SOUND OFF AND BE HEARD
You have a voice...use it.
Share information to help Hillsborough County school children, school employees, and taxpayers.
Tell me what you think
Since 2006 I have had the honor of representing all Hillsborough County children and voters...I created this blog in 2007 and have welcomed the opportunity for feed back throughout my term.
I am now a candidate for re-election and I need your help. Visit my website at http://www.voteapril.com/ .
I still want your input. If you think something is wrong, then tell me how it can be better. If you have information that would help our children, employees, or taxpayers, this is the place to share.
Please also note that this is my personal blog, not the board's. Furthermore, the opinions expressed by posters on this blog may or may not necessarily reflect my opinions or those of the School Board.
How can we use technology to improve student achievement and save money?
17
comments:
Anonymous
said...
How can we use technology to save money? Let me count the ways.
1) TECO energy audits on all schools to spot which ones need weather insulation.
2) Get good route-planning software from DHL or UPS to optimize our school bus routes.
3) Use the Florida Virtual Schools to deliver instruction to students in their homes or nearby in a library so you can accommodate school population fluctuations more rapidly and flexibly. There's no real reason that you should *have* to go to class in a big box. If some students don't have high-speed internet, you can rent storefronts all over Hillsborough County for not a huge amount of money and furnish them with stuff the district already has in storage. Imagine how much money it would save to not have to acquire land and build big-box schools.
4) Failing that, look into using pre-fab concrete classrooms so you can add and remove capacity to more closely track actual student population.
5) Do a better job with electronic gradebooks, and make possible for parents to get a progress report whenever they want one. (This means the teachers have to be timely in grading and entering grades, but the faster feedback they can give parents may make up for that by not letting little Johnnie or Suzie "lose" the progress report on the way home.)
6) Along with that, add an automated evaluation system that read student test scores, homework, days absent, and the like, and computes a score (like a credit score) that can help flag students that are having a problem early enough to be better helped.
I think that there are many ways technology can be used to help relieve some of the absurd amount of paperwork teachers need to complete, expecially if we are adding students to our teaching load. On suggestion has been to use computer tech. to streamline ESE and ESOL paperwork that teachers need to complete. Having a database to enter comments and info for IEPs will definitly help!
We have an electronic IEP, which 1)makes things easier to write from home (more time away from school doing our job), 2) allows for better collaboration among teachers (only ESE personnel who have access to Edmin), and 3)Edmin has created a far better IEP, which is truly comprehensive and descriptive, but is so much lengthier than we had in the past. It's a "good thing", what should be done, but is so time consuming. Again, we are at the crossroads of quality vs quanity. What does the district want to pay for?
As you know, we (ESE) are not recognized for the time it takes for this type of documentation, and next year the district thinks we can do it in 1/2 the time.
One area that I think is a simple, quick help fix is to link the IEP to SAGEBRUSH (ITP). I know this is possible, other districts across the country do this. When we "activate" an IEP, we should be able to send it to these links. Then ALL the teachers who have access to the specific student's records can view the IEP. It would be a REAL time saver for ESE teachers.
All of this technology takes an incredible amount of time to learn and manipulate to be used as a teaching or data management tool. If we do not allow teachers the minimal time to do their everyday duties in order to feel some degree of effectiveness, where will they have time to explore these higher end tasks?
Please come out and visit my school, Gaither. We would be happy to show you what types of technology are used for data management, as well as instruction for ESE students.
I believe you know how to reach me, I am the ESE specialist.
We don't have IEP via computer at our school. For the average teacher we receive the IEPs and other forms in our mailbox sometimes through email. I have no way of seeing what other teachers are recommending for the student or how they are performing in their class since I'm not an ESE teacher. This information would be useful when it comes to developing specialized lesson plans. It would save time for the teachers if we could view every ones suggestions. I agree with Sisyphus... if we could link IEPs to Sagebrush which I have access to that would make things a lot easier.
If use of technology will save money in other areas, should we not then strive to make technology more readily available in each classroom? I think every classroom could use a bank of computers so that we can meet the needs of both our technologically advanced and deprived students. The media centers are just not adequately equipped to meet the research needs of the various disciplines within the school -- and this will become even worse with the 6/7 schedule.
Here's another thought - invest a little money in software to present multiple-choice tests online. Imagine how much teacher time is wasted hand-grading "a, b, c, or none of the above" tests.
And since the administration insists on trying to get blood out of a turnip with this 6/7 period plan, set up blogs for teachers to do their lesson plans from home or sign them up for Google Documents so they can work from anywhere with a computer and an internet connection. Google even has special technical items for schools - google.com/a/edu - that can let you keep gradebooks, documents, and web pages online.
It's worth a look. And it's free, which could save a buttload of IT support money.
"The media centers are just not adequately equipped to meet the research needs of the various disciplines within the school -- and this will become even worse with the 6/7 schedule."
In some cases (older schools?) perhaps but not all.
New high schools are very well equipped since 2001. They can be improved with some better network port designs but having 12 computers and a couple of mobile labs can work wonders. Don't discount books either. If the classes are capped at 25, a good Media Specialist (or 2) can manage very nicely with 30 computers.
If you want to provide a comprehensive service you MUST have the staff. You must provide competent on-site tech support. You must assure your users that you have adequate infastructure and bandwidth in place to meet their research demands. You must have student supervision and direction.
I have seen our laptops slow to dial-up speed when everybody in the county and state starts slamming the FCAT Explorer site. Check with any PLATO Lab manager and find out how that web based program can crawl at peek usage.
Every new program places additional demands on the network. Technology developes at such a breakneck speed that it is hard to predict what we need 5 years from now OR what will be common place? And how immediately can you retrofit the current schools without breaking the bank?
5 years ago I never imagined I would have the technology I have on the laptop I'm writing on NOW and at the price I paid!
Anybody ever consider that they could podcast their lecture 5 years ago? Or carry their entire CD collection as MP3s on an 80GB hard drive?
We use GradeQuick and when I called them this week I asked if they have an interface that would allow the new scantron machines that arrived on campus to directly input the scantron results into the teacher's GradeQuick files. They took my info and said they'll talk to ScanTron and try to "partner the development".
This should be a given with any new purchase. Vendors should be made aware that we are looking for and buying this sort of integration.
Why not get rid of AGDs and GGDs and do them online? Why "bubble" only to have the bubbles be scanned into a computer? Why not 'direct input' into the database? Of course anything like that REQUIRES thorough training.
Technology is not the end all but a tool and occasional inspiration.
Need I mention Abacus, Lawson and SILK. I remember the promises and the growing pains. It takes a long time from conception to reality. The end user must always be trained.
We must have a leader with the understanding to conceive, incubate, design, promote and complete the delivery of their tech vision into our classrooms.
Does everyone know about "Gaggle"? It is a blog/web-site area from Google with chat for schools. There are strong filters to prevent profanity and other inappropriate material. Teachers can limit access by who's in their class. For my ESE students, it is not a viable resource, but for regular classes, especially honors and AP, the possiblities are endless. You can create a link from Edline for students. Students could participate in on line study sessions, post questions, read assignments, etc. Of course, in an ideal world, all of our students would have access from their home.
Yes, I am familiar with Gaggle. We have used it in our English I FUSE class this year. We incorporated it in a cooperative learning unit. The students formed six groups of approx 5 students in each group. They had to create a bulletin board for their group and communicate about their project. They were required to hold at least one live chat session. Finally, they each were to create their own individual blogs. It works well. Rather than make a big deal it simply edits out a curse word so the receiving student never knew it existed. I am notified so I can remind the student to keep it civil.
Technology is changing so quickly that the average person finds it hard to keep up! My suggestion is for each school to have a budget and save to purchase equipment as needed for their schools. There may be some bureaucratic reason why schools cannot create these accounts to save for future needs. Another idea: our school uses GradeQuick then Edline to post grades (1st is a type of electronic gradebook and 2nd is the Web based internet connection). I know other schools use other types. What about getting a district license and use one of these types? David Steele is aware of some of the various systems schools use. Currently, our school pays for the use of GradeQuick with our own funds. I'm sure a district this size could negotiate a more efficient way to do grades on-line. We input grades then have to send them to Edline. There are systems available to skip the 2nd step which automatically posts to a web page. Thanks, MathTeach
You can have 12 computers in each classroom, an Elmo, a smartboard, a laptop, ipods with podcasts and whatever else, but if you do not REQUIRE schools to employ a qualified tech person many will not hire one and it won't matter how much equipment is there when it doesn't work. If the equipment doesn't work, there can be no academic benefit. Many schools ask the media specialist to do the extra job of tech, a full day instructional person to do the tech job or it is just ignored until it gets out of control. I don't see how we can move forward with technology until we first plan for the maintenance, repair and the consumable expense that come with it (projector bulbs, laptop batteries, etc). That begins with a qualified tech person who can bridge the tech side with the academic goals and assist with the integration and implementation of the technology.
As a district technology resource (site based) I think one of the critical aspects of technology that we must address is the presence of a full-time, dedicated (not shared duties) qualified technology person at every school site. It is ludicrous to imagine that a high school with anywhere from 600 to 800 computers can expect to have a reasonable level of utilization without an onsite tech person.
This situation is even worse at middle and elementary levels. The idea that the media specialist in many cases should be responsible for technology on top of their assigned duties is not only unreasonable, it's unrealistic and patently unfair.
Look closely at surrounding counties, such as Pasco, who have a dedicated technology person at each site, who is responsible for all site technology assets and operations. They are a non-instructional employee who answers to a district level manager, not the principal. It is a system that runs very efficiently and effectively.
Long story short - how can the district expect to spend literally millions of dollars on technology, yet allocate none of those dollars for support within the district? Liken this to spending millions on a new building, without spending any money on upkeep and maintenance. it won't be long before the building begins to decay, due to a lack of upkeep.
There needs to be personnel allocated to each site or combination of sites and a clearly written job description defining their duties. This is the only way we can expect to get the most out of our technology assets. Ask any principal who has an on site, dedicated technology person, and they will explain the value of such.
1. Require all teachers to take at least 1 technology training class each year. I cannot believe how many teachers , even some right out of college, do not have basic computer skills.
2. Implement a "best practices" environment. Find the teachers that have done a great job at integrating technology in their classrooms and use them as a model for others to follow. Businesses will often emulate another company that has been successful in a particular area.
Before the county preprints thousands of exam scantron forms - they should determine what students are taking the exams. Of 5 classes - I have under a third taking the exams (the rest exempted particularly the seniors). But I received pre-printed scantron forms for all my students - that are a waste now!
17 comments:
How can we use technology to save money? Let me count the ways.
1) TECO energy audits on all schools to spot which ones need weather insulation.
2) Get good route-planning software from DHL or UPS to optimize our school bus routes.
3) Use the Florida Virtual Schools to deliver instruction to students in their homes or nearby in a library so you can accommodate school population fluctuations more rapidly and flexibly. There's no real reason that you should *have* to go to class in a big box. If some students don't have high-speed internet, you can rent storefronts all over Hillsborough County for not a huge amount of money and furnish them with stuff the district already has in storage. Imagine how much money it would save to not have to acquire land and build big-box schools.
4) Failing that, look into using pre-fab concrete classrooms so you can add and remove capacity to more closely track actual student population.
5) Do a better job with electronic gradebooks, and make possible for parents to get a progress report whenever they want one. (This means the teachers have to be timely in grading and entering grades, but the faster feedback they can give parents may make up for that by not letting little Johnnie or Suzie "lose" the progress report on the way home.)
6) Along with that, add an automated evaluation system that read student test scores, homework, days absent, and the like, and computes a score (like a credit score) that can help flag students that are having a problem early enough to be better helped.
I think that there are many ways technology can be used to help relieve some of the absurd amount of paperwork teachers need to complete, expecially if we are adding students to our teaching load. On suggestion has been to use computer tech. to streamline ESE and ESOL paperwork that teachers need to complete. Having a database to enter comments and info for IEPs will definitly help!
I would like to hear from ESE and ESOL teachers.
Are reports on hard copy paper or are any of them computerized data entry?
Most IEPs are now written on Edmin-Inform.
We have an electronic IEP, which 1)makes things easier to write from home (more time away from school doing our job), 2) allows for better collaboration among teachers (only ESE personnel who have access to Edmin), and 3)Edmin has created a far better IEP, which is truly comprehensive and descriptive, but is so much lengthier than we had in the past. It's a "good thing", what should be done, but is so time consuming. Again, we are at the crossroads of quality vs quanity. What does the district want to pay for?
As you know, we (ESE) are not recognized for the time it takes for this type of documentation, and next year the district thinks we can do it in 1/2 the time.
One area that I think is a simple, quick help fix is to link the IEP to SAGEBRUSH (ITP). I know this is possible, other districts across the country do this. When we "activate" an IEP, we should be able to send it to these links. Then ALL the teachers who have access to the specific student's records can view the IEP. It would be a REAL time saver for ESE teachers.
All of this technology takes an incredible amount of time to learn and manipulate to be used as a teaching or data management tool. If we do not allow teachers the minimal time to do their everyday duties in order to feel some degree of effectiveness, where will they have time to explore these higher end tasks?
Please come out and visit my school, Gaither. We would be happy to show you what types of technology are used for data management, as well as instruction for ESE students.
I believe you know how to reach me, I am the ESE specialist.
Gayle
We don't have IEP via computer at our school. For the average teacher we receive the IEPs and other forms in our mailbox sometimes through email. I have no way of seeing what other teachers are recommending for the student or how they are performing in their class since I'm not an ESE teacher. This information would be useful when it comes to developing specialized lesson plans. It would save time for the teachers if we could view every ones suggestions. I agree with Sisyphus... if we could link IEPs to Sagebrush which I have access to that would make things a lot easier.
If use of technology will save money in other areas, should we not then strive to make technology more readily available in each classroom? I think every classroom could use a bank of computers so that we can meet the needs of both our technologically advanced and deprived students. The media centers are just not adequately equipped to meet the research needs of the various disciplines within the school -- and this will become even worse with the 6/7 schedule.
Here's another thought - invest a little money in software to present multiple-choice tests online. Imagine how much teacher time is wasted hand-grading "a, b, c, or none of the above" tests.
And since the administration insists on trying to get blood out of a turnip with this 6/7 period plan, set up blogs for teachers to do their lesson plans from home or sign them up for Google Documents so they can work from anywhere with a computer and an internet connection. Google even has special technical items for schools - google.com/a/edu - that can let you keep gradebooks, documents, and web pages online.
It's worth a look. And it's free, which could save a buttload of IT support money.
"The media centers are just not adequately equipped to meet the research needs of the various disciplines within the school -- and this will become even worse with the 6/7 schedule."
In some cases (older schools?) perhaps but not all.
New high schools are very well equipped since 2001. They can be improved with some better network port designs but having 12 computers and a couple of mobile labs can work wonders. Don't discount books either. If the classes are capped at 25, a good Media Specialist (or 2) can manage very nicely with 30 computers.
If you want to provide a comprehensive service you MUST have the staff. You must provide competent on-site tech support. You must assure your users that you have adequate infastructure and bandwidth in place to meet their research demands. You must have student supervision and direction.
I have seen our laptops slow to dial-up speed when everybody in the county and state starts slamming the FCAT Explorer site. Check with any PLATO Lab manager and find out how that web based program can crawl at peek usage.
Every new program places additional demands on the network. Technology developes at such a breakneck speed that it is hard to predict what we need 5 years from now OR what will be common place? And how immediately can you retrofit the current schools without breaking the bank?
5 years ago I never imagined I would have the technology I have on the laptop I'm writing on NOW and at the price I paid!
Anybody ever consider that they could podcast their lecture 5 years ago? Or carry their entire CD collection as MP3s on an 80GB hard drive?
We use GradeQuick and when I called them this week I asked if they have an interface that would allow the new scantron machines that arrived on campus to directly input the scantron results into the teacher's GradeQuick files. They took my info and said they'll talk to ScanTron and try to "partner the development".
This should be a given with any new purchase. Vendors should be made aware that we are looking for and buying this sort of integration.
Why not get rid of AGDs and GGDs and do them online? Why "bubble" only to have the bubbles be scanned into a computer? Why not 'direct input' into the database? Of course anything like that REQUIRES thorough training.
Technology is not the end all but a tool and occasional inspiration.
Need I mention Abacus, Lawson and SILK. I remember the promises and the growing pains. It takes a long time from conception to reality. The end user must always be trained.
We must have a leader with the understanding to conceive, incubate, design, promote and complete the delivery of their tech vision into our classrooms.
Does everyone know about "Gaggle"? It is a blog/web-site area from Google with chat for schools. There are strong filters to prevent profanity and other inappropriate material. Teachers can limit access by who's in their class. For my ESE students, it is not a viable resource, but for regular classes, especially honors and AP, the possiblities are endless. You can create a link from Edline for students. Students could participate in on line study sessions, post questions, read assignments, etc. Of course, in an ideal world, all of our students would have access from their home.
Yes, I am familiar with Gaggle. We have used it in our English I FUSE class this year. We incorporated it in a cooperative learning unit. The students formed six groups of approx 5 students in each group. They had to create a bulletin board for their group and communicate about their project. They were required to hold at least one live chat session. Finally, they each were to create their own individual blogs. It works well. Rather than make a big deal it simply edits out a curse word so the receiving student never knew it existed. I am notified so I can remind the student to keep it civil.
Technology is changing so quickly that the average person finds it hard to keep up! My suggestion is for each school to have a budget and save to purchase equipment as needed for their schools. There may be some bureaucratic reason why schools cannot create these accounts to save for future needs.
Another idea: our school uses GradeQuick then Edline to post grades (1st is a type of electronic gradebook and 2nd is the Web based internet connection). I know other schools use other types. What about getting a district license and use one of these types? David Steele is aware of some of the various systems schools use. Currently, our school pays for the use of GradeQuick with our own funds. I'm sure a district this size could negotiate a more efficient way to do grades on-line. We input grades then have to send them to Edline. There are systems available to skip the 2nd step which automatically posts to a web page. Thanks, MathTeach
You can have 12 computers in each classroom, an Elmo, a smartboard, a laptop, ipods with podcasts and whatever else, but if you do not REQUIRE schools to employ a qualified tech person many will not hire one and it won't matter how much equipment is there when it doesn't work. If the equipment doesn't work, there can be no academic benefit. Many schools ask the media specialist to do the extra job of tech, a full day instructional person to do the tech job or it is just ignored until it gets out of control. I don't see how we can move forward with technology until we first plan for the maintenance, repair and the consumable expense that come with it (projector bulbs, laptop batteries, etc). That begins with a qualified tech person who can bridge the tech side with the academic goals and assist with the integration and implementation of the technology.
As a district technology resource (site based) I think one of the critical aspects of technology that we must address is the presence of a full-time, dedicated (not shared duties) qualified technology person at every school site. It is ludicrous to imagine that a high school with anywhere from 600 to 800 computers can expect to have a reasonable level of utilization without an onsite tech person.
This situation is even worse at middle and elementary levels. The idea that the media specialist in many cases should be responsible for technology on top of their assigned duties is not only unreasonable, it's unrealistic and patently unfair.
Look closely at surrounding counties, such as Pasco, who have a dedicated technology person at each site, who is responsible for all site technology assets and operations. They are a non-instructional employee who answers to a district level manager, not the principal. It is a system that runs very efficiently and effectively.
Long story short - how can the district expect to spend literally millions of dollars on technology, yet allocate none of those dollars for support within the district? Liken this to spending millions on a new building, without spending any money on upkeep and maintenance. it won't be long before the building begins to decay, due to a lack of upkeep.
There needs to be personnel allocated to each site or combination of sites and a clearly written job description defining their duties. This is the only way we can expect to get the most out of our technology assets. Ask any principal who has an on site, dedicated technology person, and they will explain the value of such.
MD
Here are a couple of suggestions:
1. Require all teachers to take at least 1 technology training class each year. I cannot believe how many teachers , even some right out of college, do not have basic computer skills.
2. Implement a "best practices" environment. Find the teachers that have done a great job at integrating technology in their classrooms and use them as a model for others to follow. Businesses will often emulate another company that has been successful in a particular area.
Before the county preprints thousands of exam scantron forms - they should determine what students are taking the exams. Of 5 classes - I have under a third taking the exams (the rest exempted particularly the seniors). But I received pre-printed scantron forms for all my students - that are a waste now!
Post a Comment