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Location: Blogs Dan Maas, CIO |
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| Posted by: Dan Maas |
10/5/2007 9:25 AM |
Folks,
Here is last year's charge:
ETAC Charge
As a diverse community voice, the charge of the ETAC will be to advise the Littleton Public Schools regarding implementation of technology to support a world-class learning community that promotes student achievement, empowers educators, and develops students into productive citizens.
ETAC will be a forum for ideas and innovation
ETAC will provide an avenue for gathering community support
ETAC will review equitable technology policy
For the 2006-2007 school year, ETAC’s objectives are to
Establish the committee
Contribute to an assessment of the state of technology for the district
Assist the CIO in the identification of major technology initiatives for the future
As I reflect on what I think we need to accomplish in 2007-2008, I really like what the existing charge provides as a foundation. I'd like to focus on the item "ETAC will provide an avenue for gathering community support." I think we should add the notion of communicating what's going on and what needs to change in terms of technology infusion in LPS learning environments.
I think we can drop the "Establish the committee" objective, and add an objective about communication.
As I think about the objectives as stated, we may want to "tighten" them in the notion of "S.M.A.R.T." goals.
Anyway, please comment.
-Jim Stephens |
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Comments (7)
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Re: ETAC Charge 2007-08 |
By Matthew W. Shankle on
10/5/2007 10:00 AM |
Jim, I agree with your suggestion to drop "establish the committee" as I believe we all agree that has been accomplished. I too would like to focus on gathering community support, establishing lines of communication with potential beneficiaries and supporters of the ETAC initiative. I believe these organizations will be, local industry, media outlets, secondary education, chambers of commerce, state board of education, other primary school boards, the voters of the district, and metro area citizens at large. I believe LPS is fast developing a leadership position in this arena and we should use this position to gain notoriaty and support of the community through effectively communicating our message.
Matt Shankle |
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Re: ETAC Charge 2007-08 |
By Chris Moore on
10/5/2007 10:40 AM |
| I realize that this is a very tall order, but I would like to see an objective that has to do with ETAC supporting an effort to work towards demonstrating that technology is actually impacting student achievement in LPS. I admit that I am not exactly sure how that might look. |
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Re: ETAC Charge 2007-08 |
By Ronald Lee on
10/5/2007 11:15 AM |
| In response to tracking technology, we could track pre/post hard data (before and after technology initiatives), like grades, test scores, etc., and we could also track pre/post "soft" data like teacher observations, student/parent satisfaction, attendance, on-task focus. Maybe we could pilot this in a high impact tech. site, like Options. |
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Re: ETAC Charge 2007-08 |
By Larry Jewett on
10/8/2007 10:19 AM |
I think two of our objectives for 2007/2008 are spelled out in the Strategic Plan:
• Assist/advise the CIO and Instructional Technology Team in the development of 21st Century Essentials learning program and 21st Century Learning Space models. (Would the curriculum aspects of 21st Century Essentials need board approval?)
• Define scope & gather community support for Universal Access technology election
Based on these I agree that communication will be essential. The 21st Century programs will have to be "sold" internally as necessary for the development of strong students/lifelong learners and professional excellence. Externally they'll have to be "sold" to justify the funds needed to implement these programs.
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Re: ETAC Charge 2007-08 |
By Terry Petrie on
10/8/2007 12:31 PM |
Several thoughts in no particular order:
1. I agree with Jim’s idea of dropping the “Establish the committee objective” and focusing on “gathering community support.” I liked Matt’s perspective in this regard about “establishing the lines of communication.” I add only the obvious that the community needs to know _what_ we are advocating/recommending to the School Board so that then the community can decide if it wants to provide support or not.
2. I also liked Chris’s “tall order.” In some manner – and certainly at some point in time and though it may be intuitively obvious (mindful of the fact that some of the School Board may come from Missouri and will need to have evidence in hand) -- I agree that we should consider determining how to demonstrate or measure that technology impacts student achievement. Not anecdotally or by a classroom demonstration but through some structured assessment. How we go about approaching that task, gathering and analyzing the data probably entails considerable effort.
3. As we have listened to various school’s efforts to use technology at monthly meetings, I have had the increasing impression that the Technology Beast is like an octopus with many tentacles going in many different directions. Difficult to comprehend all the various parts, needing a road map that would challenge Rand McNally, and easy to be side-tracked by the “wow” or “gee whiz” factor. And, somehow, we need to figure a way to navigate all those multiple considerations in a complex kabuki dance. I say all of that – and apologize for being long-winded – to get to this point that I would put forward for consideration. I would suggest some more specific definition to the 2006-2007 ETAC objective of “Assist[ing] the CIO in identification of major technology initiatives for the future.”
I have no issue with leaving that objective largely intact, yet minimally suggest we flesh out or specifically define some direction to that identification process and not leave it so broad and general. Part of my reasoning is that by so doing, we would necessarily have to give concrete thought – and hence direction results – than to leave it in such a broad, amorphous statement. Examples would be to grapple with funding issues or perhaps training recommendations. Or even possibly consider the merits of establishing broad guidelines for the standards of what a school’s technology must minimally meet (so as to arrive at some uniform standard throughout LPS) but then allow the schools the individual discretion about what technology they actually use provided it meets those guidelines/standards. |
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Re: ETAC Charge 2007-08 |
By Troy Greenwood on
10/9/2007 7:21 PM |
I think the charge is still very timely and appropriate. Also agree that we should probably change the 2007-2008 objectives to more reflect our focus. And agree that we can remove establish the committee. Here are my thoughts on goals.
Goal 1: Communicate, Communicate, Communicate. Last year we spent and we continue to spend time celebrating successes. I think we need to share this good news and find a way to communicate Best Practices and good example uses to other schools, etc... I'm not sure of the best method, but communication is a huge facet of the success of any organization. The more we can communicate how to successfully use technology the better LPS will be able to use it. Once we broaden the use of technology we can move to the goal of measuring its success. Also communication may help (won't resolve) equality of technology by hopefully sharing best practices some schools will be able to do things without reinventing the wheel.
Goal 2: Transparency. I really think we should strive to move beyond technology for technology sake and focus on learning with technology as a tool. For example, we don't teach Powerpoint, Word, Excel we teach Effective Presentations, Creating business documents, and data analysis.
Goal 3: Keep the "Assist the CIO in the identification of major technology initiatives for the future" add provide a forum for discussion and recommendation regarding district wide technology uses and policies
Just my two cents. |
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Re: ETAC Charge 2007-08 |
By Chris Moore on
10/16/2007 5:04 PM |
I think Troy is right on. I work hard to share technology in my building, and I feel that there are teachers who are interested. The problem is time.
I did offer one solution at my building -- it did not happen, but I still feel that it could be powerful.
Our building focus is writing. I really wanted to see writing PLC's that were not built by grade level. I think we could have had vertical teams. Each team would focus on one area that would improve writing instructional practices across grade levels.
For example: one group meets about technology best practices in writing. One group meets about assessment best practices in writing. One group meets about how to effectively incorporate a spelling program, and one group meets about how to generate authentic audiences and purposes for student writing projects.
Each group does their thing, and then comes back to report to the whole school about how their new practices impacted student achievement. In this manner, we could have ALL learned many new best practices and techniques. We could have ALL shared knowledge that helps everyone teach in a more effective way. Plus, we would have had real data about how technology has improved student learning.
Maybe this was not the right place for this comment. If that is the case, I apologize.
~ Chris Moore |
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