Evaluation of the Establishment as Compared to the Technology Maturity Model Lynn Johnson

Demographics The Establishment is a school district that encompasses several rural communities and a few remote communities in an 8,300 square mile area. The district educates students in 3 of the communities with in its boundary, in a total of 5 schools. The schools include a kindergarten through fifth grade elementary, a kindergarten through eighth grade elementary / middle school, a sixth through twelfth grade middle school / high school, a ninth through twelfth grade high school and a two-room kindergarten through eighth grade elementary school also offering online high school coursework access. The Establishment also has one main district office where six district clerical, technology and administrative staff spend most of their days. The Establishment serves approximately one thousand two hundred students. Housed in each of the elementary buildings are also after school programs, and two elementary schools have partnered with preschool or Head Start programs to lease space allowing them to offer early childhood education. Teachers in the district have at least one computer in their classroom. Many support staff and administration also have computers, including Title One staff, Special Services staff, the district nurse, and school building office staff. There are five libraries in the district and each high school library has at least eight or more computers, although many of them are ten years old. There are computer labs in each building and three of the buildings have at least two computer labs. Often there are as few as ten to twelve working computers in the labs though. Due to the distances between the schools in the Establishment, and the fact that there is only one paid full time technology person in the district, it became necessary for a stipend to be offered to 2 teachers in each building to recruit them to take on extra duties as on-site technology staff. Since these people are classroom teachers and time they can contribute to troubleshooting or emergency technology issues is often limited. When is comes to contract negotiating, major purchases, major software changes and filtering, the District Technology Director is responsible. The students in the Establishment are mainly Caucasian; although one community is located with in a Native American reservation and tribal members attend the two schools in that community. Poverty is also a culture in the Establishment, as students qualifying for free and reduced lunches in one school is as high as ninety-five percent.

Administrative Policy Behavioral: Integrated Technology us is embraced by the staff and they would like more training and access to innovative types of technology that relates directly to their positions within the Establishment. Resource / Infrastructure: Island An appropriate use policy exists for students. Staff and students are blocked from accessing some Internet websites by a district level filter. Requests can be made to the District Technology Director to have a site unblocked if there is a worthy reason. Currently, no staff acceptable use policy exists. Informal requests have been made to staff by administration, including do not befriend students on Facebook. Planning Behavioral: Emergent No formal plan exists. The budget is limited. Some major technology advances have been made through grants. Resource / Infrastructure: Emergent With no formal plan, replacement occurs mainly when a computer crashes and cannot be fixed. Many times, recycled or refurbished pieces are acquired. Main district administration and clerical staff have the newest models. Student labs, libraries and teachers have the oldest models. Budget Behavioral: Island An allotted amount is dedicated to technology, although many cost cutting measures have been taken lately including moving the district email from Outlook to Gmail. Resources / Infrastructure: Island A specific technology budget is allotted and it is also used to cover the costs of the library database and the online Accelerated Reader program. The technology budget is not large considering the number of buildings and labs it supports. Establishment staff members are also encouraged to apply for technology grants. Administrative Information Behavioral: Integrated The Establishment uses PowerSchool for student management, although it is currently considering a move to a new system which would allow it to access more administrative areas such as purchasing and personnel. Most information is still backed up on paper at this point. Resource / Infrastructure: Integrated Student management is available to all teaching staff, as teachers are required to keep grades updated weekly and attendance hourly. Administrators have access to the system as well as other support staff

such as librarians. Office personnel in each school manage their students data entry. The District Technology Director cares for the main system. Curricular Electronic Information Behavioral: Island Information resources are used, including the free resources provided by the state. The library is also accessed online. Teachers often project information allowing all to view it at the same time. Resource / Infrastructure: Islands Quality resources are provided free of charge to all in the state and staff has been shown how to access the databases. These resources are available to all schools and classrooms at a variety of reading levels. Access to a digital library was also recently added. Continual training occurs for the students in how to access resources available in the libraries. Some libraries have projection systems where training can occur with the whole group, some are still waiting for the systems to be completed. Assessment Behavioral: Island Yearly and regular benchmark testing occurs on the computer. Other ongoing practice and assessment occurs utilizing technology. The Waterford, Accelerated Reader program, Idaho Digital Learning Academy, PLATO and CNA courses all take place either online or using computer access. Resource / Infrastructure: Island A variety of assessments take place throughout the year utilizing technology. These assessments are only used for reading, language usage, and math, leaving many other areas of the curriculum untouched. Data from assessments is used to direct teaching. Curricular Integration Behavioral: Emergent There are no district requirements as to which technology should be used and the level of use in each classroom depends on the teacher and their comfort level. Teachers decide how and for what parts of the curriculum they will incorporate technology. Resource / Infrastructure: Emergent Technology, such as a projection system, is available for most classrooms, but access to specific software to project or share is limited in the curricular areas.

Teacher Use Behavioral: Island Teachers use technology on a daily basis although to what extent varies from room to room. Resource / Infrastructure: Island Most teachers have access to basic technology, including computers and projection systems. Very few have access to more advanced technology. Most teachers use more advanced technology at home but not at school. Wireless access does not exist in any of the buildings, except the district office. Student Use Behavioral: Island Student use for research and presentation is limited. Technology is more often used for remediation, practice, and testing especially in the lower grades. Resource / Infrastructure: Island Staff and administration views of appropriate technologies vary. Most students have basic access to computers daily but it is for practice or remediation. Access to technology in order to develop 21st Century skills does not occur consistently. Support Stakeholder Involvement Behavioral: Emergent Very little stakeholder involvement has occurred, as no technology plan exists currently. The school board is informed when major changes occur such as adding a new lab or when grant funding has been received. Resource / Infrastructure: Emergent With no technology plan in place, there has been little reason to involve stakeholders in this area. In the next year some money will be received from the state for technology and the district will have to account for how it is used. No formal planning is taking place to prepare for the money to be received or analyze which future technological developments would best benefit the Establishment. Administrative Support Behavioral: Island Currently there has been no formal discussion among all administrators involved. Decisions are mainly made by at the district level. Over ten years ago access to technology was listed on a brochure published for the public as a high priority of the district. The cutbacks that have taken place over the last several years have pushed the district into a defensive mind set, where most energy is put into maintaining what we currently have rather than looking forward to prepare for future needs.

Resource / Infrastructure: Emergent There is no formal support in the area of planning or implementation of a plan. Training Behavioral: Emergent In the past 4 years only a few training sessions in the area of technology have been available, and those were on how to use ones overhead system. A few teachers took the course that had the equipment installed in their classrooms. Resource / Infrastructure: Emergent Training on technology, its appropriate use and what we could or should be doing has not happened. In the late 1990s each teacher in the district was required to take a basic technology course and pass. They covered topics including email, basic computer structure, and how to use a digital camera. Teachers use more advanced technology, mobile technology for example, outside of work and then often bring those skills with them, although access to that technology is very limited and not provided by the school district. Technical / Infrastructure Support Behavioral: Emergent Support is informal usually and often not immediate, as building technology staff members are often busy teaching class. Staff members often rely on each other or workarounds for getting things done or fixed at the basic level, such as dealing with email issues. Some staff members are starting to use the recently implemented help desk, although access to it is not convenient. Resource / Infrastructure: Island A help desk has recently been instituted although all work tickets go directly to the District Technology Director and are then assigned to a building technology person who is also a classroom teacher and often busy with class. Often we rely on a grab someone in the hall if you see them style of getting things fixed. Connectivity: Local Area Networking (LAN) Behavioral: Emergent Staff members are networked but must be added as a user to every computer they use. Students log on with a basic student log on to the LAN across the district. This is labor intensive for the technology personnel to manage, as each time a new staff member comes on board they must be a computer as a user. Staff members use the network extensively, although students mainly use the system for word processing and basic research. Access to more demanding services, or services that use more

bandwidth, is discouraged. It is believed that these services slow down the system. Resource / Infrastructure: Integrated High-speed networking exists throughout most of the district and building and district drives have recently been added for staff to share documents and work. District Area Networking (WAN) Behavioral: Island The recent addition of district drives for storage and sharing work is more convenient for the staff that travels from building to building, such as the district nurse, librarian and some special services staff. Use of these services is very basic. Video conferencing equipment had been installed in both high schools because of a statewide grant. It also included more high-speed access. This equipment has been used to teach courses in two locations at once and for district personnel to work together on projects without traveling to one location within the district. Resource / Infrastructure: Integrated With the statewide grant, high-speed lines have brought into each high school. The remote elementary school also has high-speed access. Basic data services are available. Internet Access Behavioral: Island Most staff and some students use the Internet frequently. Curriculum integration is limited and varies from classroom to classroom. The library system is accessed through the Internet. Filtering is in place across the district and each time a website is blocked that a teacher would like to access the teacher must request access from the District Technology Director. Resource / Infrastructure: Integrated Access to the Internet occurs via district servers in each location and is filtered. Teachers have less restrictive access then students. Communication Systems Behavioral: Island Email is used often and mainly to share administrative information throughout the district. This is especially helpful because of the geographical size of the district. Email is not used to create learning activities, as most staff members prefer to meet face to face. High School and Middle School students have access to Gaggle accounts (a limited type of email), if their teacher shares their account information with them and chooses to use the system. This service was purchased, but no training has occurred for staff on how to integrate it into their coursework. Most students do not realize this is available since most staff members are

not using this service. Resource / Infrastructure: Integrated All staff, including janitorial and transportation staff have access to email. Some staff members choose not to use their email accounts and contacting them via telephone is the only way to get a message to them. Gaggle accounts are available to all High School and Middle School students if their teachers choose to use the program and give them their log in information. Most teachers are not using this service. Innovation New technologies Behavioral: Island New technologies are often used outside of school that are not allowed or encouraged with in the school system due to slowing down access for all, blocked access, or outdated equipment that wont support new technologies or software. Resource / Infrastructure: Integrated Few new technologies are available, but when introduced with some professional training, are well utilized. The most recent additions have been overhead projection systems with Elmos. These systems exist in most elementary classrooms and some high school classrooms. Comprehensive Technologies Behavioral: Island Installation of overhead projection systems and video conferencing systems in limited locations has occurred over the last three years. Elmos allow teachers to project an object for all to see that does not have to be scanned. The use of video conferencing is currently minimal as travel for face-to-face meetings is still the standard. Resource / Infrastructure: Island In the elementary schools, projection systems are the main technology utilized. At the high school level, some projection systems are utilized and a few students take courses via the video conferencing system. The fear of dragging down the system is still prevalent. Accessing more advanced technology is still seen as special and not integrated into everyday functionality for most. Conclusion Considering the previous analysis of the Establishment in regards to the Technology Maturity Model, I would rank the Establishment as an island overall. In some areas such as administrative planning, curricular integration and support we fall far behind but in others such as networking over a large geographic area with terrain challenges we seem to be making advances. To become more mature in our technology use, I see that planning, support, and professional training need to improve. The focus also needs to change from how can we

keep going at the bare minimum with outdated equipment to how can we make some major advances in our system and utilization to bring us up to todays standards in order to offer educational excellence for all which is the main goal of the district.