Running head: PERSONAL TECHNOLOGY SWOT

Personal Technology SWOT Analysis, Goals, and Plans

Emily Rhinehart

University of West Georgia

Personal Technology SWOT Analysis, Goals, and Plan

I am currently a 2nd grade teacher in Bartow County. This fall will be my fourth year

teaching 2nd grade. I have taught inclusion and will be teaching a small EIP (Early Intervention

Plan) classroom for the first time. This class will have 1:1 iPads and have some extra support

from Title 1 teachers concerning reading and math interventions. I look forward to experiencing

a new challenge in this classroom setting as all of these students will be below grade level. I am

hoping that through attaining my Educational Specialist degree in Instructional Technology I will

have the skill set to incorporate technology into my teaching in the most efficient and meaningful

way.

Strengths

A strength is that I am open minded and willing to implement anything new into my

teaching if it will benefit the learning outcomes of my students. Part of TKES (Teacher Keys

Effectiveness System) that my administrator is looking for during observations is to implement

technology in the classroom; however, no one ever trained teachers on the best approach. My

first two years teaching I was in a trailer and only had 3 computers and usually only 1 that

worked. This means that I had to try to find ways to expose my students to using technology, or

sharing it, because there was not enough to really make it applicable or meaningful. Another

strength is developing a useful plan or strategy for implementing technology. When there is a

limited amount it is an important skill as an educator to be able to diagnose which students could

benefit the most from the use of technology if it is used as a tool for intervention. In this

particular classroom the working computer was rotated between a higher level group using it

once weekly for enrichment and a lower level group using it daily for building fluency.
 3

Weakness

My Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees were both in Early Childhood so my background is

in teaching. Although I grew up with technology in the classroom and taking computer courses

in middle and high school I am still not 100% confident that I am using technology in my

classroom in the most effective ways. As far as knowledge with technology I would say I know

the general functions of computers, smart boards, etc. but I cannot fix or do any trouble shooting.

This can present a major problem when I depend on technology daily in my room for checking

homework, morning work, or leading a mini lesson. Mostly, I depend on the smart board and the

document camera so that we can go over work in math or look at an article in writing. Whenever

an issue arises with the technology that requires anything more than turning it off and on again I

am at a loss and my students miss out on an engaging activity.

When it comes to independent work, I try and always have some activity that involves

technology (laptop, desktop, iPad) where the student can practice skills, create comic strips, or

use online dictionaries. All of these are related to reading and I haven’t been able to implement

this as much with writing, math, or science. But after reflecting there are so many videos,

research, webquests, or scavenger hunts I could have them doing in science. My area of

weakness is knowing if the ways I implement technology are actually enhancing learning.

Opportunities

While I have already discussed the many ways I use technology in my classroom, there

are still many more opportunities that I foresee. Since I will have 1:1 iPads this year for my small

classroom I do not have to strategize to figure out who would benefit most from the use of the

technology or how to rotate them so that everyone gets to use them. This freedom will allow for

students to use the iPad as a tool to help to reinforce the standards we are learning. I like for my
 4

students to use various online sites to create comic strips for retelling a certain scene from a text,

create wordle blurbs for vocabulary and examining character traits, or create a timeline to

sequence the main events in their story. Students also use programs to focus on a specific deficit

a student may have (this year it was Orton Gillingham or MobyMax) like phonemic awareness,

phonics, or letter recognition. I also have students on a site, Raz-Kids, building fluency and

comprehension by reading passages, taking quizzes and I am going to start having them record

themselves. This is a vital tool that I have not used previously that will allow my students to hear

themselves reading and improve on their rate.

In math I use technology mostly as an intervention for students below grade level

working on specific standards that they struggle with. The program we use is called iReady and

it has a diagnostic test that shows student deficits in specific standards and then tailors lessons to

meet their needs. This year, I am going to have my students using MobyMax to practice their

timed math facts instead of using pencil and paper. I would like to find some interactive tools I

could let my students use during their independent work time in math also.

In writing my students only use technology when I introduce a new writing genre using a

video, usually BrainPop, or when I teach informative writing and I let my students conduct

research using a safe search engine like KidRex. I am learning some neat concepts in my visual

literacy course about ways to implement images into lessons. This year I plan on showing my

students images and having them practice decoding messages by using critical thinking skills,

context clues, etc. to distinguish the events, theme or central idea.

The biggest opportunity for implementing technology in my teaching is through science

and social studies. This is the biggest opportunity because I seldom use technology with teaching

these subjects and because my allotted time for these subjects is going from 15-20 minutes to a
 5

full hour. Now that there is more time I am going to focus on STEM lessons and hopefully using

videos and images to guide the lessons. I would love for my students to be able to conduct

research and take virtual field trips this year using their iPads. I look forward to learning about

ways to enhance these topics through the use of technology.

The best opportunity or reason to use technology in the classroom is how simple it makes

differentiation. As presented in the previous paragraphs, I have students working on improving

fluency while other students are working on letter recognition and then a higher group is reading

a chapter book and creating a comic strip to depict their favorite scene.

Threats

A major threat to the use of technology in the classroom is planning. There is no way

around it that implementing technology requires more planning on the part of the teacher. Some

might see technology as an easy way of not planning but “putting” kids on a computer. This is

not the case at all. Students must have a structured task or assignment on the computer and the

assignment has to be connected to the standard being taught as well as challenging to the student.

Not all students can be doing the same task either as differentiation must still occur even when

using technology. Another threat to the use of technology in the classroom is that is requires

teacher interaction and monitoring. Students cannot be left fully unattended with technology. The

teacher must facilitate the use of the technology by monitoring and making sure the child is on

the appropriate work site and that they fully understand the assignment. A student will most

likely need help navigating the site in the beginning and it will take time in the classroom to

transition into using technology with learning logins and how to properly get to sites.
 6

Personal technology goals for the coming year

My personal technology goals for this year are to incorporate the iPads into independent

work time in other areas besides reading. My main focus is on building the use of iPads into the

science and social studies curriculum. I want the use of the technology to be purposeful and for

my students to see the iPads as a tool for gaining knowledge. I want to model for my students

how to be visually literate and to build a community of students who decipher and decode

information in any format. My goal is to start the year understanding that as a community of

learners we learn and grow better through tools, an open dialogue, technology, and flexibility. I

want my students to have respect for the use of technology and not get off task during class time.

Hopefully, the time I spend at the beginning of the year focusing on the rules of the iPad will

negate this behavior.

Personal technology plan to achieve goals

My personal technology plan for this school year is to start the year creating our own

contract as a class of behaviors we should exhibit while using technology and behaviors that

would cause you to lose your privileges and have students sign in agreement to the rules. I think

students will feel more accountable when it is a rule they helped create. I attended a county wide

science and social studies training this summer that provided a lot of new information regarding

the updated standards and STEM lessons to use in the classroom. This school year I plan on

implementing many new ideas regarding math drills, imagery and visuals used in writing, more

online testing through Blackboard, and research projects in science and social studies. I believe

that through the courses I am taking for my Specialist degree I will continue to learn of

innovative ways to involve my students in the education process through the use of technology.