Technology+Facilitator+Standard+VIII

Standard VIII Reflection

Standard VIII is one of Leadership and Vision that expands on many elements of Standard VII. Where Standard VII produces order and consistency through management, Standard VIII produces change and movement through leadership (Williamson, & Redish, 2009). In Standard VII we create the technology plan, and in Standard VIII we are the leadership that will push the plan to fruition. Many a great plan has withered and died because there were no leaders to inspire the teachers to step out of their technology comfort zones. My duties as an Instructional Technology Facilitator involve helping both teachers and administrators use technology effectively. I have helped principals use “clickers” in their staff meetings, this models technology use by the students and not just what the teacher is doing. I present at the Assistant Principal’s Academy different Web 2.0 tools that they can take back to their campuses and implement with their staff and subsequently the staff with the students. I design and delivery Professional Development by eCourse in addition to the standard after school trainings. I meet with teachers whenever and wherever they can; when they call I do everything in my power to help them. After building a wiki for the program, I created one for Web resources. It is very simple page of links, but if it keeps one teacher from searching for information than it has accomplished the goal. I now have several other contributors to the wiki. I cannot sustain the vision by myself, so the district has created different teams dealing with different issues; we are calling them the Vision 21 teams, since they represent the 21st Century Learner. The School Board, community members, and other high ranking instructional people met for two days to develop the vision and mission statements and a general direction that the district needs to take. Now the different Vision 21 teams are tackling how to get us from here to there. It is an exciting time to be working in my district. This model follows the steps in developing a shared vision outlined in Kent Peterson’s NCREL article (Peterson, 1995). As an educator who tweets, blogs and reads vast amounts of RSS feeds I am a lifelong learner, but are other educators who do not do those things not lifelong learners? Educational reform is one of the biggest movements ever envisioned and to not be paying attention to what is going on is to not being an effective educator. I, like many others, have recognized it is our responsibility to the kids to learn everything we can about all of the possibilities (Dembo, 2010). I have learned throughout the Master’s program that educational technology should be the driving force for school reform, because using this medium we can accomplish so many more things than we can alone. It is puzzling as to why so few people are involved in the creation of the technology plan and then after it is submitted, nothing is ever done with it, and most teachers have no knowledge of what is in the plan even though it directly relates to them. A part of the solution to be able to truly help teachers integrate technology into their curriculum is to have a Technology Facilitator on every campus, this is expensive but in the long run, well worth the cost, because they will not only be involved in creating the vision but pushing the vision forward.

Dembo S 20100929 We can't let educators off the hook Dembo, S. (2010, September 29). We can't let educators off the hook [Web log post]. Retrieved from http://dangerouslyirrelevant.org/2010/09/we-cant-let-educators-off-the-hook.html

Peterson K 1995 Critical issue: Building a collective vision Peterson, K. (1995). Critical issue: Building a collective vision. Retrieved from http://www.ncrel.org/sdrs/areas/issues/educatrs/leadrshp/le100.htm

Williamson J Redish T 2009 ISTE's Technology Facilitation and Leadership Standards, What every K-12 Leaders should know and be able to do.Williamson, J., & Redish, T. (2009). //ISTE's Technology Facilitation and Leadership Standards, What every K-12 Leaders should know and be able to do.// Eugene, OR: International Society for Technology in Education.

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