FRANCIS HOWELL SHOOL DISTRICT TECHNOLOGY COMMITTEE
2017-2022 STRATEGIC PLAN - AREAS OF FOCUS FOR CONSIDERATION
2016 Presented by: Ray Eernisse, Chief Information Officer 2017-2022 Strategic Plan - Areas of Focus for Consideration
The District Technology Committee (DTC) meets regularly for the purpose of reviewing, researching and discussing technology for the Francis Howell School District. The membership is comprised of parents, administrators, Board of Education members and staff.
As the District is preparing to develop the next five year strategic plan, the technology committee focused its’ work this year developing key initiatives to be considered by the Strategic Planning Committee (SPC). The discussions and ideas were categorized in the following four areas: Student Learning, Funding, Resources, and Professional Development.
The remainder of this report will briefly outline specific items, relating to education technology, that should be given due consideration in their impact on the mission and vision of the Francis Howell School District for the years 2017-2022. The bolded items reflect the discussions and recommendations from the DTC.
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Early Learning (PK-5) and STEM learning (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) were 2 priority areas identified as needing more focus during the next strategic plan. Currently, the District has no defined technology curriculum for grades PK-5. These skills are important to develop at this age to ensure students are comfortable and knowledgeable with technology. Many of the district and state assessment tests are moving to online and the district’s core curriculum has technology embedded. In order NOLOGY COMMITTEE NOLOGY for students to gain the most from instruction and instructional staff to learn the most from student’s assessments, they must spend more time on the content versus learning the technology. The committee felt the District should place more focus on STEM initiatives. The addition of the PLTW(Project Lead the Way) program at the high schools and the EBD (Engineering by Design) at the middle schools are a good start; however, the group felt additional opportunities in the area of Robotics and Coding (computer programming) would be beneficial to teach students creativity and critical thinking.
The topic of a device for every student (1:1) was discussed. Some felt this belonged under the Resources category while a majority thought it needed to be
FRANCIS HOWELL SHOOL DISTRICT TECH DISTRICT SHOOL HOWELL FRANCIS identified as part of the Student Learning ideas.
1 All agreed to the importance of the District coming to terms in the next 5 years to meet this critical need.
The final areas of focus for this category dealt with Online and Personalized Learning. More opportunities for student to access classes via online as well as developing the skills to learn online need to be considered. Students going to post-secondary schools or even in the workplace are being required to take part in furthering their learning via online and self-paced content. Personalizing the learning allows each student to apply their own learning style and strengths in the instructional process. It also allows teachers to teach to the specific student in a way to connect with him/her. This is a shift in pedagogy that will take both time and professional development for staff.
Funding
For the 2015-2016 and 2016-2017 the technology budget has been greatly reduced from prior years. It is no surprise this category was brought forward as needing attention in the next strategic plan. The ideas ranged from dedicated resources to alternative
funding sources.
The group discussed 2 ideas to be explored by the SPC: 1) Dedicated Tax Levy – declare a certain amount of the approved tax levy to be used for technology, similar to 5/3/2016
| capital levy. Although there may be restrictions based on legal or accounting laws, it should be further studied to determine how it might be possible. This type of allocation would ensure in years of financial uncertainty, funding for such a core element to instruction is not impacted, 2) Per student allocation – this idea was brought forward as a way to provide equity to each student regardless of parent teacher organizations donations and contributions or building budget priorities.
Alternative funding sources such as Advertising, Technology Fees and Grant Writing for technology were 3 ideas the group felt should be explored. In the past, advertising has been discussed with the Finance committee and the district has adopted policies to support this idea. Allowing advertising on our website, developing a mobile app that includes advertisements and designing desktop home screens with advertisements are all possible means of generating revenue for technology.
The possibility of assessing a technology fee to students is something that should be studied to determine the feasibility in meeting the 1:1 objective.
FRANCIS HOWELL SHOOL DISTRICT TECHNOLOGY COMMITTEE TECHNOLOGY DISTRICT SHOOL HOWELL FRANCIS
2 As there are other “pay to play” fees in public schools for sports, band, parking, a fee for technology may not be so far out of the realm of possibility.
Lastly, grant writing is an area that FHSD has had limited success due to the relatively low free and reduced lunch percentage of the District. There are competitive grant opportunities; however, these typically are very involved and can be specific in nature. It may be possible to hire a grant writer on a salary base plus commission basis to ensure the position pays for itself.
Resources
Technology in the classroom requires resources to make certain it is accessible, reliable and seamless for students and staff. To that end, much conversation was had by the committee in terms of the network, student access, digital resources and technology support.
The current network design has been in place for 10+ years and has grown in terms of
internet bandwidth over 20 times greater than when originally implemented. The
infrastructure has reached its limitations and is in need of increased bandwidth to meet the new demands. During the last 3 years of online state assessment, various services
5/3/2016 have had to be blocked to provide the necessary bandwidth for students taking the
| tests. The 2015-2016 school year proved especially difficult to meet the needs in the classroom and the District was forced to suspend its Bring Your Own Device program.
Student Access continues to be a point of conversation. Certainly, the first thing that comes to mind is a device for every student, an idea previously mentioned. However, other areas of access needing to be addressed should
NOLOGY COMMITTEE NOLOGY also be considered. Access to the Learning Commons before and after school so students may use the technology has been identified as a need. In the absence of a 1:1 program, the District should expand the current student device loan program, laptops and hotspots. Buildings report this is meeting the needs of some students without access to technology at home but more is needed. Lastly, SSO (single sign-on) technologies should be implemented in the classroom to protect the instructional minutes for staff and students. Teachers report one of the struggles with using technology in the classroom is the time wasted getting students logged in to the resources they need access. SSO provides a single log-in for user access to websites and applications.
FRANCIS HOWELL SHOOL DISTRICT TECH DISTRICT SHOOL HOWELL FRANCIS
3 Involving the business community in the educational process is something most districts strive to meet. The District is engaging in a partnership with other districts and St. Charles Community College to engage businesses via internships and job shadowing, among other ways. However, when talking about resources it becomes difficult for businesses to help out. The committee discussed exploring community-based Wi-Fi access as a way to involve the local businesses in supporting students. This program helps identify student-friendly businesses that are willing to allow students to connect to their Wi-Fi to complete school work.
Shifting from print to digital resources is more of a marathon than a sprint. It takes time to make the necessary curriculum changes, retrain staff and provide the technologies to support digital resources. The District has as part of the curriculum revision and adoption cycle a process to determine the materials needed to support the curriculum. As part of this process, the technology committee feels more conversations and adoption of digital products vs. printed should continue to have focus. Along those lines, it is strongly recommended the District push forward and implement a district-wide learning
management system (LMS). Most teachers are using some form of a free LMS, (e.g., Schoology, Moodle) at this time. An LMS should include assessment,
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| recommendation engines for interventions, curriculum management and communication as part of its feature set. This type of system would streamline curriculum change management and create efficiencies with prescribing interventions for struggling learners.
Technology support falls into 2 categories; 1) technical and 2) instructional. The need for additional technical support for technology is always on the list of needs. . Due to budgetary cuts, some building supports for technology have been eliminated. The reduction of the 21st Century Learning and Library paraprofessionals have left little building instructional technology supports. The structure of the Instructional Technology Specialist position does not provide enough time in supporting teachers using technology and should be reconfigured. A student technology help desk program is something the District has on a limited basis at this time. Scaling this type of program district-wide could prove to be beneficial to meeting some of the simple technical requests, thus allowing the building technicians to focus on more complex issues. Instructional support involves certified teachers (instructional technology coaches) being the go-to person for teachers when integrating technology into everyday classroom instruction. Over time, the limited COMMITTEE TECHNOLOGY DISTRICT SHOOL HOWELL FRANCIS
4 amount of staff dedicated to this has been reduced or eliminated due to financial reasons. This is something the committee feels should be looked at in the next strategic plan.
Professional Development
The District has had an increasing focus on professional development (PD) regarding technology skills and integration. The addition of extra contract days for teachers, the annual TechFest and the creation of the Technology Content Leader position are just a few of the commitments made to provide support for staff.
The committee had several recommendations to share with the SPC. The group felt the PD efforts should not focus or be limited to technology use of software or devices;
instead, should be more focused on integration into curriculum, what it means to be a digital teacher and teaching teachers how to teach online and the transition to personal learning models.
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| To help teacher’s integrated technology in the classroom, professional development regarding Project-based Learning and Bring Your Own Device strategies should be considered high priority topics, according to committee members.
In order for there to be a more unified approach to growth in the area of technology integration steps towards accountability need to be considered. Two ways being brought forth are; 1) Incorporating a technology
NOLOGY COMMITTEE NOLOGY integration or professional development goal as part of the District and each building school improvement plan or as part of a teacher growth plan. This would create a specific focus, monitoring and measurement of this area, 2) consider adding the Network for Educator Effectiveness indicator to the teacher evaluation process.
Regardless of the professional development or training provided, it was very clear for the students and staff to benefit from the work, a plan for sustained support and follow- up with staff needs to be implemented. A culture of mutual benefit where teachers and students learn from each other more systemically and informally could be a support that would exponentially grow and be of little cost to the District. Additionally,
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5 expanding the technology support for new teachers beyond just the use of the daily tools into more of using the technology with curriculum is a program that would reap long-term benefits for all involved.
Note to the Strategic Planning Committee
This report is the culmination of many hours of discussions by a group of dedicated people that have given considerable thought to the impact of technology in education and what it holds for the future of educating students. It is the hope of these individuals the planning committee will use the information in this document to help guide the decisions in the goal setting and resource allocation efforts for the 2017-2022 strategic plan. The District has made huge investments in both time, money and people in relation to technology and to protect this investment thoughtful consideration and deliberation should be given to this topic in all areas of the organization.
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