Planning Process and Methodology

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1 Executive Summary Our mission is to provide students and staff with technology to meet their instructional and administrative needs. This incorporates all aspects of technology including networking, end user hardware, data circuits, voice lines, and software. We are committed to providing hands on and one on one training for staff. Our goal is to allow the technology to be a tool for improved instruction. Based on data from assessments, surveys, and observations, we have implemented an online technology curriculum for students that targets student s technology standards in line with the ISTE student standards. This will be provided at the sixth grade level this year and expanded next year to other grades. We are also providing digital citizenship and online safety classes for the seventh and eighth grades this year as well as offering online safety and cyber bullying events to first through eighth grades. Our district goal is to have 100% of our graduating seniors to be proficient in technology by the year Our staff will be provided with online technology professional development and will be given a post assessment at the end of the school year in order to determine the professional development needs for the upcoming year. They will also receive additional job embedded training and resources for the Technology Integration Specialist and Chief Information Officer. A host of electronic resources have been made available to all staff targeting specific content areas and grade levels. These resources have been added to our network and are available to all staff via a network share. All staff has been provided with a link on their workstations for easy access to these resources. Our district goal is for 100% or our teachers and administrators to be proficient with technology by the year Our technology needs survey from last year showed several classrooms that were lacking technology resources and resulted in a focused effort to purchase additional smart boards, projectors, audio systems, and document cameras for classroom across the district. As well as providing additional professional development opportunities on the use of this new equipment to enhance the learning experience and increase engagement of student in the learning process. Our district goal is to have 100% of our classrooms equipped with intelligent classroom equipment by the year We have introduced tablets into several of our classrooms and have developed a partnership with Morehead University and Eastern Kentucky University focused on developing effective strategies on the use of these devices into the instructional process and particular focus on improving literacy using these devices as e-readers. We have also asked our local library to offer e-books to our students across the district. This partnership has provided on full week of summer professional development for the pilot group of sixteen teachers as well as several follow up professional days during the school year. We are expanding our wireless network into our schools. By the end of this year we will have 33% or our school campuses covered with wireless access and are working to provide wireless access to all classrooms within the next three to five years. 1

2 We have also implemented a technology observation walk-thru conducted by the Chief Information Officer and the Technology Integration Specialist that is focused on determining the resource needs and current use of technology in the classroom with particular emphasis on student engagement and effective instructional practices which are shared with staff across the district. We have developed a communication plan that is very aggressive in contacting parents and providing information via telephone, , web, posters, radio, news and system wide monitor and broadcasts as well as providing opportunities for the community to offer opinions, suggestions and feedback to the district. These tools are used to disseminate data as well as collect data about the resources available to students and staff at home in order to help the district to better understand the barriers to providing online resources or communications to our parents and communities. As we move forward we will continue to assess the needs of parents, teachers, administrators, and students. We will work diligently to provide access to technology that will help ensure a quality and rewarding educational experience and foster better partnerships with the communities and schools. Some things we will be working for as we move into tomorrow are smart classrooms equipped with large screen TVs, projectors, document cameras, smart boards, additional online resources, and auditory equipment. Also, improved assessment that will provide data that will be analyzed on an individual student level providing teachers with crucial information that will help them understand what their students need and how to provide it. 2

3 Planning Process and Methodology The district technology plan is the result of meetings and planning by central office and school personnel including the technology department, instructional department, finance, special education department, principals, school technology coordinators, and teachers. Data is collected from staff, students, and parents using surveys, interviews, walk-throughs, and assessments. The information gathered is shared with district and school personnel and analyzed to determine priority needs for staff, students, and parents. The Chief information officer in cooperation with the Technology Integration Specialist discusses these needs with all stakeholders and determines priorities. We look at different funding sources such as Title I, Special Ed, KETS, Facilities, General Funds, and donations to determine how and when these needs can be addressed. As we discuss the needs with stakeholders we align priorities with our instructional goals to ensure we are meeting the needs of our students and classroom teachers. We collect this data each year and continue to analyze it for changing needs and opportunities that arise as we form new partnerships, find alternate funding sources, and follow changes in available technologies. The data is discussed with the technology planning committee and then shared with district staff for feedback. Using this data the Chief Information Officer, in conjunction with the Technology Integration Specialist, then makes revisions to the plan, discusses these revisions with district and school staff and presents the revised plan to the board of education for approval. During this process for the current year we have been able to address many of our needs from the previous year. We now have approximately 88% of our classrooms equipped with smart board or tablets, projectors, document cameras, and audio enhancement systems. We have put in place additional professional development opportunities and a more formal assessment for staff. We have begun to provide a formal curriculum for technology for students as well as a formal system to track student progress in becoming proficient in technology. We are continuing to address the needs of classrooms that remain void of smart boards and projectors and are continuing to determine curriculum needs for technology integration and professional development needs of our staff. 3

4 Current Technology and Resources Our district currently has four elementary schools, one middle school, one high school, one area technology center, one bus garage, and a central office. All facilities with the exception of the bus garage are connected with 1 Gb point to point fiber. The bus garage is currently connected with a T1 but plans are in place to upgrade this facility to 1 Gb fiber in the upcoming year. All network equipment has been upgraded to PoE Gb switches and three year old servers are in place creating a clustered virtual hosting system with 12 Tb of data storage and an additional 12 Tb of backup storage. Our phone system is a current need in most schools. We have one new school that has a VoIP phone system; all others are a Centrex system that is approximately 15 years old and in need of replacement. Plans are being made to update all locations to a VoIP system. District wide our student to computer ratio is 3.6 to 1. Most of these machines are in their sixth year of life. We only have thirty student workstations that are new this year. 59% of the elementary workstations are in labs and 74% of middle and high school computers are in labs. These labs are on an open schedule allowing teachers to schedule time as needed for instructional purposes. We have a teacher to computer ratio of.76 to one and most of these workstations are in their fifth year of life. All teachers have access to network resources and the internet. They are provided with multiple avenues to the technology department. We have in place an online help desk system that allows teachers to enter any technical or resource requests into a trouble ticket which is then automatically routed to the technology department personnel assigned to that particular responsibility. At any time the online system is unavailable to staff, they can alternately use or a phone call and the ticket will be entered in for them and scheduled for assistance. In our most recent survey of staff we had less than 1% of staff express that they had inadequate support for technology questions. We have security cameras in all schools and are currently replacing many of the analog systems with new IP cameras that can be monitored over the network allowing administrative personnel to monitor schools from remote locations. We currently have three schools with IP cameras and are working toward having this system in all schools within the next three years. Also, we are implementing a proximity locking system for our schools. We currently have this system in place in two of our schools and are continuing to expand this to the other schools. This system allows for district administrative personnel to manage access to buildings and secure locations throughout the district using a centrally managed system on our network. Proximity cards can be created that server a dual purpose of entry access as well as ID badges. We currently have a host of online resources available to students. We have, as a district, moved toward hosted online software applications that are aligned with our instructional goals. We feel this allows students to have access to these resources not only in school but also at home. Currently we offer Study Island, Brain Pop, Brain Pop Jr., Accelerated Reader, World Book Online, Plato, and Think Link as resources for our students as well as a host of other free online resources discovered by teachers and implemented into instruction. 4

5 The technology department is currently staff with a Chief Information Officer, a part time Technology Integration Specialist and two full time computer technicians. Using online tools such as Sysaid, and Altiris we manage the many end user issues via remote sessions but as more and more hardware is being implemented into the classroom that require hands on attention staffing is a potential area of concern. Another concern is a move from standardization of equipment which places a greater burden on the technology department to be trained in all brands and types of equipment and have replacement parts for this equipment. The technology staff has limited opportunities for training. Personnel is offered training on new systems that are implemented, however, this training is usually a basic training that is part of the purchase of a new system and in most cases time cannot be devoted to more in depth formal training and staff must rely on self-training for a more comprehensive understanding of systems. 5