The Central Berkshire Regional School District Strategic Technology Plan Committee is composed of teachers, administrators, and School Committee members. We are working on the development of strategic plan that will help students, parents, and educators to take advantage of technology’s power to improve teaching and learning. We are currently working on a vision statement; a long-term aspiration for how technology will be used in the future to assist teaching and learning. We would appreciate your input. Please email rputnam@cbrsd.org with your ideas and links to resources so that they can be considered as we go about our work.
You may want to familiarize yourself with the guidelines for strategic plan development that can be accessed at http://www.doe.mass.edu/edtech/techplan/10-15guidelines.pdf or the resources available at the Educational Technology Advisory Council (ETAC) at http://www.doe.mass.edu/boe/sac/edtech/.
I think you may also find the Massachusetts STaR Chart (School Technology and Readiness Chart) an informative resource http://www.doe.mass.edu/boe/sac/edtech/?section=star . I am sure that there are other resources beyond those offered by the Massachusetts DESE. Please be sure to share any resources that might help us in our work.
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Recently, I was able to teach my morning classes in another teacher's room that was equipped with a Smart board because of MCAS testing in my normal classroom. This experience has "ruined" me forever! The capabilities of the Smart Board made teaching physics and chemistry so much smoother. I could interact with the online simulations, save graphs and equations, manipulate images to show movement and causal relationships. In short, I was a better teacher for three days because of the Smart Board. I think ALL science teachers would find this technology an important and necessary addition to their classroom and I think we should work towards getting this technology in our classrooms as soon as possible.
ReplyDeleteOur district's technology vision must separate out elementary use from middle and high school use, as well as staff use from student use.
ReplyDeleteTechnology is a tool used to achieve an end, not an end in and of itself. I use technology or have my fourth graders do so only if it is the most effective method of delivering instruction or if I want my students to learn to use a certain tool. Quite often, there are cheaper, less-complex and equally (if not moreso) effective methods of instructional delivery. Perhaps things are different at the middle and high school and the high technology costs of purchasing, upgrading, maintaining, replacing, and staffing are justified. As for my class, however, I would rather those funds be spent differently. I would also like to minimize screen time for my nine- and ten-year-olds and instead use that time to engage them through outdoor, real-world, hands-on experiences.
From the NY Times: http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/03/29/nature-deficit-disorder/
ReplyDelete“The average young American now spends practically every minute — except for the time in school – using a smartphone, computer, television or electronic device,” my colleague Tamar Lewin reported in 2010, from a Kaiser Family Foundation study.
Some may read this quote as a justification for why we need to teach technology, which has become ubiquitous for so many youth. I, however, see this as a justification for why we need to preserve tech-free time in school and up our efforts to get kids outside.