1. Technology Action Plan
Learners of the 21st century are much more technologically advanced than learners of
previous generations. Today’s students live in an age of high-definition television and
Blu-rays, cell phones for texting and digital video/music use, and computers for blogging
and web-surfing. These students are used to literally having technology at their
fingertips. In order to maximize their school learning experience, we as educators must
development and implement a comprehensive action plan for technology integration into
our curriculums. This plan must include provisions for leadership roles in designing and
implementing the plan, professional development for staff and a plan for evaluation of
the technology action plan as it moves forward.
Organizational Chart
Superintendent and School Board: These leaders must set an expectation for cross-
curricular use of technology across the district. Their curriculum plan should included
language for technology use across the grade levels according to TEKS. The school
board is responsible for allocating budget money to technology infrastructure, student
learning materials, professional development for staff and to proper and meaningful
evaluation of the technology action plan.
Chief Information Officer: This person is responsible for the direct supervision and
implementation of the technology action plan. He/she maintains the staff that oversees
the entire infrastructure of the program. He/she also delegates funding to student
learning, professional development and evaluation. The CIO is also responsible for
maintaining 24/7 real-time technical support. Also, the CIO convenes a board
comprised of teachers, librarians and administrative staff to help address areas of
technology needs and concerns.
Curriculum Directors and Curriculum Specialists: These department supervisors are
responsible for providing meaningful professional development for teachers in their
department and helping to secure the necessary tools for the teachers to effectively
implement their technology learning with students in the classroom.
Campus Principal: This position is essential to effective integration of technology into
the campus curriculums. The principal must begin by modeling technology integration
into activities she/he is responsible for, such as staff meetings and school-wide
communication with staff, students, parents and community. She/he must have an
expectation for technology integration at his/her campus. She/he must use continuous
informal assessment and feedback with teachers to assure that it is being done and
give feedback on its effectiveness in the classrooms. Campus principals must be willing
to commit campus budget dollars into infrastructure and professional development for
their own campus. The campus principal must be an advocate for technology and
student learning in his/her building.
Curriculum Technology Coordinator: This position is for a former classroom teacher who
leaves his/her classroom for the sole purpose of training other teachers on how to best
implement technology into their classrooms. This teacher visits with other teachers to

2. see what their needs and wants are and to then help them further develop their lessons
to include technology.
Campus Technology Trainer: There is one CTT as each campus. Their job is to provide
a direct link from the technology department to the campus. They send out technology
updates, set student passwords and help maintain campus hardware/software issues as
necessary.
Professional Development Director: This person must work in conjunction with the CIO
and curriculum directors and specialists to coordinate technology-related professional
development into district-scheduled staff development days.
Classroom Teachers: Teachers have the responsibility to prepare their students for the
global world in which they will be working after they leave the school environment. They
are responsible for including NET*S for student technology learning and TEKS for
technology into their lessons. Teachers also have the responsibility to teach students
safety rules for computer/internet use.
Professional Development
Effective professional development is on-going and tied as closely to the classroom
learning environment as possible. Our district plan currently calls for the following
training:
• Training that is job-embedded
• Video and on-line training
• Videotaping of best practice to model great examples of technology integration
• After hours training sessions for additional pay
• Provide training for new teachers to bring them up to district expectations
• Training for campus support personnel in how to use web-based data tools and
how to analyze data
• Curriculum Technology Coordinator continues to offer on-demand training as
requested
• Utilize ESC Region 9 for technology training
I recommend that my district/campus also include the following training/opportunities:
• Utilize one weekly departmental PLC meeting per six weeks as a technology
share session. PLCs are meant to center around student learning, and adding
technology into our lessons and sharing with each other best practice in this
regard is true PLC work.
• Incorporate technology into more staff meetings. Teach everyone how to

3. access, read and analyze data such as AYP, AEIS, PEIMS and DMAC without
printing out copies for everyone. Teach staff how to digitally disaggregate data
for meaningful use.
• More hands-on training with specialty hardware/software for elective areas such
as music.
• Include more free or share-ware technology applications
• Provide links to teacher-sharing blogs and websites and investigate these
together at staff and/or departmental meetings
Evaluation
Formative assessment is on-going. Formative assessment should include frequency of
technology use per course and per teacher (as determined by teacher self-reports and
administrator walk-throughs), teachers’ comfort level with technology integration,
students’ level of involvement and collaboration in technology-based learning, and
inclusion of professional development learning into teachers’ lesson plans.
Formative assessment of student learning should also be taking place. Benchmark
testing should be regularly occurring to ensure that CIP goals are being met. Student
and parent surveys regarding technology integration in the classroom would also be
useful in determining how effective technology is in classroom learning.
My district also analyzes technology “trouble tickets” (help requests) for information on
what areas need improvement. STaR charts are also completed and evaluated to
pinpoint technology needs and wants at each campus.
Summative evaluation like the TAKS test show levels of student learning achievement.
SBDM teams analyze the AEIS report to draw correlations between current learning
practices and student achievement. Learning goals can be enhanced with increased
technology integration, which can be written in to the CIP.
The whole plan needs to be reviewed annually to determine where progress is being
made and what areas need to be an area of continued focus.
Conclusion
High levels of student learning achievement depend upon high levels of student
involvement in our classrooms. Providing students in the learning environment with the
same technologies that they use for ‘fun’ outside of school will go a long way towards
enticing students to become active participants in their learning. As educators, we are
all responsible for being the technology-savvy, 21st century learners that our students
need us to be.