of service made available to them.


(Gura, 2018) described many models and plans for technology integration: Microsoft's Education Transformation Framework, Intel's Education Transformation Technology Adoption Blueprint, SAMR Model, and TPACK Framework. The SAMR model is one that I've used to evaluate lessons I've modified from use prior to technology integration. I think the SAMR model and TPACK Framework both provide appropriate guidance on developing and assessing lessons. Microsoft's Framework and Intel's Blueprint are similar, but Microsoft's Framework tools online push selling Microsoft products. Intel's Blueprint seems to have great tools available to help select devices while building an integration plan that can be used across many brands of devices. (Sheninger, 2014) discusses the Breaking Ranks Framework and the Six Stages of Systematic School Improvement.

I think a the online tools in Intel's Blueprint and the Breaking Ranks Framework would fit well in guiding needs on my campus. Teachers may be more comfortable with a simplified model like SAMR or TPACK to use for lesson evaluation. As they get more comfortable with technology integration, they may be more open to using more complex tools like Intel's Blueprint or Breaking Ranks Framework, which can be overwhelming at first glance.

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**1/27 Update: Here's a link to a summary of my survey and data associated with it.
https://bit.ly/2RlMplu

Digital Devices and the Educational Experience

The use of digital devices in the K-12 classroom is becoming more commonplace. My son's district is one-to-one with iPads starting at grade 4. My district is one-to-one with Chromebooks starting at grade 6. In addition to Chromebooks, my district allows students to BYOD (Bring Your Own Device), which includes anything they can carry into the classroom. Lower grades in both districts have classroom access to various devices, mainly intended for whole-class or group activities. My daughter's pre-Pre-K class (she's only 4) even has a technology class twice a week!

Gura (2018) says technology integration needs to happen soon or we risk losing student interest in the classroom entirely. On days in my class when we shift away from technology, students go through a withdrawal. Students are much more difficult to keep on-task without technology since it's become such an ingrained part of their routines. Look at how much we use technology as adults. I grew up when the internet was just becoming "a thing" and dial-up was the standard. Our children, at least mine, have grown up with devices in-hand since they could hold a phone. 

Sheninger (2014) noted that internet use by Americans increased from 2.7 hours per week to 2.6 hours per day in the span of time from 2006 to 2010. Common Sense Media (2015) found that, on average, teens spend 9 hours, and tweens spend 6 hours online daily for non-academic purposes. Our children spend plenty of time using digital tools! Sheninger (2014) mentioned how it's hard to deny the creativity and collaboration inherently encouraged by using technology. As I watch my students complete assignments, they're constantly sharing work with their neighbors, asking if their work looks good, and researching more about something they find interesting. We need to give them enough room to explore, but we still need to be available to guide and support them in doing so safely and with reliable sources.

Bartholomew, et al., (2017) studied mobile device use by middle school students in an open-ended engineering project. They found environmental characteristics, like classroom norms and teacher guidance, had more impact on learning and achievement than mobile device usage. Both students and teachers noted that students were used to not having access to devices during class, and most students used devices less than 30 minutes of the 360 minutes allowed for the project. This would certainly not be the norm in my classroom! My students typically use their Chromebooks daily for at least 30 of the 50 minutes each class. Most of my students only use their smartphone if their Chromebook battery dies. They would rather use a device with a full keyboard and larger screen. Some students in the study mentioned that the mobile device they were given wasn't the right tool for the task they were to complete. Gura (2018) would likely agree since he notes teaching modality must be considered when selecting devices. Type and amount of information needed must also be considered when selecting devices.

Sheninger (2014) notes that student input is needed to properly reshape curriculum, pedagogy, technology purchases, and how time is allocated. Students in the study conducted by Bartholomew, et al., (2017) shared feedback on device type, and gave data on time allocation based on device type. I try to find ways to use software students already use, but I also try to locate innovative resources that they may find engaging and informative. One of my recent go-to resources is LegendsOfLearning - a website that gamifies science topics. 

Gura (2018) also considers the impact of the space we use technology in. When we launched our one-to-one initiative, I found myself standing at the back of the room so I could monitor screens. Now, I've flipped my students' desks around to face the back of the room. When receiving direct instruction, they turn their chairs to face the front and they don't have the distraction of a device in front of them. 

My students have choice of digital or paper for most assignments. They're split on how they choose to complete work, frequently going back and forth between paper and digital options. They need a digital break sometimes, and most students still enjoy coloring or doodling on assignments when they finish it on paper. While digital devices don't have to be integrated for every assignment, they are definitely here to stay and educators need to learn when and how to integrate them or risk becoming obsolete themselves. 

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Ready to launch!

Hi there! Let me introduce myself and give a bit of history before we begin this blog to chronicle my journey into Educational Technology.

My name is Haylee Carroll. My husband, Daniel Carroll, and I have two wonderfully different and adventurous children! Daniel and I met skydiving. We recently introduced our children to the iFly wind tunnel and were thrilled that they had so much fun flying. We can't wait for their skill level to rise so we can fly together!

I began teaching in Houston, Texas, in 2005. I enjoyed teaching middle school science, math, ASL, PE, Health for high school credit (face-to-face and virtual), and a variety of other elective courses over a 10 year stay at Cornerstone Academy in Spring Branch ISD.

While at CSA, my husband and I welcomed our 1st child in 2009. I decided to move to the Dallas-Fort Worth area to be closer to family when my husband and I found out we were expecting our second child. She was born in October of 2014, and we moved to DFW in the summer of 2015.

After moving to DFW, I shifted from middle school to high school instruction. I taught high school biology, algebra, and geometry from 2015 to 2016 and then decided to try the stay at home mom gig for a while. I didn't last very long... I ended up working more by staying at home than by teaching because I was trying to keep myself busy by doing as much as I possibly could. I found a job as a community manager for a startup company called Favor. It was a very interesting and rewarding experience. I learned about so many new tech tools and kind of got a techie bug I guess. I started trying to figure out how I could use some of what I learned at Favor back in the classroom - I missed my students so much!

I rejoined education as a 7th grade science teacher in 2017 at DeWitt Perry Middle School in Carrollton-Farmers Branch ISD. I was very fortunate to be asked to join the Digital Learning Project that Google asked our campus to join in 2017. I just completed my 3rd cycle with the DLP in December of 2018. It has been a great tool to help focus energies on finding solutions to specific, identified problems. In addition to the DLP, I also joined a group on our campus that elected to try New Tech Network techniques on our campus during the spring and fall of 2018. Over the summer, I earned my Level 1 and Level 2 Google Certifications. This fall (2018) I decided that I needed to push myself farther and finally pursue my Masters Degree. I was torn between Curriculum and Administration, but I finally landed on Curriculum & Instruction with a focus on Educational Technology. (Those that know me agree that this is the perfect fit!)

Over the course of my teaching career, I've accumulated many certifications and I look forward to adding to the list! I currently hold seven certifications from the Texas State Board for Educator Certification: Life Sciences 8-12, Science 4-8, Math 4-8, Physical Education EC-12, Health EC-12, Core Subjects EC-6, and ESL Supplemental EC-12. Next, I will likely pursue a Tech Apps certificate in addition to my Masters of Education.

So, here we are - ready to launch!