TECHNOLOGY PLAN Joe Oakes Corydon Central High School Description of district/schools technology policies:

The 1:1 Computer Initiative Student/Parent Agreement is attached to my Edmodo post.

The Acceptable Use Policy for Technology for teachers and staff is also attached to my Edmodo post.

Also, our school uses iBoss Web Filters which can be problematic since it can restrict websites that teachers may want to use. The school has had several instances where teachers have found websites at home to use with their students, but when they come into the school the site is blocked because of game content or violence because of the site classification. This has caused a general level of frustration for many teachers.

Analysis of Classroom:
o Student Populations and socio-economic status/factors
Corydon Central High School is located in Corydon, IN. The current building was built in 1986 and renovated in 1994 and 2007. The schools mission is to guide students to develop individual potential and commitment to community, while providing a safe learning environment which is both supportive and challenging. The schools faculty consists of 1 Principal, 1 Assistant Principal, 1 Athletic Director, 1 treasurer, 3 secretaries, 1 nurse that is shared with the junior high that is attached, 2 counselors, 1 Media Specialist, 35 regular education teachers, 5 special education teachers, and 9 assistants. The enrollment for 2012-2013 according to the Indiana Department of Education was 737 students. Approximately 41% of the students are on free and reduced lunch. The population is 93.7% white/Caucasian students, 3.4% multiracial, 1.5% Hispanic, 0.7% American Indian, 0.4% Asian, and 0.3% African American. The school serves a primarily rural community that is roughly 20 miles west of Louisville, KY off of Interstate 64. The curriculum includes academic preparation, music and the arts, practical living, and vocational studies. The school also offers co-curricular activities, non-curricular activities, and athletics for the students to participate in. The school has a wide range of technology available for teacher and student use. The school has adopted a one to one computer policy where every student is issued a laptop computer at the beginning of their freshman year. The school also offers loaner computers for students who have computers that are being repaired. Also, there are 24 computers available in the IMC for

students to use individually and as a class. Also, there is a presentation classroom that has 42 desktop computers that teachers can utilize. All teachers also have a laptop. All computers have Microsoft Office installed on them. Many classrooms also have three to five desktop computers for students to use, if they do not have a laptop for the class activity that day. Twenty-five of the thirty-one classrooms also have ceiling mounted projectors and Promethean boards installed in them. All of the Math, Science, English, Foreign Language, and Social Studies classrooms have them installed. The software for the Promethean boards is installed on all teacher laptops as well. There are 5 iPads for a small group of teachers to experiment with their use in the classroom. These are strictly for teacher use. There are also 5 iPads in the Essential Skills classroom for students to use.

o Pros and cons of technology resources

Laptop Computers Since the 2010-2011 school year every student is issued a laptop at the beginning of their freshman year or when they move into our school district. These laptops come installed with Microsoft Office as well as monitoring software, Insight Teacher Console, that allows teachers and administrators to view what the students are viewing on their laptops. Parents do have to sign a user agreement which is attached to this plan. Pros

All students have access to computers, no matter their socioeconomic status. There is no need to take classes to a computer lab to use computers, the students have them all the time. Students are able to access the internet from every classroom utilizing our WAN. Teachers are able to fully integrate technology activities into their curriculum.

Cons Unfortunately, not all students have access to the internet from their homes. High speed internet connections throughout the county are few and far between. Parents can decline the computers, which can make it very difficult on teachers who design technology activities for their classes. Some students take the computers for granted. They do not take care of the computers as if they belonged to them. We only have four computer technicians within our corporation which makes it very difficult for them to keep up on troubleshooting and repairing the computers. Students have developed a disdain for the computers due to the many issues with them when they were first introduced. They often do not want to bring them to class or want to use them. This is especially true for the current senior class who were the first class to get the laptops. They have had many issues such as connecting to the internet and programs not working correctly.

Teachers were not given adequate training on how to fully integrate the computers into their curriculum. Most teachers had to pursue training on their own.

Promethean Boards and Ceiling Mounted Projectors Since the most recent renovation of our building, Promethean/Smart Boards and Ceiling Mounted Projectors have been installed in 25 of the 31 classrooms. Pros Cons

Teachers are able to display what is on their computers to their students utilizing the projector. Teachers are able to interact with their notes that are projected on the boards. Teachers are able to record the annotations that they make on the board and print them off if desired. Smart Software allows teachers a wide variety of formats and options to engage their students. Projectors are sometimes used as just whiteboards, where technology is not used to its fullest extent. There are many different types of Promethean/Smart Boards within the building which makes it difficult for teachers to share ideas and tips on the hardware. Often the Promethean/Smart Boards are not used by the students. They only passively watch the teacher use it and display material to them. Some of the technology was installed during the last renovation and is nearing the end of its life cycle. Not all classrooms have the projectors and Promethean Boards installed in them, which makes it impossible for those teachers to take advantage of the hardware.

iPads Currently, there are five iPads being used by teachers in the building as an instructional tool. These were given out to one math teacher, one English teacher, one science teacher, one social studies teacher, and one foreign language teacher. This were attained this school year through a grant provided by the Harrison County Community Foundation. The grant is attached to this plan. Also, we have one vision impaired student who uses an iPad instead of a laptop as her primary form of technology.

Pros

Teachers can use the Educreations App to record their lectures for their students to listen to outside of class. Having five iPads in different areas allows teachers to see how others are using the iPads in their classroom and compare ideas. Teachers have access to a wide variety of free education apps available through the Apple App Store. Vision impaired students can easily change the size of articles and websites to make viewing easier.

Cons

Only five teachers have access to these iPads in their classroom. Again, students do not get to actively use the hardware, only teachers use them in the classroom. Support for iPad integration within the school corporation is very difficult since the corporation has made such a large investment in laptops. iPads are a second thought in terms of support from technology staff. Only one student utilizes an iPad, so it can be very difficult for teachers to adjust instruction from the laptop to the iPad for the one student.

o Adaptive/assistive hardware and software that assist students with special needs
Hardware iPads Currently, we have one student with a vision impairment that utilizes an iPad to access her textbooks and assignments every day. Teachers utilize Google Drive to deliver worksheets, exams, and directions to the student electronically. This allows the student to adjust the material to make it easier for her to read.

Also, iPads are currently being used in our Essential Skills classroom. The students utilize
the iPads to take notes and to access the internet. They also use the iPads with Apps mentioned below to reinforce skills that they are working in class. Software iPad Apps Our vision impaired student utilizes Google Drive to access worksheets and exams to make it easy to adjust the size of the text. Also, the student accesses books using the Read2Go app. All of her books are accessible through her iPad.

Our essential skills classes use apps like BrainPop, Concepts (following verbal instructions), Social Skills apps, and interactive books. The students use the drawing and arcade apps when they are given free choice.

Some of our teachers are recording their lessons using the Educreations App so that students can access their lectures outside of class. This allows students to watch the lectures repeatedly if they are having issues understanding or if they want to refresh what they have gone over in class. Dragon Typing Software Some of our special education students also utilize Dragon to help them type. This allows our students with limited motor skills the ability to type and participate in classes that traditionally they would be unable to participate in. It also allows them to use their time much more efficiently since they are not having to struggle with a keyboard and can just speak into a microphone and it gets typed for them.

o Technology resources that affirm diversity and address cultural and language differences
I am unaware at this time of any websites used for our ESL students at the high school level. Unfortunately, at the high school level the only resource we offer our ESL students is an bilingual assistant that can help them on homework and other material. The assistant does not attend class with them. I did do some research and found several websites that can support ESL students. http://genkienglish.net/juniorhigh.htm This website has several different ideas for games for teachers to use with ESL students. The games listed seem they would work best if it was an entire class of ESL students which would be hard to find at our school. Also, these games are focused a bit more at the sixth grade level than the high school, but they could still be very effective for new students who have a very limited knowledge of English. http://stickyball.net/esl-games-and-activities.html This website has a lot of different games, worksheets, and activities for a wide range of ESL students. It has material for beginner ESL students as well as more advanced ESL students. It also has a section for adult ESL students with worksheets on job terms, American History, and other material that adults might want to work with. It does appear that this is a pay for product website since on many pages it has the option to buy all worksheets on the page for somewhere between $19.99 and $39.99. Even with the costs of some of these worksheets and plans, I could see this being very beneficial to someone trying to coordinate an ESL class.

http://www.manythings.org/vocabulary/ This website might be the best to keep students engaged out of the three that I looked into. It has many different games the students can play to help them work on their vocabulary. It has Hangman, Word Drop, and other games that ESL students might find very educational and entertaining at the same time. Again, these games are a little more focused to beginner ESL students, but I could definitely see older students who predominately speak another language at home finding it very useful. It can help the students with their vocabulary, spelling, and their reading all at the same time.

o School or classroom management strategies

Computer Use Management Computer Use in the Library/Presentation Classroom When students are using the computers in the library or the presentation classroom as a class, they are monitored by the teacher of that class. The expectation is that the teacher will monitor them while they are using the computers. Students are expected to only visit websites that they are instructed to visit by the teacher. Any student found to be visiting other websites during this time is given a warning for the first infraction and then given an office referral for the second infraction. In all honesty, the use of these two facilities has become almost non-existent since all students now have computers through the 1:1 computer initiative. 1:1 Laptop Use The school expectation is that the laptop computers will be used for educational purposes. Students are not supposed to download music, games, or other non-educational material to these laptops. The laptop are turned in throughout the school year to the technology department for maintenance, updates, and to clean up any files that should not be on the computers. The principals and the technology staff can access any computer that is turned on at any time to ensure that the computers are being used correctly. Also, they can monitor any past of the computers as well. Inside the classroom the teachers can use Insight Teacher Console to monitor student computer activity. Students must log in to the teachers classroom through Insight which allows the teacher to see exactly what is on every students computer. Also, many teachers have reoriented their desks or the student desks to make monitoring computer activity easier. Most teachers give warnings for students who are not on correct websites or programs the first offense and then use disciplinary referrals for any offense beyond the first. Computer Abuse Management The 1:1 Computer Agreement has a section on damaged or abused computers. Any damage that might occur through normal use is paid by the insurance policy that the school corporation buys for each computer. This can include screen cracking, hard drive issues, software problems, and other issues that arise. If the damage to the computer is ruled to be abuse, however, the student and their family are responsible for the cost of repair. This also includes losing the

computer or the charger. If a student continually abuses multiple computers they can, and sometimes do, lose the privilege of having a computer. This does not exempt them from any assignments that are expected to be done on the computer. Most classrooms have three to five desktop computers in them for this very reason.

o Wide area networks (WAN) for school districts

School Districts in General A wide area network (WAN) is the network that a district uses to allow all of their computers to communicate to one another. This allows the computers in the elementary and high schools to access the same programs and servers. School corporations have to make sure they consider how much bandwidth they need now as well as predict how much bandwidth that the school corporation might need in the future. The latter is becoming increasingly harder to project as more and more devices access the internet, as well as send information across the network. Cost is probably the most limiting factor concerning schools and their wide area networks. The T3 fiber optic cables can costs anywhere from $1000-$5000 a month to lease depending on whether the school is in an urban or very rural area. These costs alone can be prohibitive for small rural corporations. There are slower and smaller bandwidth cables that can be leased, but with so many different hardware devices that need internet access these other options are very limiting. There are microwave antennas that can send the data as fast or nearly as fast as T3 cables, however, they have their own issues. Often line of sight is important for the two antennas to be able to communicate to each other. Also, weather can effect whether information can be sent from one antenna to another. Security also becomes an issue for schools and their networks. Schools have to ensure a high level of security due to the sensitive nature of the data that they possess and deal with every day. Schools have to protect their networks from threats outside of the school as well as inside the schools. The sensitive data for each student must be kept secure from anyone trying to get to the data from the outside. Also, the school must protect itself from threats from amateur student hackers as well as accidental threats from students who bring in viruses and other malware unknowingly. The schools also have to censure unsavory material from their students as well. This makes security of the network incredibly important and incredibly difficult. School corporations spend a significant amount of money on firewall protection as well as internet filters to ensure the safety of students and their data. These firewall and internet filters can cost from hundreds of dollars a year to tens of thousands of dollars per year depending on the level of protection and the size of the school corporation.

South Harrison Community School Corporation Specific WAN Issues Our corporation has experienced many of these issues with our change to the 1:1 computer initiative. Before the adoption of the 1:1 computer access the corporation used a microwave system to connect the two campuses in Corydon and Elizabeth. The microwave system had many problems, chief among them was the loss of connectivity anytime we experienced severe weather. Once the school corporation started to pursue the 1:1 computer initiative they decided to change this system to a T3 fiber optic cable connection. This increased our bandwidth tremendously and has allowed more computers to access our network at the same time. One of the major problems that we have experience has to do with our LAN (local area network) at the Corydon campus. The wireless routers could not handle all of the laptops trying to access them at the same time. Instead of cycling through the different levels of connections once one was at the maximum, they would just drop all students. It took several months of a third party company coming in to troubleshoot and fix the issue. Also, our firewall and internet filters have become somewhat problematic. Students have become very skilled at bypassing these roadblocks, while teachers end up having sites blocked that they feel can be very productive in class. We have had many issues where teachers have found sites that they think are incredibly valuable, but when they are tried in class they are blocked by the internet filter because of gaming content, perceived violence, or other issue that triggers the filter. Teachers can request to have sites unblocked, but not all requests end up being granted by our Technology Department. In the South Harrison Community School Corporation all software is installed, maintained, inventoried, and managed by our Technology Department. This includes our Director of Technology, our IT Specialist, and the technicians that are employed by the corporation. The Director of Technology has final say over software programs and purchases. Teachers can make request through their principals for specific programs. These requests must include a rationale for purchase along with potential costs. These requests are then forwarded to our Director of Technology who makes the final decision on whether the software will be added or not. This process helps the school corporation maintain costs and continuity on what programs are purchased and used within the corporation. This is especially important in our school corporation since we have eight different schools. If we did not have this single person making these decisions we could end up with eight different programs that essentially do the same thing. This would make troubleshooting and servicing the software nearly impossible for the Technology department.

o Analysis of Needs
Our corporation already has a lot of technology available for teachers to use. Since all of our students at the high school level have their own laptops, access to technology is not an issue. Also, Promethean Boards and ceiling mounted projectors are in over 80% of our classrooms so most teachers have access to this technology as well. I see the most pressing needs at our school with training of teachers to use technology, utilizing the same online learning network, and using iPads in the classroom. Training Teachers to Use Technology We are currently in the fourth year of our 1:1 computer initiative. This initiative happened very quickly when we first started it. In January of 2010, the school corporation announced that it would be giving every freshman a laptop computer at the beginning of the 2010-2011 school year. The teachers were told that they were be given training on how to adapt lessons to utilize the new laptops. However, the assistant superintendent that wrote the grant to get funding for the laptops took a position as superintendent at a different school corporation. The training that was promised fell through the cracks with this individual leaving our corporation. I feel that if we can train our teachers to adapt their current lessons to use the laptops and other technology that we have available they will become more comfortable with the technology and start to design brand new lessons that utilize the technology. Many of our more experienced teachers are intimidated by the computers so it is very important to get them to a level where they are more comfortable with integrating the computers in the classroom. I feel that this was the biggest mistake made when we adopted the laptop computers. I also think that we have to offer professional development to teachers who are comfortable with the technology so that they can learn new ways to integrate technology into their curriculum. I have found that the teachers that are comfortable with technology do a wonderful job of helping other teachers that are not as comfortable utilizing the technology. When teachers use technology effectively and innovatively it can inspire other teachers to do the same. I do think that teachers should be able to pursue professional development that intrigues them. Technology is one place where one size does not fit all, so teachers should be allowed to pick a professional development workshop on technology each year. There will be instances that you will want to provide all teachers with the same professional development opportunity, but I think individual professional development will be the most beneficial and the most effective.

Online Learning Network Since our school has went with the 1:1 initiative we need to adopt a school wide online learning network that all of our teachers can utilize. The state of Indiana is currently endorsing and pushing My Big Campus as an online learning network for Indiana schools. Our students have to utilize online learning networks once they move on to college so we need to expose them to this tool in high school. Also, utilizing an online learning network can make teachers much more effective in using technology in their classrooms. It gives them an avenue to give homework and assessments online as well. My Big Campus has some great features that teachers can utilize in their classrooms. If we would adopt My Big Campus as a school wide online learning network I would want to send a teacher from each department to professional development on it. This would allow us to have an expert in each department that can share ideas and tips with the other teachers in their department. Also, this core team of teachers would be able to work together and discuss what they are doing within their subject area. This would allow them to see how other teachers are using the site and may give them ideas on how they can do some of the same things in their subject area. I believe this would be vital to using an online learning network within our school.

iPads for Teachers I currently use an iPad as my primary tool to teach in my classes. I use several screencasting apps to record my lectures so students can watch my lectures outside of class. I found this is a fantastic way to support my students of all ability levels. Anytime students feel that they dont quite understand a topic they can go back and watch the lecture outside of class. I currently use Educreations, Explain Everything, and Show Me as my primary screencasting apps. I have found these apps help make me a better teacher. I think this would be fantastic for all teachers to have this option in their classrooms. This would allow us to create more virtual support for our students which could be very valuable in terms of our special education students, our response to intervention students, and other students who need extra help. I believe that having this for all teachers would be one of the most useful technologies that we could utilize. I do not believe iPads are cost effective in every students hand due to replacement costs and insurance, but an iPad in every teachers hand with appropriate training would be incredibly powerful.