Week+Two+5362

=Information Systems for Learning and Instruction= = =  "Experienced leadership. While investing in the technology accelerators is important, successful planning, implementation and operation of these investments require skilled leadership. The district technology leader, increasingly referred to generically as a chief technology officer, or CTO, is one of the most important investments a district can make to ensure effective use of technology."Moore, R.J. (2006, August). The five best accelerators in school. School Adminstrator, 63.7, p.8. = = =I selected this quote because in reading about the five technology accelerators in which every district should invest, each of the first four accelerators dealt with the technology itself. The last accelerator listed discussed the human component, the technology leader. Maybe you have heard the saying "Everything rises and falls on leadership." This tells me that all the best technology in the world will not make a difference unless someone with the right skills and training can provide leadership to effectively plan, implement, and operate the organization's investments. = = = =I agree that taking a look at all the data available is key to a school achieving its goals. Administrators have to be able to see the big picture to get an overall vision of the direction that is needed, but periodic reviews of individual student data by the teacher is also critical if there is to be a plan of action toward achievement of the overall goals. In my opinion, one of the reasons that students do not reach their goals is because they change teachers every year and there is no consistent person over time that is helping them set goals and monitoring or reviewing and measuring their individual progress. If each child achieves their individual goal, then the school should benefit by reaching its goals as well. = = = Now as to where to find the time to make this happen, maybe the student's school day needs to be shortened. We had a speaker at Lamar this week who suggested that faculty move content outside the classroom and use class time for the application of skills. He said if we expected students to be prepared when they come to class by having read the content either online or from the textbook, then the time they spend in the classroom could be spent in the application of new skills. There would be an immediate consequence for the student who was not prepared, he/she would not be able to participate in the activity. The ideas he presented were exciting, although novel, and the general idea was to see students, as a result, be more engaged in learning by the use of interactive and collaborative methods.

I hear a great deal of discussion here about technology in the classroom as relates directly to the students in terms of integrating technology into the lesson plans, using computers, and other assistive devices. The types of technology discussed in this week's lesson, which store and maintain data, have more of an indirect effect on our students, in my opinion, but are equally important if not more so. It appears to me that there must be a disconnect between the administrators communicating the goals they want to achieve and the educators understanding the value and benefit of the data collection and evaluation process. It is easy to see how reporting and taking attendance online would allow the teacher more time to spend with the students, but it is more difficult to see how maintaining accurate and complete records would assist the student who transfers from one district to another and eliminate delays in serving that student. I can see how it would be a huge paradigm shift for teachers to see themselves in the role of data collectors and evaluators. It almost sounds like their role is changing from teaching and moving toward case management. = = =Network Comparison Presentation= =Back to Informational Systems Management=