Ed Tech Plan 2023-24

Vision:

Dynamic technology is leveraged purposely in meeting each student’s unique needs and abilities, as students engage in learning experiences that will ultimately allow them to fully participate in our society (i.e. be future ready) and become their best self in the service of an intellectually and morally good life and good society.

• Authentic and Real-World Learning: Learners* will develop flexible skills, practice transferable habits and apply relevant knowledge in meaningful contexts that reflect the way they might be found and approached in the future workplace.
• Collaboration: Learners* will work together synergistically to solve problems, create products, and complete tasks through compromise, negotiation, and delegation.
• Communication: Learners* will communicate by connecting and sharing ideas through a variety of modes based on how well the message matches the medium in which they are transmitted through.
• Creativity: Learners* will develop and revise ideas with attention to originality.
• Critical Thinking: Learners* will analyze, synthesize, evaluate, and organize information in ways that generate new understanding.
• Global Learning:  Learners* will experience viewpoints beyond their own (overcoming the geographic isolation intrinsic to our rural district), using their developing understanding of cultural and global complexities to impact the world around them.
• Personalized Learning: Learners* will own their learning by setting goals, sharing these goals, making choices about how their learning is expressed and monitoring their learning. Learners will use a variety of technological tools for learning as they consume, curate, produce, and share content.

*Learners include all school-based stakeholders: students, teachers, and administrators.

Core Values at Sharon Springs CSD

• Equity:  Promoting educational opportunities according to each student’s personal need is made possible by first providing meaningful access to educational technology. This includes resources for all students, as well as  those who are economically disadvantaged or who have special needs.  True equity of educational opportunity, with regard to educational technology, is achieved by personal (one-to-one), classroom and home-based access to appropriate computer technology for teachers and students. It also means equipping teachers with the necessary professional development to aim toward this ambitious goal of personalized curriculum.
• Academic Rigor (Integration with Standards):  True technology integration requires a program not focused on learning about computers, but a focus on using computer technology as a tool to learn problem-solving, critical-thinking, collaboration, and communication skills across all content areas in learning the skills and knowledge specific to traditional fields of study (i.e., literacy, science, mathematics, etc). 
• Engagement: Involving students in active learning will thereby improve student achievement by engaging them with up-to-date, interactive technology and the pedagogy these technological tools allow for.
• Economic Development:  Preparing students for contemporary college and career demands requires high levels of problem-solving, communication, collaboration and technological skills.

Environmental Imperative (Intensify efforts to go paperless).  When educationally appropriate, teachers will use digital textbooks, novels, workbooks and worksheets rather than consumable print-based materials.  Making five week reports and attendance records available digitally also demonstrates a real concern for the environment

Plan Development

The process for developing our instructional technology plan started with our end users – students.

Students were asked a series of questions within the following domains:

• Functional skill development opportunities at SSCS
• Multimedia skill development opportunities at SSCS
• Research skill development opportunities at SSCS
• Critical Use of technology opportunities at SSCS

 Next teachers were asked a series of questions within the following domains:

• Functional skill development opportunities provided within their instructional practice/curriculum
• Multimedia skill development opportunities provided within their instructional practice/curriculum
• Research skill development opportunities provided within their instructional practice/curriculum
• Critical Use of technology opportunities provided within their instructional practice/curriculum

The results of these surveys were then discussed and analyzed by an Technology Committee (made up of an administrator, 2 elementary classroom teachers, 2 secondary classroom teachers, CSE Chair, school counselor,  the head of IT, 2 student council members, & the head of the PTSO).

The technology committee held regularly scheduled meetings that met for an hour each month.  In addition to standing agenda items (i.e., What’s working well? What’s not working well? How cane we grow from what’s working and address what’s needs to be improved?), the following core topics were addressed:

• Current Technology Infrastructure (hardware, software, & district-sponsored subscriptions to learning platforms/applications)
  • Core Question: What are we using? Why are we using it? How is it supported?
• Affordances of each “Core” Educational Technology (i.e. Schoology, G-Suite tools, i-Ready, newsela, etc.)
  • Core Question: How do each of these tools support student learning?
• Technology Mediated Learning Experiences: Synchronous and (not ‘versus”) Asynchronous
  • Core Question: How can technology help overcome the most difficult challenges of in-person instruction (i.e., time, place, and pace)?
• Learning From the Remote Instruction (emerging best practices in remote instruction)
  • Core Question: Why and how should remote instruction be more than just turning on a camera in a classroom?
• Engaging in Critical Use of Technology (“Going Beyond How to Use and Into How to Engage”) 
  • Core Question: What does it mean to be a critical user of technology? How to we establish and reinforce “critical use of technology” throughout our K – 12 school?
• Using Technology to Ensure Students are Gaining Future Ready Skills
  • Core Question: How can schools prepare students for emerging industries?
• Using Technology to Engage Students in a More Equitable and Flexible Education
  • Core Question: Now that we can provide 1:1 devices, how do we use this access to create more equitable and flexible structures within our systems to meet ALL students needs?
• Developing a Vision-Drive, Mission-Driven Plan That is Practical
  • Supporting a plan with targeted professional development (that is accessible asynchronously and synchronously) 
  • Supporting a plan with technology coaching
  • Supporting a plan with dynamic tools that are flexible, durable and supported

Building Off Previous Learning

By continuing to involve multiple stakeholders (this time adding more student and parent voice), relying on up-to-date research (subscriptions to ISTE), developing data-driven systems, linking the plan to the rollout of Next Generation NYS content standards, incorporating goals into our budget process, and aligning this plan to the APPR process, our Instructional Technology Plan is integrating into how education is done in our district. This is a natural progression from the previous 3 year plan that included providing students’ access to digitally-mediated/standards-aligned curriculum, leveraging collaborative functions of technology to enhance student engagement across content areas and grade levels, and supporting educators with quality professional development. 

Our technology committee identified strengths and areas of improvement by reviewing the previous plan. The committee used work samples of both teachers and students to highlight areas of strength.  The largest area of improvement was the need for more internal professional development support. Over the past several years, our Director Of Instructional Technology (me) transitioned into the dual role of K-12 Principal/Superintendent; unfortunately, leaving the role of Director Of Instructional Technology empty (due to a lack of qualified candidates). In identifying this need, the district was able to train an individual to meet this need and part of our 3 year plan will include using more support services from our regional BOCES.

Learning From Educating Remotely Through COVID

Due to careful planning prior to the pandemic, our district had the infrastructure to continue education without pause. We had a 1:1 iPad program (each with Verizon wireless accounts) in place for all of our students, along with extensive professional development on topics such as: blended-learning, digital literacy, and leveraging an LMS (Schoology) to provide learning with digital content. Unfortunately, however, we did have several growing pains with regard to how to best provide remote, real-time instruction. Our teachers struggled with designing lessons that balanced screen-time with down-time as well as how to design asynchronous learning experiences with students who (often due to child care responsibilities) could not attend class. With this plan, we build in goals aligned with targeted professional development. Additionally, we look to equip classrooms with better audio and visual technology to better serve students who cannot attend class in person; of course, along with professional development aligned with synchronous, distance learning teaching methods that are part of a blended learning model of instruction. We also look to expand our teachers’ capacity to design and leverage asynchronous teaching methods to design a more flexible learning experience for students that gives students/families more control over the time, place and pace of lessons.

 

Goal #1

Sharon Springs CSD’s secondary students will have access to at least 85% of all standards-aligned curriculum materials (for all math, science, English, Spanish and social studies) via their district issued iPads by June 2025.

Goal #2

By 2025, SSCS will provide a blended-hybrid-learning-environment across all courses and all grade levels. 

 

Goal #3

Through the collaboration of school counselors, teachers, administration and the director of technology and curricular innovation, a yearly rubric will be designed to evaluate progress on a four-year, digital portfolio that each graduating student will need to present at the end of his/her senior year that demonstrates he/she is “future ready”.