Reflections+on+Technology+Facilitator+Standard+V


 * Standard V prescribes illustrating by example. The technology professional must become a role model in in utilizing technology. This standard is a very broad norm that asks the professional to never go back and be consistent in using technology as a tool if you know how to do it. On a daily basis, all teachers at my school use the Groupwise system to communicate via e-mail. At the present time, it seems inconceivable to deliberately avoid using our e-mail application. Similarly, I have not found any teacher intent on averaging grades by hand when there are programs such as Gradebook that will do that automatically. Of course, teachers are obliged by the district to communicate via Groupwise, to post lesson plans to a shared disk, and to report progress by means of Gradebook, thus teachers are forced to use technology whether they want to or not. On the other hand, out of personal experience I know that at a charter school where grades were still reported by hand, some teachers would rather compute averages manually, using a calculator, rather than by utilizing a ready-made Excel spreadsheet. **
 * Indeed, productivity has increased as a result of word processing, database, communication, spreadsheet and multimedia tools to generate products, from a professional standpoint. One example where I experienced the performance indicators for Standard V would certainly be the spreadsheet and database designed for my 3rd grade mathematics ability group. I utilized a wide array of electronic tools in combination to collaborate with colleagues and parents, to increase ourefficiency, to make educational decisions, and to foster professional development. Based on database research about academic performance on district benchmarks, individual education plans, posted general education plans, online curriculum and data from learning styles inventories,I create a plan of action to teach math to students with special needs. Utilizing Excel, I created a spreadsheet that could automatically represent statistical information by means of bar graphs to show the students their academic progress. I used word processing applications to write my lesson plans and to create letters to parents. Electronic mail applications were used to relay and exchange information between general ed. teachers, mathematics specialists, parents and myself. Finally, multimedia applications were used to visually demonstrate students complex concepts. **
 * Beyond reporting information, communication between the interested parties was never difficult; as a result of that, I did not find any obstacles to these endeavors. On the contrary, I feel that the visual representation of progress encouraged the students to monitor their own needs and improve their performance by working to get higher grades. **
 * I did, however, share with my Campus Instructional Technologist my concern that next year the AMC classroom will be deployed less computers and that inevitably this will affect my differentiated instruction, our efforts to streamline the fusion between curriculum and technology, and progress in our STaR chart. How can we expect students to beneft from technology, when technology is atually being taken away? **