Week Four Assignment: Action Plan

Administrator of Technical Services
(purchase and distribute technology for the district)

Administrator of Instructional Technology
(teach CIT's how to implement technology effectively and provide staff development to all)

Principal
(encourage the use of technology in the classrooms and monitor proper implementation)

Campus Instructional Technologist
(assist teachers with incorporating technology in their curriculum and classroom)

Grade Level Team Leaders
(plan activities involving technology that enhance curriculum)

Teacher
(use technology in the classroom to increase student learning)


The principal plays a vital role in the integration of technology in classroom instruction. Administrative staff work closely with principals to share the district's vision of technology integration in classrooms. Principals must embrace and encourage this vision if it is actually expected to take hold in their schools. The principal shares these opportunities and practices with all of the staff, particularly with the teachers in grade level team planning meetings. The Campus Instructional Technologist's role is to help the teachers with the logistics of making the technology useful. The principal can rely on the CIT to model technology innovations for the staff, as well as help the principal stay up on current technologies and their uses. The principal must ensure that the CIT has the time to necessary to assist the teachers who need direction or help.

As I design a professional development activity, I want it to integrate pertinent subject matter and useful technology. I want it to be available 24 hours a day and 7 days a week from any computer that has access to the internet. It would need to be interactive and require the input of all participants. With all this in mind, I would start a wiki with my professional development participants. The wiki would be about using technology to include special education students served in general education settings. I would start the wiki by referencing relevant articles. Each participant would post four entries or updates per week for three weeks. After three weeks, each participant would post two examples of how they used technology to include special education students in their general education setting and the results of doing so. The wiki would later be used during new teacher orientation staff development as learning tool for newly hired faculty.

The professional development credit would be awarded after each participant completed a survey four weeks after the professional development concluded. In the survey, teachers would be asked how they could use a wiki with their students and how their participation in this professional development has affected their use of technology in the classroom, citing two examples. The survey will also ask for two projected uses of technology to include special education students in the general education settings. Four weeks after the professional development credit was awarded, the survey will kick back out and ask participants if they have employed either of the two projected uses of technology. Additionally it will ask for further reflection or anecdotes of how participating in a wiki has affected their teaching.