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Running Head: TECHNOLOGY PLANNING PAPER 1

Technology Planning Paper


David M. Maimone
Loyola University
ET 680
Technology Planning Paper 2

Analysis of Current Situation

To begin with, it is important to know that I am currently not in a school building.

However, being in the Office of Special Education (OSE), I believe that this project can be easily

applied to this office without much change at all. Instead of looking at a specific technology, I

chose to look at the issue of professional development. In OSE, one of the biggest things that we

do to support schools is to deliver professional development. We do this through large scale

methods such as large face-to-face presentations in which we use Powerpoint presentations to

deliver content and some small group breakout activities. We also deliver professional

development through smaller scale methods such as providing individual schools specific, direct

professional development based on that school’s specific needs. Both of these methods have

advantages and disadvantages. That being said, I was looking at implementing two

technological changes that impact the delivery of professional development to schools and

individual teachers. The first technological change would be to plan and implement an

alternative format for the large scale professional development. My thought would be to work

with OSE staff to deliver large scale professional development through a webinar format. This

would solve the problem of having to pull staff out of school buildings who aren’t able to leave

and would offer an alternative to just a face-to-face session. The second technological change

would be to develop a library of tutorial videos on special education topics. The idea is that I

would develop a library of procedures that explain how to complete some special education tasks

such as Home and Hospital referrals, completing an RTi, and progressions. In addition this

library could have videos on information that school-based staff would need. The topics would

be determined through committee input and school feedback. This library would then allow
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school staff to reference certain procedural things without necessarily requesting support from

OSE.

The first step is to analyze the technology innovation of improving professional

development through Roger’s Perceived Attributes Theory (Surry, 1997). The first element of

the Perceived Attributes Theory is that of Trialability. I think will be perceived very

positively. The best thing about changing the way professional development is delivered is that

you can start small both in terms of the technology used and in terms of the audience. This is

something that a single teacher or staff member can produce and deliver at a very small

scale. This will allow an individual to gain familiarity as well as work out potential problems

before taking it to a wider audience. Staff can try out making a YouTube video, practice using

captioning, or create a webinar prior to actually delivering the professional development. This

may help to alleviate anxiety with the technology. Plus if they create a professional development

and they are not happy with it, they can just redo it.

In terms of observability, I think the delivering of the professional development itself

makes this innovation observable. The thought is that when people in OSE begin using

technology to deliver professional development in innovative ways, other staff in the office will

see that and hopefully be interested and, that those who are on the receiving end of the

professional development will also see how it is done thus increasing its observability.

I believe with innovating how we deliver our professional development, there is a relative

advantage over how we currently deliver PD for some people. The fact that through the use of

technology, we can provide alternate ways to learn information (whether through instructional

videos, tutorials, live webinars, or face-to-face). This will be an advantage for those who learn

best through these methods. In addition, by creating a video library, school staff can consistently
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reference procedures. This is an advantage for those individuals who need to have information

repeated or to learn at their own pace.

Complexity can be a bit of a challenge. With technology, there is always the concern that

it will be perceived as being too complex. Again, with this idea of changing the way PD is

delivered, the actual technology can go from pretty simple (recording a video) to much more

complex (conducting a live webinar and analyzing participant data). Either way, this would be a

potential barrier that would need to be addressed when implementing.

I think this innovation has a high degree of compatibility in a couple of ways. One of the

main things that OSE does is to deliver professional development to school-based staff. Since

this is such a big part of the objective of OSE, I think that offering different ways for staff to

access PD will be a natural fit for OSE staff. I also think this will be compatible with both OSE

and school-based staff in saving time and effort.

When looking to implement a technology innovation it is important to analyze the school (or

in this case, OSE) according to Ely’s Eight Conditions (Ely, 1990). After conducting interviews

with OSE staff, there was definitely a level of dissatisfaction. Most agreed that the current way

we offer PD, which is through face-to-face lecture, is not the best way to get school-based staff

the information. Currently, OSE uses a “Train the Trainer” model in which school-based

department chairs are given the information and then tasked with going back to their school and

then delivering that information to their staff. This information sometimes is not delivered or is

incompletely delivered. The OSE staff also agreed that while small-scale school-based PD is

effective, it only reaches a small amount of teachers. So there was definitely dissatisfaction of

how we currently deliver professional development.


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The knowledge and skills of OSE vary greatly. I think this is where some of the greatest

learning will need to take place. I think before people can be taught to use technology to

produce and deliver PD, I will need to make sure I have a good grasp on how to use the

technology.

Resources I don’t believe will be a problem. Currently we have access to software such

as Blackboard Collaborate, WebEx, Screencast, Loom, and YouTube. For the beginning of

implementation of this innovation, the resources would be available for all staff to utilize.

Time is an interesting aspect of this. This is one area I believe differs greatly from a

school building. While OSE staff is certainly very busy, we have a lot of control over how our

time is spent. Staff can schedule time into their day to meet with the technology committee to

learn and practice new technologies. This I do not see as a barrier at all.

Right now, in OSE, rewards and incentives are not evident at all. This will be something

that the technology committee will have to address. While I do think that just helping staff

provide PD in more accessible ways will be very motivating, staff may require more incentives.

I don’t believe participation will be a barrier with this technology innovation. However,

unlike a school, there are many different branches of OSE. I think that at the beginning, this

project will target a small group of individuals and then, after having success, expand to

incorporate other individuals. At this point, it is difficult to gauge the participation so more

information will definitely have to be gathered.

While I believe that commitment from OSE administration will not be an issue, I don’t

know for sure. This is something that I will need to explore in more detail. This could be a

potential barrier due to the amount of vetting that our PD needs to go through before being
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presented to BCPS staff. This will not be a change from how OSE has traditionally done

professional development. Getting approval will more than likely have the same constraints and

scrutiny that have always been in place. A meeting with OSE leadership to present this idea,

plan, and timeline will be necessary to make this innovation successful.

Leadership I don’t believe will be a problem. With the individuals that I plan on asking

to be in the professional development committee there are OSE leaders who already have a

technology expertise. So learning any new technology and working with staff to implement the

new technology will not be a barrier in my opinion.

The conditions that need the most work at this point in the planning stage would be

knowledge and skills, rewards and incentives, and commitment. Starting with knowledge and

skills, I think I can have an influence on this but I do believe there are some steps that need to

happen before I can start influencing this. First, I will need to decide on the types of technology

we have available to deliver professional development. Once I have that information then I will

need to take time to learn these tools and use them to create professional development. Once that

is done, then I will work with individuals who are interested in using them to develop their own

PD. I believe that as each OSE staff person utilizes the new technology, it will increase the

knowledge and skills of the office staff. With rewards and incentives, I believe that we are

starting near zero. Other than just relying on staff who are internally motivated to change the

way they do professional development (which I do believe we have some of those people), there

is nothing in place to reward someone for doing this. I would work with OSE leadership and the

professional development committee to determine what types of incentives we could offer to get

OSE staff on-board with trying the new technology. I think I could influence this by working

within the committee and by talking directly with OSE leadership. The third condition that
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needs some work is commitment. With this it’s a matter of not knowing the commitment of the

leadership in OSE. This will require a meeting with OSE leadership to determine the

commitment to the specific objectives. I believe that I can influence this by explaining the

current dissatisfaction and providing data to support this change. Data may be in the form of

survey/interview results. In addition, I will also present this innovation and how it aligns to our

Office’s goals.

Overall, in terms of the use of technology to deliver professional development, I believe

OSE is in the Adoption Stage of the ACOT model (Dwyer, Rinstaff, Standholtz, n.d.). The

reason is that in almost all the professional development is face-to-face. In this delivery method,

OSE staff use PowerPoint presentations or just meet with individuals and present. Rarely if ever,

do staff use technology to engage the participants or have the participants utilize technology as

the means to receive the professional development. While participants can access the

presentations on their devices, it’s really just a substitution for delivering the information. The

only exception to this is when OSE staff are actually instructing school-based staff on a web-

based program such as Goalbook (a program used by special educators to generate IEP goals).

But while the participants are using the technology, the means to present it is still at a very basic

level.

When looking at individuals and where they fall on the ACOT model, there is a wide

variety of levels. The beginning or Entry level is very basic. Individuals in this stage don’t use

technology at all. In my interviews and informal observations, I did not see a single individual

that fell into this category. Everyone that I came in contact with in the office had some level of

use with technology to present professional development. By far, most of the individuals in our

office fell into the Adoption phase. Michele, a specialist, falls into this category. She is able to
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deliver PD by basically creating a PowerPoint then delivering the PD in person. Usually if

participants are asked to do any tasks they are not technology-based (small group discussion,

turn and talk, etc.). While she is comfortable using technology, this really doesn’t engage the

participants. There are also some OSE staff that are in the Adaption Stage of the ACOT model.

In some cases, for example, Jason, another specialist, engages participants with a PowerPoint but

incorporates other technologies in the PD. For example, participants may be asked to work on a

collaborative document online or asked to access a Padlet. In this stage the students are starting

to interact meaningfully with the technology. In the Appropriation Stage, the participants take

on much more of an active role in the learning process. In my observations, I have not seen a

single person present a professional development that I could categorize under Appropriation.

While I have seen individuals such as Dan use collaborative methods it is still mainly teacher-

directed learning. For example, Dan will teach from a PowerPoint and some of the activities will

be collaborative (both in person and online). But even though this type of collaboration is a part

of Appropriation, I wouldn’t say Dan is at that stage. In the same way that I don’t believe that

any of the OSE staff are at the Appropriation Stage, I also don’t believe any are at the Innovation

Stage. In this stage the participants can construct their own knowledge with the content and

learning is mainly participant-directed. In this case I have not seen any OSE staff utilize

technology in professional development to come anywhere near this stage. In looking eventually

moving OSE staff along this continuum, this may be a lofty goal considering where the office is

as a whole. However, I don’t think it is a stretch to move OSE staff to the Adaption or

Appropriation stages of ACOT. As I get more into the planning of this project and narrow down

exactly what it will look like, I will have a much better idea of how far I think we can move

individuals.
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Stakeholders

In order to help institute change it is important to involve the correct stakeholders.

Identifying the appropriate stakeholders in OSE is slightly different. In OSE it is important to not

only involve building leadership, but also the different areas of the office. While this may end

up changing once I present this project to OSE leadership, I believe I’ve identified a very

representative group of individuals to help move this innovation forward.

David Maimone-Obviously since this is my project, I would be the leader and the

representative from the compliance area of the office. My role would be to organize and lead the

professional development committee and set out an organizational plan for how the professional

development innovations will be rolled out. In addition, I would work directly with individuals

in OSE to improve their ability to use technology to deliver PD. In terms of Ely’s eight

conditions, I would be able to address the knowledge and skills component as I will be the main

one working with OSE staff to help them learn the new technologies. In addition I would also

offer leadership as the leader of the professional development committee and in terms of

promoting the professional development technology. I would also help with the Ely’s condition

of resources. Not only would I work to procure any resources we would need, but also help

determine which resources would work best for each individual that we work with.

Jason K.-Jason is a specialist in OSE and would represent the Teaching and Learning

area. Jason would be a good choice because he delivers a lot of PD on a variety of subjects to

school-based staff. He has extensive experience with writing and organizing PD and is

comfortable with using technology. While there will be a small learning curve with any new

technology introduced, Jason will be able to learn it very quickly. Jason’s skills will lend

themselves to help with Ely’s conditions of participation and incentives. Jason is excellent at
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delivering PD and is very good at motivating people. He can work to gain buy-in from OSE

staff and work to come up with incentives for those individuals who may be reluctant to try new

technologies.

Brenda W.-Brenda would be the leadership representative. While Brenda would not be

necessarily working directly with OSE staff, Brenda would provide consult on the types of

technology we could use as well as someone who would be a direct line with the dept. of

technology should any questions or technical issues arise. In addition, since Brenda is a

Coordinator in OSE, she can give directives to staff if needed in terms of how the PD is done.

Not that I think she is going to “force” anyone to use a particular piece of technology, but if she

is involved the office staff will know that leadership is behind this project. When looking at

where Brenda can help with Ely’s conditions, I think that foremost, she can provide leadership

and commitment. As a coordinator, Brenda is one of the leaders in OSE. By being on the

committee and endorsing this initiative, it shows OSE that there is commitment from leadership.

In addition, she can provide leadership within the committee. In addition, I think Brenda can

really help address the condition of time. First, by just being on the committee she shows that

she is willing to give time to this. But also, she can emphasize this as a priority and free up time

for OSE staff to work on and practice with new technologies. Brenda can also influence

participation and the incentives.

Susie S.-Susie is a resource teacher in OSE and is also in teaching and learning. There

are three reasons why Susie will be a good addition to the committee. First is that Susie is very

comfortable with technology. She is currently the webmaster for OSE so when anyone in our

office needs to put something on our website, she is the one that does it. Secondly, within BCPS

all PD that is going to offered online needs to be ADA compliant. While I am familiar with
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those regulations, Susie is our office’s resident expert. Any PD must be ADA compliant and

Susie can ensure that they are. The third reason why I believe Susie will be a great addition is

that her area of specialty is Severe and Profound. This is another area of the office that would

now have representation on the committee. Susie will definitely address Ely’s condition of

knowledge and skills. Her expertise with our web-based platform and her knowledge of ADA

requirements will be invaluable in making sure any new professional development we do is

compliant.

Heather C.-Heather represents yet another section of the office, Birth through Five.

Heather is very competent with technology and would be able to represent another area of

special education. Heather will also address the knowledge and skills and the leadership role in

the committee.

School-based Reps-While I wouldn’t necessarily expect school-based personnel attend

the professional development committee meetings. However, I see their role as mainly

consultants. My thought with this is to identify 3-5 teachers or department chairs to consult with

regarding implementation of professional development. Once our committee determines what

tools and how to deliver the professional development, we would consult with the school-based

reps to gain feedback and input that may impact how we deliver the PD. I think the biggest

condition that the school-based representatives will help us with is that of dissatisfaction. The

best part about working with school-based teachers and leaders is that they will tell you exactly

what works and what doesn’t work and what they think is helpful and what is not. While I think

within OSE we can identify what areas of our current delivery of professional development need

improvement, I don’t think we get the same perspective as those who receive the PD in the
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schools. I think this component is one of the most valuable parts for us to really make an

effective innovative change.

According to the Guidebook for Developing an Effective Instructional Technology Plan

(Anderson, 1996), there are many roles that the stakeholders can have. Like I said at the

beginning, because I am not in a school building, the technology innovation that I would like to

implement deals entirely with adults. Therefore some traditional stakeholder roles may not be

represented in this plan. Leadership in this plan will be represented by two people. David

Maimone, who will lead the committee and ensure that meeting are scheduled regularly and that

there is follow through from the committee members. Brenda W. will also function in this

capacity, but she will also represent OSE leadership and is in a position to make decisions as to

what can and cannot be implemented and can be used as a source for obtaining resources. Jason

K, Susie S., and Heather C. are faculty members that represent various areas of OSE. Each has

influence within their area and can bring specific needs to the committee. In addition, all are

comfortable with technology and willing to learn new tools. Finally the school-based reps I

think are one of the most important aspects of this. They represent the school-based personnel

and the recipients of the planned PD. Their feedback will be critical to making sure the

committee is on the right track and that the school-based staff will be receptive to the new PD.

One of the most difficult things when implementing an innovative technology and

organizing a committee is to get people involved and keep them involved in the process. After

reading through our first two case studies, it seemed that getting involvement was one of the

more challenging things those students faced. I do believe that the majority of OSE staff are

dissatisfied with how PD is delivered now and this should be an internal motivation for them to

want to stay involved. However, I also realize that this in not always enough. I believe that it
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will take seeing some successes for people to want to continue to be involved in this type of

innovation. What I’d like to do is to start with a small group of OSE staff and have the

committee staff work closely in a one-on-one model to get a single professional development

planned and implemented. I think this will show that there is real “action” in term of this

committee that will have real benefit to the teachers whom we support. Since supporting

teachers is the crux of what our office does, I think seeing real results will help to motivate the

staff. Of course, offering food at committee meeting will help with attendance, but I didn’t think

that is what you were necessarily looking for.

When looking through the Guidebook, there are many stakeholders that I don’t have

represented. I think this differs from the ideal list because of the setting in which this technology

innovation is being done. For example, since there is no direct effect on students and parents, I

chose to not represent these groups. The technology innovation involves conducting “internal”

PD for our staff. This does not involve students or parents at all. The same goes for community

members and business leaders. For what this innovation involves, I did not feel that these groups

needed to be in the committee. There were two groups of stakeholders that I think could be

represented that I did not add in this plan. Out of the ones that were not represented, and one I

would think of possibly adding would be the technology professional. The problem with this is

that we don’t necessarily have technology professionals that could serve on a committee. If we

have a problem with technology we contact that department and they provide support. Since we

have this as a constant support, I didn’t think we needed a permanent technology professional on

the committee. The other stakeholder that is not represented but may be is the building

administrator. The problem isn’t that I don’t think the building administrator could be important.

It is that I’m not sure I could get a building administrator to be a part of the committee. This
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would be highly unusual for a building administrator to be on a committee such as this that is not

in their school building.

Plan of Action for Technology Planning


In order to plan for a technology plan, one has to have a goal or a vision from which to

start. When thinking of how the vision and the mission statements will be written, the first thing

I did was go back to the vision statements that we did in class early in the semester. After

reading those, I went to the Guidebook for Developing an Effective Instructional Technology

Plan (Anderson, 1996) and read through their suggestions for vision and mission statements.

From this I realized that there are some components of my current vision that I would keep and

others that need to be changed or that there are things that need to be added. According to the

Guidebook, there are many things that should be considered when developing a vision statement.

The first is the role that we see for technology in our institution, in this case OSE. While my

original vision touched on this, I believe that it needs to be clarified to include how we see the

overall role of technology changing in our classrooms as well as in our system as a whole. In

addition, I think the vision statement can touch specifically on the role of PD and how that is

changing and what it will look like in the future. I will want to include how I see technology

impacting how we deliver and receive PD and what it will look like not only from the

perspective of OSE but also from the perspective of the school. Questions such as how will we

deliver the PD? Will it be face-to-face, online, synchronous, or asynchronous? Or will it be a

combination of those? Will our school-based staff have a choice in what PD they take and the

method of delivery? These are all questions that need to be addressed in general in the vision

statement. One of the components that the Guidebook says is to talk about community

involvement and impact. That is something that I didn’t include in my first vision that I will
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definitely want to address when I fine tune it. It is interesting to note that while a vision and

mission sometimes seem far removed from the actual innovation that will be implemented, they

really do provide an overarching goal from which everything else stems.

The one thing I like about this plan and the main reason I chose to address the delivery of

professional development in OSE is that I believe it addresses a lot of critical issues that

currently inhibit how information is disseminated to special educators. The first issue that this

plan will hopefully address is the dissatisfaction that currently exists in BCPS. Currently almost

all PD that is delivered from OSE is done face-to-face. While this is okay for some professional

development, most people that I interviewed said that this method only has limited effectiveness.

First of all, teaching from PowerPoints is generally very boring and doesn’t involve the

participants very much. In addition, face-to-face PD requires that either teachers or building

leaders are pulled from their schools, which takes them away from students and annoys

principals. A third problem with the current model that OSE uses is that it is a “train the trainer”

model in which building leaders are charged with attending a PD then taking the information

back to their respective school and delivering that information to the individual special

educators. This has proven to be very ineffective as messages often are not delivered or are

delivered with misinformation. The consistency of the information getting to every special

educator in all 170 + schools is nearly impossible with this model. This is a problem because a

lot of what we do in special education is legally driven. Thus, it is important for everyone to get

the same information. Plus there is little to almost no accountability for teachers in this format.

Another issue that I hope to address with this plan is to develop an individualized way to

get all special educators the information they need in a format that works best for each

individual. It is clear from research that every brain works differently and how we learn is
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different. Therefore, it stands to reason that when giving PD, participants should have options on

how to receive that PD. In addition, not every individual learns at the same pace. So having

options other than just face-to-face could help all teachers get the information they need. I think

the ultimate goal (probably not in the first year) is to be able to offer staff individualized PD.

The goal in the schools is for teachers to be able to customize learning for individual students. I

see the same thing for our special education staff when it comes to professional development.

While this seems like a very time consuming task, I believe it will increase the efficiency of

delivering PD by allowing staff to stay in their school building.

Finally, one issue that I think is important but very difficult for our office to really

monitor is the accountability. Did the information get to the correct people and can we actually

hold them accountable for that. With the current system we really have no way of knowing if the

department chairs or assistant principals took the information that they got from OSE back to

their buildings and to what level of understanding the special educators got from it.

I believe the overall timeline for this should be a full school year, if not a bit longer. I

think the first steps to develop this plan should take place this spring. Those pieces include

clearing this project with OSE leadership and gathering input from OSE staff (which we did a

little with the interviews) and from school-based staff. This will help show the need for the

innovation and give us a starting point on developing a committee and looking at needs and

possible incentives. But as far as the actual action plan steps, I think it would start in the fall

with the formation of the professional development committee and that committee coming up

with goals. The committee should also explore which technologies are available to OSE to use.

This will allow committee members to explore and practice with those technologies before

helping others use them. Also in the fall the committee should find individuals in OSE who
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would be willing to participate in innovating the way they currently do PD. Basically the action

steps in the fall should be committee formation, technology exploration and practice, and to

identify individuals willing to participate.

Moving into December/January I would like to see committee members begin to work

with OSE staff to put their PD in the new format or to use a new technology to deliver it. This

will be the real “work” of the committee in which they are working one-to-one or in small

groups. I’m not sure how long this will take as it will depend on the timelines for the individual

professional development, how quickly the learner picks up the new technology, and our

committee availability. However, the goal here should be by February that we should have

completed PD in a format other than face-to-face. I think that this part of the plan should

continue into the spring with the committee continuing to meet to discuss feedback and analyze

what has been done, what worked, and what didn’t. The goal by the end of the school year is to

be able to have enough information to be able to take what we learned and to use it on a larger

scale. Maybe a presentation to all OSE staff in the fall of 2019 on how to offer PD in multiple

ways. As far as the assessment of each step, I think the completion of each step could be the

assessment in terms of the actual implementation. As far as looking at how effective the new PD

methods are with information retention in the participants, I don’t really have a good idea yet of

how to measure that.

When looking through the technology plans provided, none matched up with what I

believe my finished plan will look like. Most of the plans were either school-based or system-

based. However, what I did was look though some elements of the plans and saw where I could

find similarities. The first one I analyzed was the St. Philip Neri School in Baltimore, MD

(Bowser, 2015). There were many positives from this plan that I liked that I hadn’t considered
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when writing my plan. To begin with, I really liked that they had teachers come up with specific

tech goals for the year. One of my thoughts is that maybe we could have the OSE staff who

choose to work with us on this project to come up with their own goals. It is not something I

thought about until reading the St. Phillip Neri School plan. I also liked the way this plan

planned for the professional development to actually train the teachers on the technology. The

use of coaches at St. Phillip Neri is similar to what I envision as one of the roles of the tech

committee members. Also, they use the system-wide professional days to work with teachers.

While I’m not sure this would be an option in BCPS, it is definitely worth looking into. Two

final pieces of this plan that I thought were well thought out and I may be able to utilize are the

idea of a current resources list and a year-end needs assessment. I think a PD resource list would

be a great idea for OSE to consider in terms of what we can use to deliver PD. In addition, I

think that St. Phillip Neri School had the foresight to know that staffing needs change and the

idea of doing a needs assessment can help guide their future planning. I think this would be a

great idea to do in BCPS both at the beginning and end of the school year.

On the negative side, the one thing that stood out to me was their evaluation process of

the plan. I noticed that the evaluating committee didn’t include any teachers, students, or

parents. While I’m not sure if I will include students and parents in mine, I think that not

including teachers is a mistake since they are the ones that will use the technology and they can

probably give the best feedback. The other negative that I took from this plan was with teacher

evaluation and accountability. The issue was there didn’t seem to be any objective measures to

hold teachers accountable. For example, in the evaluation section it states. “ All teachers are

expected to show interest in integrating technology across the curriculum and are encouraged to

use the computer lab for student work.” Now it does go on to say that teachers need to do a
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written reflection and submit an e-portfolio to show they’ve integrated tech, but I haven’t seen

anything that ensures that teachers are doing anything but including tech in their lesson. Not how

it impacts student learning or if the teachers even increased their ability to move along the

SAMR scale.

The second school that I examined was Raleigh Charter High School (Raleigh Charter,

2009). The best thing I took from this plan was how well they planned for and involved their

stakeholders. They had teachers, administrators, community members, and even a Board

Member on their committee. It appeared that they had all the major groups covered in terms of

input. Along with this they were very community-minded. In fact, one of their goals was to

bring home and community into the classroom and vice versa. I thought they did a great job on

making the community and all the stakeholders aware of what their plan was at every step.

Another really positive part of this plan was the way they put an emphasis on professional and

staff development. In fact they even allotted 20-30% of their budget for staff development and

training of their staff on new technologies. I believe this is critical to having success. Along with

this they also planned for integrated planning between classroom teachers and technology

specialists in order to infuse technology into their lessons in a meaningful way.

Now, on the other side of that coin, I did think that their plan for PD was too broad in scope.

In the plan it states that PD will be given to teachers one-to-one, in small groups, in large groups,

and off-site during summer PD. I think this may be too broad of a range for people to

participate. Do they have to attend all of these sessions? Can they pick? The plan doesn’t state

either way. For my plan, I think it’s too big of a focus for too many staff members. In addition,

and this is a similar problem that the St. Phillip Neri School had was that many of their goals

aren’t measurable. For example one of the goals states, “Encourage faculty to integrate
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technology into their curriculum, thereby addressing both the information skills and computer

skills curricula in a meaningful way.” I’m not sure what it means to integrate technology in a

“meaningful way.” It isn’t defined and it doesn’t say how they would quantify that. I think

when I develop goals for my technology plan I will work to make sure they are attainable and

most certainly measurable.


Technology Planning Paper 21

References

Anderson, L. (1996). Guidebook for Developing an Effective Instructional Technology Plan.

National Center for Technology Planning. Retieved from

https://moodle.loyola.edu/pluginfile.php/1268337/mod_tab/content/403/Guidebook.pdf.

Bowser, J. (2015). Technology Internship. Retreived from

https://sites.google.com/site/jbowsertechnologyinternship/technology-plan.

Dwyer, David C., Ringstaff, J., Sandholtz, H. Teacher Beliefs and Practices Part I: Patterns of

Change: The Evolution of Teachers’ Instructional Beliefs and Practices in High-Access-to-

Technology Classrooms First–Fourth Year Findings. Retrieved from

https://www.apple.com/euro/pdfs/acotlibrary/rpt8.pdf.

Ely, Donald P. (1990). Conditions that facilitate the implementation of educational technology

innovations. Journal of Research on Computing in Education, Vol. 23 Issue 2. Retrieved

from

https://moodle.loyola.edu/pluginfile.php/1209498/mod_label/intro/ElyEightConditions.pdf.

Raleigh Charter High School Technology Plan. (2009). Retreived from

https://www.raleighcharterhs.org/aboutus/technologyplan2009-2013.pdf.

Surry, Daniel W.. (1997). Diffusion Theory and Instructional Technology. Instructional

Technology Research Online. Retrieved from


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https://moodle.loyola.edu/pluginfile.php/1259466/mod_tab/content/359/Diffusion%20Theo

ry%20%20Instructional%20Technology.pdf .

Surry, Daniel W. Diffusion Theory and Instructional Technology. [Online] Available

http://intro.base.org/docs/diffusion/, February 20, 1997.

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