Response and Reflection to Technology Assessments

Upon completing these assessments, it was clear that my school, district, and I are not as "far along" in successful technology implementation as I had originally thought.

According to the first assessment, Technology Applications Inventory, I demonstrated strength in the domain of Foundation. I felt that this was very accurate as I have a strong foundation in technology, but still have many areas that need improvement. From this same survey, I showed weakness in the domain Solving Problems with Technology Tools and Communication. As far as problem solving, I am able to implement a variety of programs but don't necessarily use it for problem solving. When asked about designing track trends, and reviewing and evaluating programs for improvement, I have had no experience. I was surprised that my score for Communication was split evenly between the number of yes and no responses. I do use technology as a source of communication on a daily basis. However, the questions regarding publishing work and designing/implementing procedures are areas in which have little experience.

On the State Educational Technology Directors Association survey I found many weaknesses as well. The results of this survey surprised me the most. The school that I currently work in has worked hard at providing technology training staff development for our teachers. However, when answering some of the questions I found that my students are using technology in a variety of ways. For example, the survey showed that my students are not using technology to communicate with others, produce a variety of print products, solving real world problems, and producing multi web products. I feel that additional training is needed at my school in order to strengthen this area. We also have a lack of appropriate equipment that we need in order to implement many of these programs. Our school/district does not provide any type of compensation for implementation of technology or even for the staff development. Due to recent budget cuts, our staff development stipend was taken away. I think that this is a huge reason that many teachers may not be encouraged to implement technology or take the necessary training needed. A strength of this survey was that the students on our campus are spending at least 45 minutes a week on computers and we do have access to a computer lab, high speed Internet, and laptops.

I do agree with the results of the survey to an extent. I think that many of the weaknesses fall back onto what we can do at our school and district to improve the low areas. I think that our district needs to provide additional staff development that demonstrates HOW to use programs in our classroom. I think that teachers feel great pressure to follow the curriculum and therefore, time is an issue as well. I feel that the staff development should include examples of how we can implement technology while aligning with our current curriculum. Teachers need to feel supported and not as though they have "one more thing on their plate." Demands are high, and if the technology can be implemented into what we are already doing, I think it is much more likely to be used.