Is Technology Making a Difference? Update 2

These checklists are based on what I call the Johnson Hierarchical Technology Planning Model that looks something like this:

A more complete explanation can be found here.

Anyway, over the next 5 days or so, I will be putting my checklists for each level of planning on the Blue Skunk. I invite readers to please add, delete and/or comment to these.

Established Infrastructure
The district will have a reliable, adequate, cost-effective, and secure technology infrastructure that supports the learning, teaching, and administrative goals of the district. Indicators of success:

Effective Administration
The district will use technology to improve its administrative effectiveness through efficient business practices, communication, planning and record keeping. 

• Student information system that can be accessed by administration that includes attendances, grading, discipline, health, and scheduling modules.
• Student information system that can be accessed by teaching staff
• Student information system that can be accessed by parents
• Student information system that shares data efficiently with other systems (SIF)
• System that allows data warehousing and data-driven decision-making
• Systems for specific to the management of finance, transportation, personnel/payroll, lunch programs, special education, building systems, security, etc.
• System for curriculum management
• Portable communication devices for administrative uses
• On-line (web-based) district information
• On-line (web-based) building information
• On-line (web-based) department and classroom information
• Interactive communications tools for administration (IM, electronic mailing lists, groupware, share calendars and email directories)
• Electronic means of communication with school staff by parents, students, and the community
• Established technology competencies for school administration and training opportunities
• Adopted policies and written guidelines on Internet use, safety, plagiarism, selection/reconsideration, copyright, etc.
• Understanding of policy and ethical practices regarding technology use by administration
• Other?

Extensive Resources
Technology will be used to provide the most current, accurate and extensive information resources possible to all learners in
the district and community in a cost effective and reliable manner at maximum convenience to the user.

Enhanced Teaching
All district teachers will have the technology training, skills and resources needed to assure students will meet local and state learning objectives and have the technological means to assess and record student progress.

 Empowered Learners
All students will demonstrate the mastered use of technology to access, process, organize, communicate and evaluate information in order to answer questions and solve problems.

Is Technology Making a Difference? Update 1

As I was dusting off some handouts I use when giving my workshop, "Is Technology Making a Difference in Your School?", I looked at a series of checklists I use with schools to help them quickly gauge where they are in implementing technology in their schools.

These checklists are based on what I call the Johnson Hierarchical Technology Planning Model that looks something like this:

A more complete explanation can be found here.

Anyway, over the next 5 days or so, I will be putting my checklists for each level of planning on the Blue Skunk. I invite readers to please add, delete and/or comment to these.

Established Infrastructure
The district will have a reliable, adequate, cost-effective, and secure technology infrastructure that supports the learning, teaching, and administrative goals of the district. Indicators of success:

• Adequate and reliable Internet access to the district
• Adequate and reliable Internet access to all buildings
• Adequate and reliable Internet access to all classrooms, media centers and labs
• Adequate wireless network access
• Written security and disaster recovery plan.
• Firewall security for networks
• User verification through log-in and activity logging
• District-wide virus protection software
• Remote computer desktop monitoring and maintenance
• Back up plan for all data
• Adequate workstations for staff and student use (6:1 student to computer ratio of computers less than 5 years old)
  
• Adequate peripheral technologies (printers, scanners, projectors, interactive white boards, cameras) for staff and student use
• Efficient maintenance, repair and replacement procedures
• Adequate and reliable telephone access to the district
• Adequate and reliable telephone access to all buildings
• Adequate and reliable telephone access to all classrooms
• Adequate and reliable interactive television access to the district
• Adequate and reliable interactive television access to all buildings
• Adequate and reliable interactive television access to all classrooms
• Written and thorough technology use policies
• Adequate technical support for networks, computer equipment and applications
• Adequate leadership and management related to technology planning, budgeting, and policy-making

 What's missing???

The other four goals with checklists for each to follow over the next few days...

Effective Administration
The district will use technology to improve its administrative effectiveness through efficient business practices, communication, planning and record keeping. 

Extensive Resources
Technology will be used to provide the most current, accurate and extensive information resources possible to all learners in
the district and community in a cost effective and reliable manner at maximum convenience to the user.

Enhanced Teaching
All district teachers will have the technology training, skills and resources needed to assure students will meet local and state learning objectives and have the technological means to assess and record student progress.

 Empowered Learners
All students will demonstrate the mastered use of technology to access, process, organize, communicate and evaluate
information in order to answer questions and solve problems.

HIgh Tech, High Touch - Long Live F2F

As I start getting mentally prepared for  12 hours flight time (probably close to 20 hours total travel time) to Santiago, Chile this Saturday where I will be presenting at an AASSA conference, I read with some interest the following from Elliott Masie's "48 Learning Hours in a World Getting Flatter"

... in these 2 days:

• Saudi Arabia by Video - Tuesday Morning - 1:30 AM:  Sitting in my office in Saratoga Springs, NY, I deliver the keynote address to the Higher Education establishment in Saudi Arabia on the future of e-learning...
• Board Meeting in Cincinnati, Ohio By Video - Tuesday 9:30 AM...
• Tom Friedman by Web - Tuesday 11:00 AM:  I leave the Board meeting to participate as a student in a live via web e-Learning segment by Tom Friedman, produced by Linkage...
• Leadership Coaching by Video - This Morning: As I send off this note, I'll be heading into a quarterly coaching session that I lead, via video, with the leadership of a telecommunications company...
• Tonite: Australia Defence Department by .WAV File & Phone: At 6:30 PM, I will go "down-under" via a lower tech model of collaboration...

Part of me thinks that Massie has a pretty slick deal going. Lots of work, lots of teaching/learning going on, and probably a very large bank deposit at the end of the month. But another part of me,  the larger of the two, shudders. Even knowing I will emerge from the plane next Sunday morning tired and  cramped with sinuses full of viruses and legs filled with blood clots, I am delighted to be actually travelling. Why?

Mary Ann Saffer in a March 5 posting to LM-Net, perhaps offers a hint as to why I'd rather put up with the discomfort and time commitments of travel than go "virtually":

...On page 242 of [Making Love Last Forever, Gary Smalley]  writes "At Purdue University, a study was conducted with librarians. Half were asked to touch those who came in to check out or return books or ask for information. The other half were to conduct business as usual, with no touching. And the study concluded that those who were touched had higher regard for the librarians and the books in the library, and they followed the rules more willingly."

I much prefer teaching when there is genuine real, live human interaction. I've taught totally online courses; I've taught ITV classes; I've presented over ITV to organizations in other states; and I've even done taped seminars. It's not that I'm technophobic  - it's just that I prefer to teach in an F2F environment. Even though there is minimal physical contact when I work at conferences (and I am not just saying this because the LWW might be reading), there is contact and communication that goes on in a physical room that just doesn't happen in a virtual space.

John Naisbitt in 1982's  Megatrends predicted:

• The utilization of electronic cottages will be very limited: People want to go to the office; people want to be with people.
• Computer buying will never replace the serendipity and high touch of shopping for what we want to be surprised about.
• Teleconferencing is so rational, it will never succeed.

He didn't write, but I hope: The world will never get so fast paced that people will not take the time to meet physically to learn. Bricks and mortar schools and libraries, real conferences, and human teachers will be supplemented, not supplanted by their virtual counterparts.

One can hope. Given the choice, would you really prefer an online class?