Essential conditions for technology integration

1. Essential conditions for technology integration Amari Tavel BenLevi EDMS Columbus State University

3. Essential Condition: A shared Vision for Technology Integration • Coordinate school and district planning, and involve teachers and other personnel at all levels. • Budget yearly mounts for technology purchase, and plan for sustainability • Funding must address both initial purchases and upgrades needed to sustain school technical capacities over time. • Must plan for the technological changes that will occur • Emphasize continuing teacher training • Great to have teachers that are able to teach others about the latest technological changes in education. • This is one of BHS strong points, we constantly have school wide technology workshops • Match technology to curriculum needs • What are current, unmet educational needs, and can technology address them? • What are we teaching now that we can teach better with technology? • What can we teach with technology that we could not teach before, but that should be taught?

4. Essential Condition: Standards and curriculum support • It is important to closely align technology implementation with the state standards • This is a weaker area for our school system

5. Essential Condition: Required Policies • Online use policies • The Children’s Internet Protection Act is in place to encourage schools to have measures in place to keep students away from inappropriate websites. • It is important for school systems to monitor inappropriate internet usage such as, cyber bullying, sexting, pornography and other inappropriate activity. • Berrien County does a great job with blocking students from visiting inappropriate sites. • The schools Wi-Fi also has a block on those type of sites • Legal/ethical use policies • Important to have firewalls in place to block access from sites that may cause harm to the schools network. • Sometimes these firewalls may block sites that are educational in order to provide the safest internet surfing • BHS does a great job with having firewalls in place, but sometimes run into the issue with overly blocking sites based off certain keywords. • Policies to ensure equity • Financial assistance, incentives, and accountability policies

6. Essential Condition: Access to Hardware, Software, and Other Resources • Finding funding • BHS recently received funding from Rack Room Shoes to supply more tablets for the school. • Purchasing hardware and software • Setting up and maintaining physical facilities

7. Essential Condition: Skilled Personnel • Hands-on integration emphasis • Training over time • Modeling, mentoring, and coaching • Just-in-time training

8. More Essential conditions • Technical Assistance • This is an area where BHS can improve • We need more technical assistance in order to keep the technology integration steadily progressing. • Appropriate teaching and Assessment Models • Substitution with no functional change • Augmentation: Technology acts as a direct tool substitute, with functional improvement • Modification: Technology allows for significant task redesign • Redefinition: Technology allows for new task that were previously not possible. • Engaged Community

9. Reference • Roblyer, M. (2013). Integrating educational technology into teaching (7th ed., pp. 25-27). Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Pearson.