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My school, Maryland High School, is public high school located in a rural/suburban area in Western Maryland.

The area has been growing at an increasing rate as more and more people move here for a lower cost of living that is still within a feasible commute to the Baltimore and DC Metro areas. Because of the changes that the county have undergone my school has seen a rather dramatic increase in students in the last few years. We currently have about 1000 student enrolled with approximately 70 full-time faculty members. Within the last couple years our graduating classes have been approximately 180-200 and our incoming 9th grade classes have been above 300 so we growing very quickly. The area where I teach has a somewhat diverse student population from rural farm kids to students who live in the city part of our county. We have a large population of FARM students as well as a growing ELL population. Administrative Policy Behavioral: Emergent - in my school there is no formal policy stating what is an appropriate level of technology use, however the use of technology is encouraged Resource/Infrastructure: Integrated - we have a formal policy but it isnt very comprehensive or widely known by the majority of staff Planning Behavioral: Island - most of the planning centers around our STEM grant utilization and planning for PD Resource/Infrastructure: Island - we do have a formal plan but it is mostly focused on STEM Budget Behavioral: Integrated - our STEM grant is very detailed in how/when money can be spent Resource/Infrastructure: Integrated - a large part of our STEM grant was written to provide funding but it is also included in the annual budget Administrative Information Behavioral: Integrated - Our gradebook (previously Integrade) must be submitted electronically, but grades may be kept on paper and only final grades entered if a teacher chooses to do that. We are in the process of transition to a gradebook program that parents will have access to (similar to EdLine). Attendance is still taken on paper instead of electronically. Resource/Infrastructure: Integrated - Gradebook and email systems are available to staff but there is no electronic attendance system for staff Curricular Electronic Information Behavioral: Island - it varies greatly depending on the class and the teacher, some never use it and some use it all the time Resource/Infrastructure: Island - there are many basic resources (such as online encyclopedias and reference databases to sites such as BrainPop) available but students must obtain the county passwords from the library to access many of them and computers are somewhat limited in the school Assessment Behavioral: Emergent - a few teachers use sites like Edmodo to assess students, but most do not Resource/Infrastructure: Island - Edmodo was available but not widely used and now we are transitioning to a new program that no one really knows anything about or has received any training on yet

Curriculum Integration Behavioral: Island - it depends on the class, but overall it is mostly limited to the technology classes and a few others Resource/Infrastructure: Island - tech resources like classzone are available but computer access is fairly limited so utilizing the resources in the classroom is somewhat challenging as time must be scheduled and shared in the computer lab or with one of the few mobile laptop carts available Teacher Use Behavioral: Island - teachers use resources a lot to help plan their lesson but it isn't always integrated as part of what the students will do Resource/Infrastructure: Island - STEM teachers have decent technology (tech cart with laptop, doc cam, projector, clickers, some have interactive whiteboards/tablets) and most teachers have at least a projector and document camera but the majority do not have smartboards, laptops or iPads Student Use Behavioral: Island - some classes (such as Foundations of Technology which all students much take as a graduation requirement) use technology all the time but most of the time it is for limited things like creating presentations Resource/Infrastructure: Emergent - depending on the classes they are taking they may use technology everyday or almost never. Besides clickers and calculators not a lot of technology is used on a consistent basis and that is only in some classes

Support Stakeholder Involvement Behavioral: Emergent - outside of the faculty and staff on the STEM committee few people are involved in the planning and implementation process Resource/Infrastructure: Island - there are teachers from each of the STEM disciplines as well as administrators and staff from the BOE that participate in the STEM meetings Administrative Support Behavioral: Integrated - the administration is involved with and attends the meetings for planning and implementation Resource/Infrastructure: Island - meetings are held during the school day and sometimes before school and the teachers on the STEM committee usually are given common planning time to be able to meet with administration during the day for monthly meetings Training Behavioral: Intelligent - the school has been steadily increasing the amount of technology based PD that all teachers are required to attend and the BOE offers additional training for teachers interested in specific topics that range from things as basic as Microsoft Office to how to use clickers to interactive whiteboards/tablets Resource/Infrastructure: Integrated - the school librarian and certain teachers in the building do PD with technology as well as technology specialists from the BOE Technical & Infrastructure Support Behavioral: Island - other than putting in a work order to contact the county's helpdesk when something isn't working properly few staff members utilize other technical support but it is available for some things

Resource/Infrastructure: Integrated - there are a couple technology specialist at the BOE who provide training and support to the entire county (all elementary, middle, and high schools in the county). Some sessions are held on PD days, others are held after school at specific schools and some are after school or during the summer at the BOE and open to all staff in the county

Connectivity LAN

Behavioral: Integrated - it depends on the department, some use the network more than others, but the math department for example shares everything over the network. There is a shared drive on the network for just staff to share, one for students to save work, and several other for data and other things. Each teacher can create their own folder on the network as well as class folders that students can access, however some teachers do not utilize this resource. Resource/Infrastructure: Integrated - all teachers have at least ethernet access to the network and WiFi hubs have been installed in most parts of the building

WAN Behavioral: Island - there is a WAN, however it is not utilized very much by staff for sharing outside of each individual school Resource/Infrastructure: Integrated - a WAN exists but is very under-utilized Internet Access Behavioral: Integrated - whether its showing a youtube video or projecting an interactive website on the screen many teachers try to integrate the Internet in their lessons in some way Resource/Infrastructure: Intelligent - all classrooms have either ethernet access or wireless access Communication Systems Behavioral: Intelligent - school email is very important, attendance and other announcements are sent everyday via email, additionally communication with parents is strongly encouraged Resource/Infrastructure: Integrated - all staff are assigned a BOE email address and students can have access to email as well but not through the county email system

Innovation New Technologies Behavioral: Island - some teachers readily accept new technology while others resist change of any kind because they are used to doing things a certain way and they dont want to have to change anything Resource/Infrastructure: Island - training is often somewhat limited when new technologies become available so implementation does not occur as much as it should Comprehensive Technologies Behavioral: Island - most classrooms have computers with document cameras and projectors and some have interactive whiteboards/tablets as well Resource/Infrastructure: Island - most staff only have/use a computer or document camera and projector although the use of interactive tablets and whiteboards is growing (especially in the STEM content areas where the technology has become more available due to our STEM grant)

1. Conclude with a final summary which describes where you would place your educational
institution in the Technology Maturity Model. This needs to be a detailed explanation of what you saw and how that lead to your final placement of your institution.

Summary: After extensively reviewing and evaluating my school on each section and subsection of the Maturity Model Benchmark and studying the Technology Maturity Model I believe my school is currently in the Islands Stage. According to the Technology Maturity Model the Islands of Technology Stage is characterized by the following: Regular use of computers at one or more grade levels and program levels at each school within the Institution on a regularly scheduled basis Formal plans, policies and procedures exist to facilitate the optimal use of technology in both instructional and administrative areas throughout the Institution Institution sponsored and school sponsored training is available Technology has budgetary visibility at the Institutional level and school/program level The instructional delivery system is somewhat dependent on technology My school has clearly left the Emergent Stage because we do have formal plans to facilitate technology use. We also have computers available for every staff member and for student use in the form of mobile laptop labs and a few computer labs. Additionally technology is budgeted for at the school and district level through our STEM grant and in the annual budget. Finally, teachers implement technology to varying degrees in the delivery of their lessons. I think we are on our way to being in the Integrated Systems Stage but we are not quite there yet. We need to increase the use of technology in the classroom both by the teachers in how they deliver content and in providing students greater and more regular access to technology for their use. As far as training and the administrative support aspects we are doing better in those areas, but they could be improved as well with more in depth training on new technologies and better software for things such as our gradebook and attendance. We will be implementing a new more comprehensive system this school year similar to Edline which should improve those areas and make communication with parents much more efficient, however that has not happened yet. Overall it seems clear that my school has a long way to go before we are truly technologically mature, however we have made considerable progress in a relatively short amount of time, mostly due to our STEM grant. I am concerned for the future though if we are unable to reapply for a similar grant because funding is so limited. If we no longer have grant money it seems likely that either technology or training or both will be affected in a major way and could cause us to either not move forward to the Integrated Stage or even worse fall backwards from the progress we have already achieved.

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