Technology Center Visit I Georgia Southerns Instructional Resource Center Date of Visit: Monday, February 11, 2013 Person

Interviewed: Michelle Rivera (michellerivera@georgiasouthern.edu)

The Instructional Resource Center is housed in the College of Education Building. It started out as part of the Marvin Pittman Laboratory school after it was phased out about ten years ago. During that time, more focus was on the children at the school. Now, the focus is on the GSU education students as well as faculty and staff. The Mission of the Center is to meet the technology and instructional needs of the College of Education students, faculty and staff. The goals of the center are about the same as the mission. Who are the stakeholders? Students, faculty, and staff at GSU and within the 60 mile radius identified by GSU for student teachers and classroom teachers. RESA conducts classes periodically at this location for classroom teachers. Most recently was a class for Special Education teachers. The main components of the IRC are: 1) The center has five computer labs. Faculty members can schedule their class to be held in one of the labs when the instruction involves some type of computer activity. Students can come in and work on assignments in these labs as well. 2) The center houses a small library of books and materials that were once part of the Marvin Pittman Laboratory School. 3) The center provides smartboard training for faculty, staff, and students. 4) The center contains numerous study spaces Some of these spaces are in a large room

 Some of them are in small rooms with only one or two tables to make it more suitable for a quiet area for only one or two people. 5) All of the classrooms (as mentioned above that faculty use) are considered Smart classrooms because they have built in technology. Each teaching station has a DVD player, a VCR, and an Elmo. 6) The center also has its own tech support person dedicated to this center. 7) The center contains materials for student use elison dies and cutters, bulletin board paper, construction paper, printers connected to the computers, scanners, wireless internet, etc.

Mrs. Rivera stated that her title is Coordinator of the IRC (Instructional Resource Center). She also has seven student workers that work at various times. There is also one Tech Support person Mr. Mark Stewart. He is in charge of tech support for the center. Besides her duties as Coordinator for this center, Mrs. Rivera serves as an ad hoc member of the College of Educations Technology Committee. They have a technology plan and conduct needs assessments to make improvements. They meet once a month. They also are responsible for overseeing any technology requests that are turned in. Students use the center for a variety of reasons. Education majors meet and write lesson plans, have group studies for classes, etc. Interesting things found at the center: 1) Whiteboard tables 2) Digi Lab which consists of 24 stations and a mobile lab of 24 chomebooks which are similar to laptops except they do not contain operating systems because they are web based and use cloud computing pull programs from the web to use.

Technology Center Visit II First District RESA Date of visit: Wednesday, February 13, 2013 Person Interviewed: Virginia Bennett and Lisa Burkhalter

The Educational Technology Training Center (ETTC) is housed at the First District Regional Educational Service Agency (RESA) in Brooklet, Georgia. It serves 18 school systems. There are only three employees. Lisa Burkhalter is the Director, Virginia Bennett is the Instructional Technology Coordinator, and they have an IT Specialist. Their goal is to support student achievement through technology by supporting teachers. In talking with Mrs. Bennett and Mrs. Burkhalter, I learned the history of this particular ETTC. Originally, it was a separate entity, but two to three years ago, funds were put into RESA funds so then they became a part of the RESA. They went on to explain the big picture across Georgia. There were 13 ETTCs and 16 RESAs across Georgia. The ETTCs were either under a RESA or a University. Funding was primarily from Federal Title IID grants. That funding ended and was put into RESAs. Most recently, the little amount of funding left has been taken from the state and put into the schools. First District RESAs ETTC is operating on a $70,000 budget to serve 18 school systems. First District RESA used to have an ETTC with Armstrong, but it was closed at the end of last year. The ETTC at First District RESA: offers courses to teachers either onsite or at the First District RESA location in Brooklet They offer virtual teleconferencing as well. They have conducted Department of Education training for the Georgia Performance Standards.

 They are responsible for administering the EOCT (end of course tests) for home-schooled and private school students. They maintain collaboration with Technology Directors in the 18 school systems. They offer training on interactive white boards, tablets, and student response systems. They have two computer labs. One has desktop computers. The other lab has desktops as well as a polycom for virtual teleconferencing.