By Ancizar Perdomo, VCU Master of Education and Leadership.
October, 2010
Sanford, NC
In Harnett County, NC, every school follows the same technology plan. The Board of Education, through its technology Department, has established guidelines and objectives to be reached at the county level by the end of the lapse from 2009 through 2013.
The one page plan is divided into five core components:
Goals: “To offer students easily accessible technology, as well as “books and other tools”, to enable the development of critical thinking, problem solving, creativity, and local and global information.”
Curriculum/Instruction/Staff Development
“Teachers will teach by using technology in all areas of the curriculum. Every Staff member will earn three technology CEU’s a year ( 30 hours ).”
Hardware/Software/Infrastructure/Connectivity:
“Over 7000 “modern” computers available for students, ratio of 1 computer for every 2.68 students. Every school has at least one instrumental computer lab, every classroom has at least one modern computer, and every school has access to fast internet ( 100 Mbpsl-Fiber Ethernet )
Personnel:
“Certified Media Coordinators, some hold National Board Certification, are in the different schools, with the exception of the Alternative School: “Star Academy”. Eight technicians who, almost all hold one industry-level- technology certification, serve the 26 schools of the county. One Director, one Media Supervisor, two technology Coordinators, one SIMS/NCWise coordinator, one applications development specialist, and one network administrator that works throughout the county.”
Other: “Policies have been developed regarding the Student Accepted Use Policy for Internet, Selection and Reconsideration of Materials Policy, Web Page Guidelines, Technology Gift Guidelines, Network Security Guidelines, Laptop Checkout Guidelines and Disaster Recovery Guidelines; the whole Technology plan is evaluated yearly by the Technology Team.”
The technology plan, as it can be seen, is very basic. Clear and simple objectives have been formulated. The plan is very centered in administrative issues and students are not really the center of such plan. Additionally, due to budgetary issues the number of technology teachers has been reduced. It is normal, for instance, that a Middle School with a population of 1070 students had only one computer science teacher.
Last year the computer labs were in a state of abandonment. Every computer lab in service for teachers and students had a high percentage of damaged units. Computers were usually unclean to the extreme. This shows lack of interest in the care and maintenance of the computer network of the school.
This year there has been a significant improvement and old damaged computers have been removed ( are ready to be sold as junk to apple). Computer labs look cleaner and more organized. Even the janitor is cleaning them. This has also created a positive impact in teachers and students in general.
The technology department in my school is made up by a permanent computer science teacher and a network administrator. The teacher teaches eight periods a day, she has no breaks or anything. The network administrator is usually in charge of training teachers with the management of grades in the State program ( NC Wise) . He also trains teachers in the use of technology tools, at different times, for core and electives teachers. He also helps teachers, at the beginning of the year to set computer systems up, like printing networks, Smart Board equipment, applications and he help solve eventual technology issues.
Good News!
The school has acquired 70 new computers this week. I was joyous with the news given to us by our principal, during our weekly staff meeting on Tuesday afternoon! ( I hope I will get a new computer; mine does not work properly at times, it is very old and slow. Its deck does not work so I cannot play any music discs, any movies or any instructional material in a CD Rom. ( This is most annoying and counterproductive) I guess this has to do with the age of the computer and the fact that the county has not been able to replace it in a timely manner.
I wanted to interview the network administrator at my school. I needed to get more information about how things are the way they are, and I wanted to get the input from a reliable source. Here is the interview:
Local Network Administrator Interview:
Place: Media Center at WHMS
Interviewed: Michael Castle
Interviewer: Ancizar Perdomo
(Money Talks...can't help!)
Q.1. What are the strengths of the technology department in our school?
A: “The strengths are that we are expanding every day trying to develop 21rst Century skills that are student centered and our emphasis is on placing technology in the hands of our students for them to develop and encourage them so they become more involved and more autonomous. They are more in charge of their own learning process due to technology. That is a great aspect about it because the more they realize that they have ownership of their learning process the more they are going to get out of it.”
Q.2. What do you think are some difficulties that the technology plan may have here?
A: “Due to the fact that we are very rural, and that we are very limited in our outside resources, we are dependent upon the tax paces, and the government, and how much money is allocated to us. It makes it very difficult to purchase new equipment and to keep up to date, as technology advances, because technology advances so fast. Software and applications are also very pricy.”
“Another factor against us is the lack of a business community, and when you don’t have their donations, and those moneys it is very difficult to keep the network updated.”
“Being a rural community makes us limited, compared to metropolitan districts where there is a business community; we lack enough funds to get to a higher level of technology implementation. We are still very computer oriented and we are not quite yet using technology like television, radio or video.”
Q.3. What are the basic projections of the technology team so far?
A: “That we will have a new computer lab in place, that we have software that is current and is helping to implement instruction that is at 21rst Century Standards, that we are being able to use our Internet sources to help expand the classrooms beyond the four walls, so that the kids can access that information that is being taught by the teacher in the classroom, they can access it also from their home, so when they do leave the classroom they can go back into that classroom and get that information.”
By interviewing the network administrator at my school I got to know the reason why our computer network has the issues I face day by day when trying to do a more efficient job. It is a matter of funding and the lack of a strong business community to help us empower our kids for a tomorrow that is already here! Definitely I feel in peace with myself because I keep on using technology in my class, no matter how limited the resources may be, I do what is possible with what I have so far.
Education and Technology Implementation in Education face a permanent dilemma, just as great popular philosophers ABBA put it once: "Money, money, money...la,la,la,la!"
Ancizar,
ReplyDeleteYour school is too busy!
Although both of us are in NC, our systems differ in the field of technology.
I see that most of the computers were not in good conditions due to lack of unit changes or maintenance.
In our county, Wayne, the technicians go to school about twice a week to update or replace equipments. Lately they bought new units. Many of them have been replaced in just a year and the old ones are about 4 years old but in excellent conditions.
We use the NCWISE to communicate one another, to input grades, attendance and to deliver reports as well. I am glad that you have a new
Technological atmosphere.
Our technicians are sent by Central office and they come very often and keep all equipments in excellent conditions.
Courses for technology improvement are offered in the county every week and we can attend as many as needed. For instance what we learned in this Master's degree concerning tutorial along with Audacity, in my case,was offered last month and once again this coming week.
We also have training in school library at least four times a year.