The area in which I want to discuss is the Educator Preparation. This is the area in which my campus and district are low in. It is also the highest percentage rate in the state for being "Developing." How can we step up the technology in the classroom if the teachers and professionals feel that we are lacking in this area? "Developing" is described as, "use of technology is for administrative tasks and classroom management. There is use of online resources. 40% of teachers meet SBEC standards. Administrators expect teachers to use technology. 6-24% of technology budget allocated for Professional Development." How can we improve in this area if such a small percentage of our budget is being allocated for it? If we are going to keep up with technology in the classrooms and have our teachers up to date, more money will need to be spent. Where is this money going to come from? There is such a wide range of school district income. How do you give every student the same opportunity?
Educator Preparation covers: Professional development experiences, Models of Professional Development, Capabilities of Educators, Access to Professional Development, Levels of understanding and Patterns of Use, and Profession Development for on-line learning. Our campus scored a 2 (developing) for all of these areas except for Access to Professional Development which scored a 3 (advanced).
I feel we do have access to PD but we are not held accountable enough for use in our classrooms. We also have the access but not hands on, continually training. I feel it would be beneficial to work with our peers and try out new tech experiences with each other. If we can teach each other, we can teach our students. We do not get to model our PD. In the classes I have been in, we use a lap top, are told how to work the program, given a few exercises, and then we are done. There is nothing to show that I am implementing this in my classroom or that I fully understand what I have been shown.
I think that if the standards are going to raise in use of technology, so should our standards in being taught how to use it. Maybe there should be more required PD for technology. There could possibly be more specific feed back on our reviews or walk through to help us improve in this area. Actually having the equipment in our classrooms would also be helpful and encouraging. It is frustrating to be trained on a piece of equipment just to get back to your campus and not have it to use.
