APS District Technology Plan Team Project

1. APS District Technology Plan Team Project July 17, 2012 Jill Roberts, Sam Skeels, Deb Stevenson

2. Review of Current Technology Plan • Established district plan gave us starting point • Looked at components and evaluated contents • Mission Statement: The mission of Adrian Public Schools is to provide, in partnership with parents and our community, quality educational opportunities that challenge students to excel academically and socially to become contributing citizens. • District Technology Vision and Mission Statement

3. Review of Current Technology Plan • Goals of Technology Plan • Curriculum for K-12 students • Professional Development • Finances • Hardware and software • Process of Evaluation

4. Data to Support Technology Use • Our district has no data that supports technology use increases student achievement • This establishes the fact that when a planning team is in operation one of their jobs would be to look at types of data collections necessary to preserve the fidelity of integrating equitable technology opportunities across the district.

5. Priorities for Technology Planning • Establish a Planning Committee • Construct, distribute, compile and analyze district needs assessment and instructional needs assessment • Once needs have been determined and prioritized construct a timeline for accomplishment and evaluation of the plan • Establish a collaborative plan with another school district or the LISD

6. Establishing a Planning Team • Infrastructure tech person • Data analyst • Teacher representatives from all levels • IB representative • Future Instructional Technology coach • 1-2 administrators • Teacher union representative • Central office representative

7. District Needs Assessment • Second, we need to conduct a district needs assessment. In order to develop the District technology needs assessment for the Adrian Public Schools, research was conducted using many sources.  There are ample examples of district needs assessment for technology found on-line.  The three districts chosen for this project were:  Broward Schools in Florida, Willmar Schools in Minnesota, and San Diego schools in California.

8. Examples of District Needs Assessment Questions • The decision to use these three schools and their web-site as a source for information was made not only because their assessments were excellent, but also because the three districts represent a diverse geographical area of the United States, and all three schools have different financial and socio-economical representation.  The other major source of research came from Picciano’s book, “Educational Leadership and Planning for Technology.”

9. Instructional Needs Assessment Through the use of two resources found on the web we modified and then created an Instructional Needs Assessment for our district. This survey would consist of five sections: 1) Demographic information 2) Professional use 3) Integrating technology in the classroom 4) Student inquiry 5) Professional Development and Training

10. Examples of Needs Assessment ?’s Professional Use: • I can use a variety of technologies to support multiple curriculum areas (use overhead projection devices for math/science and scientific calculator to graph algebraic equations).

11. Examples of Needs Assessment ?’s Integrating Technology I can design, deliver, and access student learning activities that integrate computers and related technologies for a variety of student grouping strategies and for diverse student populations.

12. Professional Development timeline Year 1: 2012-2013 • Create a Technology Planning Team • Familiarize teachers with METS/NETS • Continue to use administrative tasks (TAC, attendance, etc) • Develop Needs Assessment using Survey Monkey (initially teaching staff, then parent, administrative, and curriculum coordinators, etc) • Distribute Needs Assessment to teaching staff • Analyze and evaluate Needs Assessments. This will help with Professional Development topics, prioritizing and scheduling. • Continue to investigate and integrate IB training and uses of technology applications • Integrate mini-lessons/modeling of technology tools by teachers during 15 minutes of staff meetings. (Principals provide sign up sheets for each month) Teachers are more likely to buy into technology by seeing how, why and where technology can be utilized.

13. Professional Development Timeline Year 2: 2013-2014 • Embed basic technology goals into district School Improvement Plan • Offer more PD opportunities from classroom teachers already using technology tools and integration into curriculum (staff meetings, modeled lessons with classroom teacher present) TO BE DETERMINED FROM NEEDS ASSESSMENT! • By late April there will be evidence of effective integration of NETS/METS in lesson planning/plans and it will be demonstrated by by at least 70% of teachers integrating technology. • Evaluate technology goals and make revisions if necessary • IB training of curriculum, unit writing and effective integration of technology in all curriculum • Create additional Needs Assessments for other stakeholders and analyze

14. Professional Development Timeline Year 3: 2014-2015 • More in-depth, skill based training with projects tied to curriculum including IB • Greater evidence of METS/NETS in lesson planning and implementation • Evaluation of Technology goals and timeline • Using the technology mini-goals established by the Planning Team, 95% of teachers will be able to effectively integrate at least 3 technology mini-goals in their classroom instruction, and it will be demonstrated by student confidence, projects, etc.

15. Collaboration with other district/LISD • Currently APS is part of a consortium with Monroe Schools • Would like to see us develop an on-line learning program that would serve Alternative Education students in many school districts • Work with Greg Martin/Sue Summerford at the LISD to develop PD workshops for teachers • Work with the LISD to put together a teacher driven PD day where teachers can model integrated classroom activities.

16. Conclusion In conclusion, our group found this project to impact our learning and at the same time heighten our leadership capabilities.  Technology is here to stay, it will not go away even if we wait long enough!  It is time to plan for it, embrace it, and create a path for Adrian Public Schools.