2. Board of Trustees The Board of Trustees must help to focus the priorities of the school district. They must also approve budgets that allow for additional technological resources (physical resources, personnel and curriculum). The Board of Trustees must approve changes in district policy in reference to technology. Rick Reedy - Superintendent of Schools As the Superintendent Dr. Reedy is responsible for ensuring that the district is meeting the needs of our students and other stakeholders. He acts as a liaison and spokesperson for the district to assist in bringing additional business partners and stakeholders into the picture. Dr. Reedy establishes the vision for the district in terms of the role that technology will have in our students’ lives while at school. Melissa Fouche- Executive Director of Technology Ms. Fouche is responsible for taking the technological vision of the superintendent and making it a reality. She creates action plans for technology integration in the schools as well as in all administrative facilities. She designates funding for resources, allocates resources, and forecasts technological needs of our future. John Curran- Director of Technology Operations Mr. Curran does what Ms. Fouche tells him to. He works with the Technology Coordinators to coordinate the technological resources throughout the district. He is also responsible for determining the server and network needs to ensure efficient and effective technology use (instructionally and administratively). He also works to create safe yet effective internet blocks and firewalls for students and teachers. Pam Weir- Coordinator of Secondary Instructional TechnologyMs. Weir is responsible for the implementation of technology on secondary campuses. Secondary campus Technology Facilitators report to Ms. Weir. She promotes technology use and students’ output to Ms. Fouche who then in turn takes student projects to the Assistant Superintendents and Board of Trustees to exemplify the technology skills of our students. Ms. Weir also has the responsibility of ensuring that the Technology Applications TEKs are integrated into the curriculum so that students are proficient upon graduation from high school. Debra NelsonEd.D.- Deputy Superintendent of Curriculum and Instruction Dr. Nelson has the responsibility of ensuring that the Technology Applications TEKs are integrated into the curriculum so that students are proficient upon graduation from high school. More than that though, she must ensure that the curriculum (scope and sequence, textbooks, etc) is authentically implemented including the integration of technology so that students have mastered 21st century technology skills so they can be college or career ready by the end of their secondary education. Dr. Nelson must report back to the superintendent and the Board of Trustees on the progress of student achievement.
3. Katie Kordel- Director of Secondary Instruction Ms. Kordel works with Mr. Chandler, Ms. Weir, and Dr. Nelson and the secondary principals to the curriculum is implemented with fidelity to ensure student achievement. She also works with principals to identify areas of need for professional development, resource needs, and areas of the curriculum that need to be adjusted during annual curriculum writing sessions. Ms. Kordel reviews benchmark data to assess student achievement and ensures that technology is appropriately implemented within the curriculum. Kenny Chandler- Director of School Improvement Mr. Chandler supervises the high school principals. He also works with them to ensure student achievement and student mastery of 21st century skills. He conducts campus technology needs analyses and works to ensure that campuses have the resources necessary to meet student and teacher demand in respect to technology. He works to gain access to hardware and software, website licenses, textbook resources, community partners, and other resources to improve the educational environment on each campus. Katrina Stroot- Technology Facilitator for Liberty High School Each high school campus has a technology facilitator and then middle school and elementary campuses share a facilitator. The facilitators’ primary responsibility is to assist teachers in integrating technology into their instruction, class design, and curriculum. The facilitators are in charge of tracking technology devices that are shared campus-wide (video cameras, MOBIs, wireless keyboards and mice, etc) and also budgeting and ordering new technology as needed. A second large responsibility of the facilitator is to provide campus-level professional development for teachers and administrators. This can include district initiated professional development or campus level initiated. Facilitators will offer professional development opportunities before and after school and during conference periods. John Burdett- Liberty High School Principal The principal communicates the vision of the district and the campus and works with teachers and staff to fulfill that vision. This person also allocates funds for technology resources, communicates with district-level administration for additional resources, access, and professional development. The principal must also ensure that the Technology Applications TEKs are integrated into the curriculum and mastered by students; this is accomplished by communicating with the assistant principals, classroom walkthroughs, reviewing lesson plans, and communicating with teachers. Assistant Principals-Erin Coates, Phil Brown, Karen LeCocq, Cindi Osborne, Scott Warstler The assistant principals (there are 5 on the Liberty High School Campus) have the same responsibilities as the principal, however, they maintain closer communication with teachers. Assistant principals are more aware of the content area needs, resources, and curriculum and should be more aware of the technology integration within the content areas. Teachers Campus teachers have the responsibility of integrating the Technology Applications TEKs into their instruction and curriculum. The teachers should work with the other campus-level staff to ensure that authentic opportunities are woven into the curriculum where students utilize technology to learn and master content area and technology TEKs. Teachers should be aware of the resources available or at the least collaborate with the campus technology facilitator where technology is concerned.
4. Before we can expect our students to be proficient in certain aspects of technology, our teachers must be. And that is no small undertaking. We cannot assume that our teachers are competent in even basic technology skills, we need to make sure. Teachers are not only responsible for teaching students content these days, but they are they need to be instructors of utilizing technology in appropriate ways in school or the workplace. In order for this to happen, our teachers need to be trained. Don’t forget, teachers run from young staff who have just graduated and may be very computer savvy, to those near retirement or who have been in the teaching field since before there even were personal computers. We cannot assume they all know they same information, or know what to do with it. To begin thinking of professional development to integrate technology into our instruction at Liberty we first need to focus on the type of instruction we want to use in integrating this technology. Liberty has recently made a college and career ready push in the way of embracing Project Based Learning, in hopes of our instruction following more of a real-world feel with actual applications in such. This is to not only engage our tech oriented students, but to better prepare them for post secondary life. According to our STaR chart from the 2009-10 and the current 2010-11 school years, as well as communication and teacher surveys, our teachers are overwhelmed with continuous changes in programs used on campus for discipline, keeping track of parent contact, etc. Because of this, they feel as though they can sometimes function in a program enough to get the basic expectations accomplished, but know little else of how to use the program or how it could help them in their job. It is important that there be adequate and ongoing training sessions for these programs, as well as taking a look at the current technology professional development requirements on campus. It is not acceptable for the faculty to feel as though they don’t need to bother with continual education as it relates to increasing technology skills. Our world is constantly changing and moving forward, our teachers need to as well or they will not be in a position to educate, for the students will know more than they do. At the same time, teachers should not have to sit through a training for a program or be shown how to do functions they already understand, however we cannot assume all on campus are aware of the basics, so training needs to be available. This needs to coincide with basic training on Project Based Learning; what it is, how to use it in your content area, and how to integrate and utilize the campus’s available technology to truly take this type of instruction to the next level. After a week long intensive training on PBL and how it works at Liberty, offered this June or the following August, the teachers need to have time to work on lessons in the PBL style in order to incorporate previous content with the technology available on campus. Ongoing support needs to be available from our campus technology specialists so that the faculty can find and ask for assistance or training in certain ways regarding technology so that they are informed before using the technology to instruct. An ongoing assessment system also needs to be in place, including teacher surveys and data collection, to ensure the newly implemented PLB and technology styles are working within the curriculum to ensure increased student achievement and success.
6. Evaluation of Technology Integration The Frisco ISD District Improvement Plan is firmly based on a set of belief statements about student education, achievement and success, above all else. This plan directly relates to the integration of technology as an essential element in the process of creating 21st century learners for increased college and career readiness. It stresses the importance of using cutting edge technology in classrooms across our district as the norm.(Frisco ISD Improvement Plan, 2010) The FISD Improvement Plan also reinforces the state objective that emphasizes the use of technology in agreeance with the statements of theDr Abernathy, Dr. Jenkins and Ms. Cummings round table discussion. As stated, we cannot see technology held by students as the enemy. (Lamar Master's Program, 2011) We must work with technology rather than against it if we hope to educate our students for the world we are employed to prepare them for. Liberty High School is working to gain knowledge of technology to increase technology infused lessons within our curriculum to best mimic real world career and college situations. The first part of this process is educating our teachers and administrators in the area of technology and how to implement it in a project based classroom for learning. Up to this point our teachers do not fully understand the hardware and software they currently have available to them on campus or in the district, resulting in missed opportunities to utilize this technology to prepare for, or in the classroom. If our teachers don’t understand the technology available, they cannot utilize it in classroom instruction. We will initiate various professional development opportunities for this education and support to take place. This training initiative in currently in the works on campus, where a current core team previously trained in project based learning and implementing technology in the classroom, will run a week long intensive training for the rest of the Liberty staff, who will be required to attend one of three training dates that best meet their personal schedules. After this training takes place our campus administrators and technology facilitator will need to follow up with teacher surveys and data collection to evaluate the success of the training, the success of the program integration at various points. They will also need to continue with after school and Saturday professional development training sessions for those teachers who may need extra assistance in technology training or integration, as well as those teachers who started out much lower on the ladder of technology literacy. Our final initiative is to increase technology for students use in core classrooms to fully embrace the PBl instruction model of real world application. Currently, Liberty does not effectively use technology, because the training and push to do so has not been full force. We are limited by not having student computer access in every classroom, by teachers not understanding how to electronically sign up for and utilize our mobile labs or other equipment available with a reservation for use. We are working hard with all our district employees to gain more technology, and to continually educate staff of systems in place. We have technology available to our students but forced budgetary cuts or cutbacks does not always allow those pieces of technology to be replaced at the end of their life cycle or their replacement within an appropriate time frame before obscelecense. We have obtained upwards of ten carts of netbooksavailble to students at Liberty enrolled in PBL instructed classes this past year, but look to increase this number as we work to incorporate more tech applications in every lesson. This will enable teacher to use the new technology to increase our students’ engagement and knowledge of technology, better preparing them for life after high school. The continuance of any new programs implemented will need to be continually monitored for success as it directly relates to student achievement and success and should not be thought of as final decisions. The world of technology is ever changing, so the world of education needs to be ever changing as well.
