The Texas Education Agency has done a good job in defining where it wants the public school systems to be in the year 2020. The plan was originally written in 1996 and updated in 2006. Plans like this should be updated every few years as technology changes and becomes less expensive.http://ritter.tea.state.tx.us/technology/lrpt_lrpt.html)
Vision 2020
- Educators must use differentiated instruction when teaching students.
- An amount of $50 must be spent on each student from the Technology fund. (of course this number should be lookmed at frequently.
- Technology use must begin in Kindergarten.
- All professional educators must master the SBEC Technology Application standards that are currently mandated of new teachers.
“In 2001, India graduated almost a million more students from college than the United States did. China graduates twice as many students with bachelor’s degrees as the U.S., and they have six times as many graduates majoring in engineering.” Source: Thomas Friedman The World Is Flat
This is a misleading use of statistics, each of the countries has approximately 4x the amount of people as the US thus we are still graduating more students per capita.
The world is becoming more technological so Texas students need to be able to function in the newly technological world. Texas demographics are changing dramatically. The Hispanic student is now the majority-minority with 44.7% student population (2004-2005 school year). The Economically Disadvantaged number in 2004-05 is close to 2.4 million or 56% of the student population. As the population changes it is imperative that the plan and the teachers change with it.
Introducing the 21st Century Learner
The 21st Century learner expects content to be relevant and presented in a way that applies to the student’s individual learning style. Learning must be tailored to the individual students learning needs using technology.
Students need multisensory and multimedia technology because they have been exposed to technology since they were born.
Teacher Voices
Teachers like using technology. They have seen that students are more engaged when using technology and student achievement and team work improves. Most teachers use it for their daily activities. Ie. E-mail, grades, list serves.
Teaching and Learning
Technology brings the world to the classroom and allows graphical communication and fewer world boundaries.Special needs students get the appropriate equipment to help with their disabilities.Distance learning enables schools to overcome the potential limitations of their local resources.
Educator Preparation and Development
Veteran teachers must be given technology based training in an on-going manner.New teachers must have obtained broad technology training.Distance learning should be incorporated into the training.
Leadership, Administration, and Instructional Support
Effective administratiors conduct needs assessments to determine strengths and challenges that will impact planning and implementiom of technology in schools.
Infrastructure for Technology
School districts in Texas have made great strides with the legislatures backing to have network systems that encourage growth and reliability. The school districts must make plans for disasters and offer safe and reliable networks 24/7.
Study of Needs
Texas students deserve and need fully integrated access to technology in order to gain the skills that they need to learn and work in the 21st Century. However, in order to create a new educational technology plan, existing barriers to the continued effective implementations of the current plan and the development and implementation of the new plan had to be identified and addressed. The Long-range planning committee seem to have thought out a substantial and well-planned path for technology in public education for Texas students.
No comments:
Post a Comment