The Long-Range Plan for Technology

The Long-Range Plan for Technology (LRPT) is a very valuable piece of documentation for aspiring administrators. The LRPT provides an overall vision and sets goals, for its readers, of Texas’s vision for technology in education. By the year 2020, Texas hopes to make this vision complete. The vision is broken down into three “phases.” The first phase has a goal to be completed by the year 2010. This phase provides the foundation and framework for the other two phases. The goals and objectives on these two phases will be set and determined based upon the progress made on phase one.

In addition, to laying out an overall vision for the technology, the LRPT provides relevant data, defines societal changes that dictate the need for reform in technology in education and provides insight to the nature of the 21st century learner as well as what teachers are saying about the current state of technology. With the needs and nature of the learner changing, educators must strive to reach these learners by diversifying their methods and reaching out to the 21st century learner. It is noted throughout the data given, that teachers want to learn how to meet the needs of these learners and the importance of integrating technology throughout their lesson planning.
The final portion of the LRPT sets individual visions for teaching and learning; educator preparation and development; leadership, administration and instructional support and the infrastructure for technology. Recommendations are made to the Texas Education Agency, Regional Service Centers, school districts, higher education agencies and the communities for each of the aforementioned areas follow each of the visions set forth in the LRPT.

My Personal Technology Assessments

In terms of agreeing with these assessments, I agree they could be considered effective tools in determining the individual and campus needs in the area of technology. These types of reflective surveys allow one to find areas of strengths and areas of improvement. As an administrator, utilizing surveys such as these allow one to analyze the current state of technological resource use and identify the professional development needs of my campus. These surveys showed me that in some areas we are doing well, but the feedback also displayed some definite areas for improvement.

I discovered, through the technology applications inventory, a variety of strengths and weaknesses. I found that, for the most part, I am fairly strong in three of the four domains. My strengths are definitely with my wide knowledge base of platforms, software and my ability to communicate in various electronic ways. That level of comfort becomes important when attempting to support staff members who are not well-versed in technological applications and resources. I discovered that my weakest area in technology was problem solving. In particular, I discovered I was weak in collaboration regarding technology.

With the SETDA survey, I found similar results. While our school exhibits many strengths with regards to the implementation of various technologies, our school still has room to grow. Strengths discovered in this survey include the variety of technology, such as word processing and spreadsheets that my students use within the classroom. In addition, similar to the technology application inventory, it was noted that I am fairly skilled in a variety of software applications, that I have my students use regularly. Areas of weakness that I need to obtain more professional development in are in the areas of distance learning, multi-media editing and utilizing research sources such as EBSCO and ERIC. The biggest area of improvement needed is in obtaining knowledge of how to engage students in online collaboration and communicating with others. In addition, while our district has provided up to date technology for each campus, teachers are not using these resources daily or even weekly in classrooms.