Week Seven (Chapter Twelve): Topic (Educational Technology), Module (Overview of a Statewide System) – Clip: Statewide Technology Planning

Some issues relating to teacher training in technology are not providing technology professional development workshops, and lack of participation among teachers and administrators. I believe that many school systems have technology but do not allocate funding nor time to training their teachers in the effective use of technology. Additionally, if school administrators do not place a large emphasis on technology training, then it would be quite difficult for teachers to take technology professional development serious. It is up to the administrators to value technology professional development and strongly encourage their teachers to attend.

The collaboration between K-12 and higher education institutions can help in training teachers to integrate technology. Higher education institutions can serve as the catalyst for change in helping K-12 teachers experience a high comfort level of using technology. Since higher education institutions are concerned with cutting edge research, they can help K-12 by demonstrating the effective use of technology. Additionally, the continual collaboration would help students learn more in the classroom.

It is very important to obtain legislative, community, and government support toward planning statewide technology teacher training. I believe that in order to undertake a massive project, it will take the concerted effort of many people working together to promote the technology initiative. This will definitely require a lot of buy in from legislative, community, and local government. If people are convinced that a plan would work, then they are more apt to support it. It is imperative to keep people abreast and involved every step along the way to ensure the project would be a success.

I believe that the type of training that teachers need concerning technology training is utilizing the teachers training teachers models. By taking a teacher from a school and training this teacher to become the technology facilitator for his or her school could be a great asset. I believe that this individual would have the capability of helping all teachers move towards integrating more technology in the classroom. Additionally, this person would be on site to provide continual technical support and recommendation.

The type of support that teachers need to continue their professional development is administrative support. School administrators play an important role in encouraging their teachers to attend professional development. I also believe that school administrators may consider providing teachers with some type of incentives to get them to attend professional development.

If ALL teachers have full technology support and proper professional development in using technology, the classroom environment may look like college classrooms. I believe that teachers would not rely on the traditional white board to write notes on. Rather, teachers would begin to jot down notes on the SmartBoard. I believe that students would be able to sit in front of a computer and take notes or to view a personal copy of the teacher’s notes in PowerPoint. The classrooma may also utilize Promethean boards and students would be able to respond to the teachers’ question by inputting their responses into a personal device that is connected to a centralized hub. Afterwards, the teacher can display students’ choices on the Promethean board. I believe that if ALL teachers have full technology support, the classrooms would look far more advanced.