Bridget Costello Elementary Week 10 step 7

1.       How do your proposed strategies (Week 8 Step 6) meet the required standards as your Week 6 Step 4 stated?
My goals were not completely aligned to the standards from my week 6. I found some that would match up better and in turn, allow me to better guide my goals and figure out how to steer my strategies to make them more beneficial to my district.
One of the proposed strategies was to have teachers be able to chose part of their training for the year. They would be asked to suggest certain trainings and the district would aim to allow for 50% of those suggestions to be put into the district's professional development plan. The standard that most closely matches this strategy is from the State Board for Education Certification Website (SBEC) standards. One standard states "Standard V. All teachers know how to plan, organize, deliver, and evaluate instruction for all students that incorporates the effective
use of current technology for teaching and integrating the Technology Applications Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) into the curriculum (2006-2020)." This will really guide the objective because it's purpose is for teachers to look for the most current technology and use it in the classroom. They need to evaluate these sources and see if they are effective in teaching and how could they use it in the classroom if it is. TEA states that “The Texas STaR Chart is designed to help campuses and districts gauge progress in meeting federal requirements for technology literate teachers, librarians, and administrators (2006-2020).”After a year of trying to implement this goal, the district can re-assess and decide if it was effective asking teachers to give suggestions. 
Another one of my strategies that could be redirected to be more efficient was the strategy for teachers to look for more ways to receive funding. The SBEC Standards state that "Standard II. All teachers identify task requirements, apply search strategies, and use current technology to efficiently acquire, analyze,
and evaluate a variety of electronic information (2006-2020)." This again, gives teachers the means to look for these grants. The standard mentions to "apply search strategies." These strategies will lead teachers in the right direction to search for grants that are already created, and also ones that they could write themselves in order to receive funding for specific instructional strategies that they have in their individual classes. The HEF truly wants to help teachers get the things they need and bring innovative ideas into the classroom (Williams, 2012).


2.       Review the reading materials in Technology domain to propose using other standards which are not adopted by your studied school. Explain why those new standards should be considered for your studied school.

 One standard that I do not feel my school addresses enough from SBEC and states "Standard I. All teachers use technology-related terms, concepts, data input strategies, and ethical practices to make informed decisions about current technologies and their applications (2006-2020)." I feel that our school does not use enough of the terminology when working with our elementary students. I believe that the more they hear those key terms, the quicker it will stick and the more they will understand. If we use "kid friendly" language until they leave elementary, middle school will be a complete shock to them. However, if we use it from the start along with kid friendly language, there will not be as much of a change when they get older. They may not use all of the terms on their own, but they will at least have heard them and be familiar with what the terms mean. This, I believe will help student to be more adapt at technology at a younger age.
I know that in our district we have a program called SRA (McGraw-Hill 2010) that teaches students the technology standards through an interactive lesson program. We are required to do this program. It is self led by the student and they go at their own pace. It gives post tests to see if students can apply the knowledge that they learned and use it to correctly perform on the post tests. There is a large typing section which I think it great for them. However, since the computer does most of the talking, teachers do not have the opportunity to use the technology terms. The program does include many technology terms and does make the students do the lessons accurately before they can move on. However, I think teachers need to work more to get those same terms in their classroom learning. Not only the computer lab once a week time.

Bibliography

SBEC. (2006-2020). Retrieved April 1, 2012, from School Technology and Readiness A Teacher Tool for Planning and Self-Assessing aligned with the Long-Range Plan for Technology: http://starchart.epsilen.com/statistics.html

McGraw-Hill Education. (2010). Retrieved February 19, 2012, from SRA TechKnowledge: http://www.sratechknowledge.com/

Williams, S. (2012, April 1). HEF Representative from Stewart Elementary. (B. Costello, Interviewer)