EDLD 5362 Informational Systems Management Week 1 Assignment

The Expectation of More Efficient Education The Expectation of More Efficient Education: From District and Classroom Management to Extraordinary Student Multimedia Projects

Shannon Copeland Lamar University   The Expectation of More Efficient Education: From District and Classroom Management to Extraordinary Student Multimedia Projects
The advent of the internet, not only, facilitated increased student interest and research, but also, assisted with better classroom and district management. I’m fortunate to have been the Technology Coordinator in my district for over a decade. This partnered with my position as special education supervisor led to the acquisition of a lot of technology due to the once huge special education budget.

My classroom benefitted greatly by my ability to purchase technology items such as, digital cameras and camcorders, computers, scanners, software, laptops, and more recently iPads. I interviewed several teachers for this assignment and explored my own knowledge about the topic. The interviewees include the annual staff supervisor, a business teacher, the PEIMS coordinator and a classroom teacher. I was able to help all of these individuals make the leap to technology in their fields. I inquired about the most significant changes my colleagues noted in relation to students and to their own classroom management. The classroom teachers all mentioned that they saw great strides in the performance and collaboration among the special education students and low socioeconomic students.

Technology integration strategies impact student motivation and self-esteem. This seems to be observed in non-traditional students and minorities, including low socioeconomic status (SES) groups. The studies presented showed that positive self-concept and achievement were strongly related to increased use of technology (Rose & Meyer, 2002). The studies also indicated that students benefitted positively from exposure to technology by gaining a sense of accomplishment and a higher sense of worth. The students engaged more with peers resulting in increased collaboration and interactions. This seemed to produce significantly more creative projects from which they drew higher self esteem and better attitudes toward school overall.

Authors Swan, Guerrero, Mitrani , and Schoener “ conclude that the less threatening environment, along with immediate feedback, individualized diagnostics, and greater academic support contribute to greater productivity among such populations” (Swan, Guerrero, Mitrani, & Schoener, 1990). Darling-Hammond mentions that teachers need to work together well to solve hard problems. Project-based learning, performance and exhibition learning take time to plan, but are the most effective learning activities. Collaboration among students requires a lot of socially intelligent work, such as relating to one another, dividing work assignments, and redirecting plans when dead ends occur. These skills assist students in being intellectually capable to work on student-centered projects.

I sometimes feel like West Texas is in a fishbowl looking out at everyone else making leaps and bounds with technology, but I noted while reading the Solomon and Schrum article, that they mention to readers that “you will notice that there are not a lot of examples as of yet in which an entire school system has reconceptualized itself to incorporate technology…” (Schrum & Solomon, 2007) Technology has been a windfall in the area of special education. I contacted our special education coop to ask about adaptive technologies being used with the more severe special education students. A few of the high-tech devices being used are text-to-speech devices, wheelchairs with electronic boards available for students, lacking speech, to use for communication with others, iPads, and smartboards. Creation of multimedia projects is a form of composition that low-achieving students have not had extensive access to in the past and this technology helps them to showcase their knowledge. Given the choice of writing a ‘get well soon” card for a hospitalized classmate and creating an Animoto video card, my students chose to create a digital card and students who would not have participated in the past, not only, helped, but also, all created separate cards.

My colleagues also reported that technology made their lives easier in terms of classroom management. Frances Neill shared her relief at being able to access a shared folder to grade her computer classes’ assignments. Prior to the world of technology in her classroom, she taught keyboarding, accounting, business and English I. “I was so happy to have the students save their work to a folder on the server and grade it from my computer without having hundreds of papers on my desk.” (Neill, 2011) Harla James explained how much more efficient producing the school annual was after retiring the old proof sheets she used to have to use. Web-based annual creation changed the whole process, making it faster and cheaper (James, 2011). I interviewed fellow teachers to discover how technology has made their jobs more efficient, but I visited with the PEIMS Coordinator to inquire about district efficiency after switching from paper forms to manage student data versus the computerized student management systems (SMS) that we currently use. Cindy Mills thought that the newest version of our SMS was going to be spectacular compared to sending reports in on paper as they had to do before online student data systems. (Mills, 2011).

References

Rose, D., & Meyer, A., (2002) Teaching every student in the digital age: Universal design for learning. Alexandria, Va: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. Available online at the Center for Applied Special Technology web site. Chapter 6. Retrieved March 7, 2011 from http://www.cast.org/teachingeverystudent/ideas/tes

Swan, K., Guerrero, F., Mitrani, M., & Schoener, J. (1990). Honing in on the target: who among the educationally disadvantaged benefits most from what cbi?. Journal of Research on Computing in Education, 22, 381-403.

Edutopia.org (December 10, 2007). The collaborative classroom: an interview with linda darling-hammond. Filmed at the CASEL forum in New York City. Retrieved on Oct. 5, 2009 from http://www.edutopia.org/linda -darling-hammond-sel-video

Solomon, G., & Schrum, L. (2007). Web 2.0 new tools, new schools. Eugene, OR: International Society for Technology in Education

Neill, F. (2011, April 12). Telephone interview.

James, H. (2011, April 12). Personal interview

Mills, C. (2011, April 13)/ Personal interview