Action Plan

Needs and Goals	Key Personnel	Professional Development Activity	Timeline	Assessment
SFHS teachers will use technology in the form of a professional webpage on the district website to communicate with parents and students.	Principal   Assistant Principals   Campus Instructional Technologist   Instructional Staff	Technology specialist will provide short, hands-on sessions weekly that allow teachers to manipulate their required webpage in order to learn the various applications of the program.	March, 2011-May, 2011	Assistant principals will monitor teacher webpages in order to ensure timely updates.
SFHS teachers will be offered more training on Web 2.0 utilities such as blogs, wikis and podcasts.	Campus Instructional Technologist   All staff members	During our regular Thursday morning professional development opportunities, teachers will be offered training on the implementation and utilization of various Web 2.0 utilities in their own curriculum.	March, 2011-May, 2011	Teacher feedback on ways that these various programs can be used within the curriculum. Campus leadership will look for implementation during routine walk-through evaluations.
Use STaR Chart data to raise the level of technology use and proficiency levels within individual classrooms.	Campus Leadership Team   Campus Instructional Technologist or Liaison	Administrators will evaluate the data collected on the STaR Chart in order to identify strengths and weaknesses in order to plan professional development for the 2011-12 school year.	March, 2011-May, 2011	Administrators will consult with the campus instructional technologist and/or liaison in order to offer professional development activities for the upcoming school year that will meet the individual needs of the instructional staff.
Increase the students' use of technology to complete assigned projects.	Campus Instructional Technologist or Liaison   Teacher Leaders   Classroom teachers	Teachers are offered the opportunity to learn how projects can be modified to allow students to produce them using the available technology. Teachers who have successfully accomplished this task will share their observations with their colleagues.	March, 2011-May, 2011	Teacher surveys will determine if teachers are taking the ideas presented by other teachers and adapting them into their classrooms.   Teacher Leaders (department heads) will monitor the use of technology in their departments and offer support where needed.

Web Conference Reflection

I attended the Web Conference held on Wednesday night, March 16. There were over 30 people who attended the Web Conference. We experienced some technical issues and were unable to speak during the conference. We had to use the chat function only. I found this frustrating as the same question was asked frequently and sometimes no answer was given. There were times when the chat was going so fast that they could not be read before they scrolled off of the screen. There was also an issue with people 'playing with' the pods, not realizing that they affected everyone's computer, not just their own.
I am hoping that the transcript of the conference will be posted so that I can read over it. Hopefully, some of the questions that were raised were answered and I just missed them due to the constant scrolling of the conversation.

Blog Posting #2: Progress Report on Texas Long Range Plan for Technology 2006-2020
The Texas Long Range Plan for Technology 2006-2020 was created in order to address the needs of the 21st century learner. The Plan is divided into four key areas: teaching and learning, educator preparation and development, leadership, administration and instructional support, and infrastructure. Technology is being integrated into the curriculum. Districts have access to online learning, digital content and online professional development. These are all excellent tools that are available to teachers in order to put technology into the hands of the students. Project Share is allowing teachers to access to digital information that is being stored in online repositories making these assessable no matter where the school is located. The Texas STaR chart provides a tool for schools and districts to update their own long-range plans based on identified needs. The data collected from the STaR charts is used when districts are applying for technology grants. It provides the documentation necessary to support the grant application. The state and local districts have provided significant funding in the last few years to provide hardware and software to strengthen the technology infrastructure within our school systems. The Progress Report for the Texas Long Range Plan for Technology 2006-2010 shows that great strides have been made in the state of Texas in the area of Technology Education. Teachers are using more technology in the classroom, the students are using the various applications to improve their own learning, the administrations in the local schools and districts are creating and implementing plans for technology integration and the technology infrastructure are being strengthened. While there is still work to be done, we are making great strides.

Citation:
Texas Education Agency, 2010 Progress report on the long-range plan for technology, 2006-2020, 2010

Texas STaR Chart Presentation

STaR Chart for Santa Fe High School

Texas s ta r chart

View more presentations from susanbledsoe.

Posting #3
National Educational Technology Plan: Transforming American Education: Learning Powered by Technology.
The U. S. Department of Education has released the National Educational Technology Plan: Transforming American Education: Learning Powered by Technology in order to guide school districts in creating their own long term plans for technology. The document is broken down into five key areas: learning, assessment, teaching, infrastructure, and productivity. Goals are set within each area. Activities to achieve these goals are also outlined.
Overall, the goals of this organization are to develop our students into “active, creative, knowledgeable, and ethical participants in our globally networked society” (US Department of Education, 2010) who can be assessed in real and meaningful ways to increase their productivity. Educators are expected to become proficient in the use of technology and global networking in order to better reach all learners. The report also recommends one-to-one internet access. Professional development for educators needs to be focused on allowing educators to become more technologically literate. In this way, they can assist the learners in their use of technology.
With the state of the economy at this time, I see the need for school districts to get creative in order to reach many of the goals outlined in this report. Laptop computers are becoming more economical, but are still out of reach for most school districts to provide one-on-one computer access for students. If schools could reach this infrastructure goal, many of the other goals would be easier to attain.
Citation:
US Department of Education, Transforming American education: learning powered by technology, (2010) http://www.ed.gov/sites/default/files/NETP-2010-final-report.pdf

Educator Preparation and Development

When looking at the local and state summary reports, I noticed the section that deals with educator preparations and development. This is the area that evaluates how the teacher is using technology in the classroom as well as how much of the technology budget is allocated for professional development.

The percentage of campuses within the state that were described as Early or Developing Tech in 2007-08 has decreased while those described as Advanced or Target Tech have increased (STaR Chart, 2010). This is an encouraging sign. My own school has advanced from Developing Tech to Advanced Tech in the last three years (STaR Chart, 2010). This, too, is encouraging.

As an educator within the school, I feel underprepared to use many of the technology applications that are available to me. While having the applications is wonderful, I rarely have time to "play with it" in order to learn it. I feel that we need more hands-on, this is how it works, professional development throughout the school year. It has been my experience that educators get overwhelmed with new information the week or two before school starts. Many times teachers are not using technology because they were unable to process what it can do for them. Teachers need to learn the basic uses of the technology. Once they have had an opportunity to use that, then they need to be introduced to some of the advanced functionality of the program.

As a teacher at Santa Fe High School for the last ten years, I have seen various tardy policies implemented with varying degrees of effectiveness. One such policy created an absence for the student each time they accumulated three tardies. The students would then have to attend ‘make up time’ in order to regain their 90% attendance rate required by the state in order to receive credit for their coursework. The result of this policy was that students were passing their classes, but risked losing credit if they failed to make up the absences. Students who had chronic tardiness were, sometimes, being retained and missed graduating on time. The policy had little effect on the number of times students were tardy.
The current policy requires teachers to contact parents and issue an in-class after school detention before referring students to the assistant principals for subsequent tardiness. The assistant principals then have a range of consequences that will be assigned based on the number of times a student is tardy. In order for these consequences to occur, the teachers must fill out and submit office referrals each time a student is tardy to their class beginning with the third tardy. I have observed that some teachers tend not to enforce this policy due to the number of office referrals they would be generating on a daily basis.
Having seen various tardy policies put in place with varying degrees of effectiveness leads me to these questions:
How can the current tardy policy be revised in order to increase teacher enforcement of the policy?What effect will the increased enforcement of the current tardy policy have on those students who are chronically tardy to class?


GOAL: The goal of this action research is to revise and refine the current tardy policy at Santa Fe High School in order to increase enforcement of the policy and decrease student tardiness resulting in fewer disruptions to student learning at the beginning of the class period.
PERSON TIME LINE NEEDED
ACTION STEP(S) RESPONSIBLE START/END RESOURCES EVALUATION

1. Create a survey to Susan Bledsoe Aug 2010 Survey Tabulate the
be completed by all results of the
returning teachers to survey
determine the rate of
teacher enforcement
of last year’s tardy
policy.
2. Create a list of Susan Bledsoe Aug 2010 Student Creation of
students who have Attendance Clerk attendance research sample
exhibited chronic records
tardiness.
3. Review the available Susan Bledsoe Aug-Oct Professional Development
literature dealing with Administrators 2010 journals of ideas for
tardiness in the high revision of tardy
school population. policy.
4. Brainstorm ideas for Susan Bledsoe Aug-Oct None Development
revisions to the tardy Leadership 2010 of ideas for
policy in collaboration team revision of tardy
with the high school policy.
leadership team.
5. Implement policy All teachers Oct ’10-May ’11 Tardy policy On-going
Revisions All administrators monitoring of
student tardiness
6. Monitoring Susan Bledsoe Oct ’10-May ’11 Attendance report Report comparing
effectiveness of tardy Attendance clerk for research tardy rates pre-
policy revisions on Assistant Principals sample on a and post-revision.
reducing student monthly basis
tardiness.
7. Monitor Susan Bledsoe May-June Teacher survey Compare pre-
effectiveness of policy 2011 and post-revision
revisions on teacher rates of enforce-
enforcement of the tardy ment of policy.
policy.
8. Report findings Susan Bledsoe June 2011 PowerPoint Teacher feedback
Presentation