TECHNOLOGY PLAN TEMPLATE

North American University

Education Department
M.Ed. in Educational Leadership & M.Ed. in Curriculum and Instruction
EDUC 5324: INTEGRATING TECHNOLOGY INTO EDUCATION

Name:My Bui Date: 11/25/2017

This template is adapted from

http://www.cde.ca.gov/ls/et/rs/documents/et14techplan.doc
 INTRODUCTION/BACKGROUND
The plan guides the LEA’s use of education technology for the next three years.

Start Date:8/1/2018
End Date: 6/30/2021
LEA Title: Harmony School of Excellence School District
Location: 7340 N Gessner Dr Houston TX 77099
Phone: (713) 343-3333

Harmony School of Excellence School District’s overview:

Harmony School of Excellence School District, a branch of Harmony Public
Schools, consists of 7 campuses, employs around 400 teachers and staff, and serves
more than four thousands students from kindergarten to twelfth grades. Harmony’s
STEM curriculum, with missions to provide students with skills for future education,
workplace and community, utilizes student-centered and inquiry-based teaching and
learning models. Harmony creates 1:1 student : digital device ratio and 1:1 teacher :
digital device ratio. This is to promote a technology environment serving educational
purposes where every student has access to a Chromebook, tablet, laptop, etc. for at
least 2-3 hours a day for blended learning and project based learning activities.
Therefore, this technology plan serves as a resource to support Harmony’s vision, and
to help students maximize their potentials and teachers augment their teaching skills by
enhancing learning environment and educational experience.
Demographics in 2015:
Total of 4387 students
• Hispanic: 44.1%
• African American: 20.5%
• Asian: 18.4%
• White: 14%
• Native American: 0.3%
• Two or more races: 2.7%
• Economically disadvantages: 52.1%
• Limited English Proficiency: 20.2%
For more information, please visit
• https://new.harmonytx.org/index.php
• http://www.har.com/school_district/harmony-school-of-
excellence_101858#districtinfo
 Stakeholders’ participation in the planning process:
• District Administrators
• School Principals
• School Administrators
• Schools’ Teachers
• Schools’ Staffs
• IT departments
• Vendors
• Parents
• Students’ data
This plan is established and reviewed by district administration. School principal,
administrators, teachers and staff then moderate the plan based on each school’ data and
budget, in order to accomplish the most practical and effective achievements. School’
principal, IT department and secretary will discuss with vendors about prices,
purchasing and financing new equipment. Parents are invited at beginning of school
year, after first semester, and at the end of school year to give feedbacks, suggestions,
and opinions about how the plan could be adjusted and implemented in the future.
A. Summarize the plan’s major curricular and professional development
outcomes that are supported by research.
Technology plays a significant, essential, and important role in transforming our
education system into where it should be based on our district’s mission. When students
nowadays will very soon become members of working environment at every possible
field in which technology is employed, educational environment should best represent
and simulate to what students have to encounter in real life.
Teachers and administrators at all levels are the ones making final decisions on
what students need to know, how they learn it, how to measure their competencies, and
how to follow up with the results etc. In other words, the ones influencing directly or
indirectly, at all levels, will decide whether technology will be implemented, at which
level, and by how into the learning. Their decisions perspicuously affect carrying our
final goal which is to best prepare students for higher education, working force, and
being potential citizens. Thus, beside enriching educational environment for students,
teachers and school administrators should also be trained in implementing technology
into education.
Based on the National Education Technology Plan 2010, this plan consists of
five components: learning, assessment, teaching, infrastructure, and productivity.
 B. Describe and cite the relevant research that supports the plan’s
outcomes.
Under former President Barack Obama’s administration, education had become
a national priority. Fulfilling this urgent call, The National Education Technology Plan
2010 (NETP) desired a revolutionary transformation, urging our educational system to
be clear on outcomes, to collaborate for a more comprehensive design and process, to
monitor and measure the process, and to be responsible for the progress and results. In
order to implement NETP’s demand, this technology plan emphasizes five important
elements which are learning, assessment, teaching, infrastructure, and productivity.

Reference:

United States. Department of Education. Office of Educational Technology. (2010).

Transforming American education: learning powered by technology.

C. Describe the connection between the research and the plan’s goals.

The plan closely follows the research by Department of Education that was
previously cited. This research completely and accurately addresses fundamental
components for successfully transforming education into a more efficient, flexible and
entire system, and to better fulfilling the 21st century’s demands.
 D. Describe information gathered from site visits, including best practices.

• NETP 2010 states that global economy decides what people need to know and
who needs to learn. While new studies and researches about human learning
started to appear, we can understand better how humans think and how to
increase people’s potentials and learning. NETP addresses that technology
helps acting on this new knowledge to achieve global demands.

• We also need to rethink our educational system’s occurring basic assumptions.

One of them is that “time-based” or “seat-time” measures educational
attainments. Another is that educational system should be organized according
to age-determined groups, to separate disciplines, and to equal size class where
students receive the same instruction with the same content and at the same
pace for year long. This framed design partly affects students’ decisions to
leave or disengage from schools.

• Educational system should be restructured to stress personalized learning and

up to date for students can be informed of their progress through
Prekindergarten to 12th grade and higher educational institutions.

• Technology should be employed and researched as being utilized at other

fields, for educational performance can be assessed and compared its
productivity to the money we spend and the budget we have.

• Educational system should implement our current approaches to research and

development differently, so that our attention can be more directed to scaling
innovative best practices in using technology in teaching and learning,
executing new innovations, and to reacting to the challenges and problems
when learning sciences, education, and technology come to tangle.
 CURRICULUM COMPONENT CRITERIA.
The Plan must establish clear goals and realistic strategy for using
telecommunications and information technology to improve education services.

What technology is currently available to all teachers?

• Teachers’ personal working laptops connected to Internet, scanner, printer and
copy machine. All classrooms are equipped with projectors and document
cameras for visual learning and other approaches. Many classrooms are
equipped with Smart Board for interactive classrooms.
• Teachers can access to district curriculum, lesson plans, district tests, and to
students’ test performance for analysis and further modifications via the
Internet.
• Several classrooms have daily access to Chromebooks while a number of
Chromebooks are upon request for 1:1 in-school model, so that each student
from grade 6-12 has access to a Chromebook device. Teachers can plan lesson
according to availability of Chromebooks.
• Tablets can be in wish list when budget is available.

How does technology assist teachers and principals with their administrative
tasks, attendance and grading?
• Teachers can take and track students’ attendance through school database
• Teachers and principals can communicate via emails about weekly meeting or
professional development.
• Teachers are required to record grades into school database
• Teachers, principals and school administrators can discuss about students’
performance on district tests for adequate responses.
• With Discipline Points Systems as school wide discipline policy, teachers can
report DPS points using school database, access students’ profiles, behaviors,
and performances at other classes for further discussions with school
administrators and/or other teachers for appropriate responses on case-to-case
basis.
 Is technology currently available to all students?
All students should have equal access to digital devices such as Chromebooks,
tablets, laptops etc. while at school during ELA/ MATH labs. Students can request
Chromebooks during independent learning time or permission to Library for computer
and printer access. All students can use calculators during math courses. Each
classroom is equipped with projector and document camera for richer instruction, and
all students can benefit from these.

Is technology currently available to students during after-school hours? Given

that many school assignments require students to access technology after hours,
where will students access technology to complete their work? Do they have access
in their homes, in community libraries, and/or at community centers?
When many school assignments require students to access to technology such as
computer with Internet access, a number of students does not have such as this access at
home. When Harmony Public Schools are Title I school, this needs to be considered in
the instructional planning. In order to address this problem, schools should have policy
allowing students to borrow Chromebooks during independent learning time or after
schools.
How will your curricular goals and needs influence your technology goals?
Curricular goals and needs direct teachers to choose most appropriate techniques to
help students master concepts and measure their mastery; and technology is
fundamental to accomplish these targets. Consequently, technology goals need to be
established, planned, carried out, reflected, and moderated accordingly to accommodate
these curricular goals. For example,teachers should be competent on what technology
to use, how and when to use it to prepare and conduct teaching methods. Accordingly,
questions about which , when and how professional developments regarding to
integrating technology can be implemented need to be addressed carefully at all levels
of educational system for improving teaching and learning efficiency.
How will technology be used to create more powerful learning experiences to
improve student academic achievement?
Technology such as document camera, Smart Board and projectors can be applied
for more visual and audio triggering lessons. Adequate technology, software, and
websites can be applied in science, social study, or any other subject to simulate to real
life situations and experiences. Technology such as social media, websites for
cooperative meetings and virtual boards can improve interaction between teacher and
students and student-student for any-time and any where assistance during in-class or
after school hours. Innovative assessment tools such as Quizzes, Kahoot, Google
Forms, Edmodo etc. can serve as warm-ups, exit ticket for quick collections of students’
understanding. Students can enrich or get assistance with online tutoring, online
assignments with feedback and videos etc. Students can also communicate or
collaborate with other students around the world, which prepares them for future
learning and career.
 How and when will teachers and/or librarians help students acquire
Internet safety skills?

At the beginning of school and/or when important assignment needing

access to the Internet or social media is coming, teachers and librarian can work
individually or collaboratively to deliver clear policy about:

• Which activities are considered acceptable.

• Which material and activities are considered inappropriate
• The degree to which their activities will be monitored, how this monitoring
will happen, and under which circumstances further investigation of their
online activities will be conducted.
• How to protect their personal information, safety, and security while using
Internet and social media.

Following are optional resources that teachers and librarian can use:
• PBS Kids Webonauts Internet Academy games
• Common Craft which is a company that specializes in explanation.
• Common Sense Media providing trustworthy information
• Virginia Department of Education’s Guidelines and Resource for Internet Safety in
Schools
• FBI Safe Online Surfing game

For more information, please visit https://elearningindustry.com/the-5-best-internet-

safety-resources-for-teachers

How will teachers be trained to deliver Internet safety and ethical use content?

Teachers should be trained in professional developments at school and/or district level

before school starts with a clear policy of:

• Acceptable and unacceptable activities

• At which degree students’ activities are monitored or investigated
• How students protect themselves on the Internet
• How they can collaborate with librarian and other personal
• Which resources they can apply

Trainers can walk teachers through one(s) of preceding resources listed in the previous
question for easier implementation.
 PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT COMPONENT
The Plan must have a professional development strategy to ensure that staff
understands how to use these new technologies to improve education services
What do teachers and administrators consider as their needs for professional
development:
• Teachers from 23 countries were asked for the areas of greatest development
needs for 2007-2008 school year. The result indicates the four highest needs are
trainings in teaching special learning needs student, teaching skills, students’
discipline and behavior problems. Followed are instructional practices, subject
field and other needs.
For more information, please visit
https://www.oecd.org/berlin/43541636.pdf
• Administrators need trainings in leadership, decision making, creating supporting
school climate and proper infrastructure.
For more information, please visit
http://www.p12.nysed.gov/specialed/publications/persprep/qualityteachers/administrator.htm

After collecting and analyzing professional development needs, what are the
local, regional, and online professional development opportunities to meet
identified needs?
• At school levels: Schools hold weekly professional development/meeting or
department meeting where teachers and administrators can discuss about on-going
or possible problems and solutions.
• At district levels: Professional developments are also conducted at district level at
the beginning of school year for one week, and at least 2 more trainings during
school year when teachers and administrators can gain update and discuss about
innovative instructional technologies.
• Regional/online opportunities: teachers are required to take at least 12 hours of
training of their choices to help solving their needs and problems. Beginning
teachers need to take at least 18 hours of training.
 What professional learning will be available so teachers and administrators
can make informed decisions using data to meet individual student academic
needs?
Professional development at department, school, and district level should be
organized at beginning of school year, after first half of first semester and after first
semester to instruct teachers and administrators how to analyze students’ data, what to
infer, and how to address that. A specific set of data can serve as an example and
illustration.
What professional development will be provided to ensure teachers
and administrators will be able to effectively accomplish the curricular
goals for students described in section 2?
• Professional developments at department meetings, district or regional level about
effective instructional strategies and technologies which are proved to be effective
and about practices that teachers are using in class.
• Discussion about how to measure effectively students' mastery of curricular goals
such as exit-tickets, formative and summative assessment etc. and also how to follow
up with the results.
• Teachers should also be informed of available resources for assistance. Professional
developments should also train teacher on working with others teaching the same or
different subjects, other faculty/staff member for achieving instructional objects while
preparing students for further learning and future career.
INFRASTRUCTURE, HARDWARE, TECHNICAL SUPPORT, SOFTWARE, AND
ASSET MANAGEMENT COMPONENT CRITERIA
The Plan must include an assessment of the telecommunication services,
hardware, software, asset management, and other services that will be needed
to improve education services

Do all staff members have e-mail accounts? Do students have access to e-mail?
All staff and students have school email account where school-wide or district-wide
relevant information will be emailed. Students can check email using Chromebook
during their assessable time such as advisory or lab time.
What technologies are available to facilitate home/school communication such
as email, web pages, and voice mail?
Teachers and parents can communicate via phone or email when teachers have
students’ profile from school database. Parents can use Let’s Talk!, an online
communication tool that facilitates an ongoing dialogue between Harmony Public
Schools employees, parents, students and community members to share questions,
comments, concerns, suggestions and compliments.
 What technologies will teachers and administrators need to successfully
implement the plan’s goals and benchmarks?
To accomplish the plan's goals and benchmarks, teachers and administrators must
have access to school database, students data, printer, scanner, and laptop with Internet
to access and analyze information, and plan for appropriate instructional strategies and
modifications to help students succeed on benchmark and prepare students for real life
situations.
Will students and teachers be able to access their work from any location in the
school or from home?
Teachers can access their work anytime and anywhere with their working laptop
connected to Internet. Since students cannot bring Chromebooks home, they can save
their work to Google Drive, Dropbox etc. for later access at home or school.
MONITORING AND EVALUATION COMPONENT
The plan must include an evaluation process that enables the school to monitor
progress toward the specific goals and make mid-course corrections in
response to new developments and opportunities as they arise.

Describe the process for collecting and analyzing data.

Teachers scan students’ answer sheets, so their data will be recorded into
Eduphoria! under class section for proper grading and collections. Teachers, school
principals and dean of academic can access data and analyze students performance
generally or individually by using Eduphoria!. All students’ data, answers, and grades
will be collected corresponding to relevant test for analysis by district administrators.
Who will participate in the monitoring and evaluation process?
School principals, dean of academics, school testing coordinators, district subject
coach, and district administrators will participate in monitoring and evaluation process.
How will teachers, parents, and other stakeholders provide suggestions and
opinions in the evaluation process?
Teachers can share their opinions at school and district professional development
before school starts or during school year. Teachers can discuss their concerns with
principals, dean of academics and subject coach. Parents and other stakeholders can
suggest and provide opinions during parent conference, school wide meetings with
school administrators. Let’s Talk! online communication tool is also applicable.
How will strategies that have had a positive effect on teaching and learning be
communicated to others so that they can be replicated?
Effective strategies can be emailed by school or district administrators for prompted
information. They can also be recommended during department meeting, school
meeting, or district professional development so that they can be replicated.