Texas Long Range Plan for Technology

The area of the Texas Long Range Plan for Technology that I chose to focus on was the area of Leadership, Administration, and Instructional Support. I felt like this was one of the most important areas because this is an area that seems to set the standard for all other areas. This area concentrates on the vision for technology on a campus, such as the level of integration of technology and the objectives and goals for technology. Another aspect of this area is the integration of these goals into the Campus Improvement Plan, as well as, the allocation of discretionary funds and other resources related to technology. Finally, this area addresses the instructional support of an administration in the creation of learning communities, and the opportunities for on-line credit courses. These are the areas that create the atmosphere on a campus, and can effect the overall culture in a school district.
While evaluating the STaR chart on my campus over the last three school years, it became evident that the Leadership, Administration, and Instructional Support key area was the one that had shown the least improvement and the it was the only area that we did not rate into the Advanced Tech classification. The focus areas of Planning, Instructional Support, Budget, and On-line learning were areas that my campus rated as still developing. As I compared my campus' results to the statewide data, I was surprised to see that this key area was actually one of the areas that had a higher percentage of schools at the Advanced stage. Infrastructure had 57.2% of the schools rated advanced, while Administration and Support reported 45.5% in the advanced stage. I would assume that this is a statewide trend because most of the time it is the leadership on a campus that influences the improvement in Teaching and Learning, and then Educator Preparation. There has to be an infrastructure in place and support by administration to have educator preparation for the improvement in teaching and learning.
In order for my campus to show improvement in this area, there needs to be an emphasis on technology objectives and goals in the Campus Improvement Plan. I would also recommend an increase in Instructional support for teachers to integrate technology into instruction in the classroom. The last focus area would be to increase opportunities for on-line credit courses within our curriculum. I know that this is on area that my school district has already made improvements in already this school year.