Web conference reflection

During week two of my new online degree, I attended a web conference. I didn't experience any difficulty with gaining access to the room. I was the first person in the room, and I figured I had plenty of time to setup my webcam and microphone before the actual conference began. Every time I tried to set up my webcam an error popped up, and I was automatically logged out of the room. I tried several times to get it set up, but I still wasn't able to set it up. I followed the instructions that were given to me, but my computer didn't seem to like the fact that I was trying to use a webcam. I was told that it may be an error due to the number of people in the conference room, but I noticed even people who logged in after me were able to set up their equipment with no problem. During the conference we kind of got to know each other, get help with technical difficulties, and get an introduction of our internship. One of the problems I was having is with editing our cohort website. I was able to get this fixed by the end of the conference. I noticed a lot of people (including me :-/) were having side bar conversations, and that made it kind of difficult to follow the actual conference. There were also people who had their mics on the entire time which meant we could hear extra background noise. I attempted to get on the conference call again last Thursday. I figured maybe this time it would let me set up my webcam. Sadly, I wasn't able to set mine up. After getting kicked out of the room a few times for trying to set it up, I finally called it quits.

STaR Chart for Houston

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National Educational Technology Plan

Last month the U.S. Department of Education released a draft of the National Educational Technology Plan: “Transforming American Education: Learning Powered by Technology.” One of the goals is to raise the number of college graduates from where it is now, so that the majority of our population will hold a degree. Another one of the goals is to close the achievement gaps so that all students will have an equal opportunity to graduate prepared to be successful in a higher level of education.

Progress Report for TLRPT

This week I was asked to read and review the Texas Long Range Plan for Technology. For those of you who don't know just what this is, it's a movement and a plan to prepare our students to be technologically literate by the eighth grade. We want our students to be able to compete globally in a world that is constantly changing. The plan focuses on different aspects of education to help achieve this goal. Texas seems to be developing in the majority of the areas of the plan. A lot of things influence this trend. First the plan is still fairly new, and it needs some time to work out all of the kinks. Another thing is the fact that the majority of the teachers are being pushed to prepare students for a test that is paper based. There is a lot of professional development out there that shows teachers how to use technology, and they sometimes even show how to integrate technology in the classroom, but a lot of times, it's not activities that will directly help the students to pass the paper based state assessment(which seems to be all that administrators care about). Administrators want to see technology used in the classroom, but they more so want to see good scores at the end of the year. We seem to have a balance of support staff in Texas when it comes to technology according to the report, but that support staff does in a way have its hands tied. I think teachers will feel more comfortable with using technology more often, and in more inventive ways, when the pressure for getting the students to pass tests is lowered. It's a little too soon to see just how much Texas is progressing in each of the indicators in the plan, but if it is followed through, it could produce technology literate students who are ready to take on the world.

Texas Long Range Plan for Technology, 2006-2020

Texas has devised a plan to make sure that all students are technologically savvy by the eighth grade. This plan is called the Texas Long Range Plan for Technology. One of the key areas in this plan is Educator Preparation and Development. This is an area that is developing on the local, state, and national levels. This area is developing for a couple of reasons. One of them is a lot of teachers, especially veteran teachers, tend to be resistant to change. They have done something a certain way for so long that they want to continue to do what works. Since using technology in the classroom is something that is required, they tend to do the bare minimum in this area in order to meet that requirement, and then continue to do what they have been doing. Another reason we are developing in this area is because a lot of teachers aren't technology savvy themselves. This key area is designed to address those teachers, but it hasn't been very effective thus far. Professional development is offered, but it isn't pushed, and isn't really required. This key area is described as an area to assess the teachers technology level, and provide them with training and modeling needed to address their deficiencies. This key area could improve if there was less emphasis placed on paper based standardized tests, and if professional development was designed in a different way. There needs to be more professional development on technology as it relates to specific disciplines, opposed to just programs that you can use in the classroom. There should also be time to practice using the programs in the area the teacher teaches during the professional development. I love to teach Social Studies. I have never seen a technology based Social Studies professional development opportunity. When I teach Social Studies I rarely use any form of technology. If I knew how to integrate it, I would be able to do so.