Blog Post # 2

I live and work in the small rural Oregon school district of Butte Falls. We serve about 185 students k-12. Living and working here make me a stakeholder, community member and educator.  Our technology coordinator is currently on family emergency leave and the technology plans that I was able to get hold of may have been revised. I have reviewed and summarized this plan.

The first goal was addressing all students having access to technology in our schools. We have two stationary computer labs and one mobile lab, each has 30 computers. Our plan was that 80% of students be technologically literate by 2010 and increase 10% each year through 2012. The strategy implemented was applications that support standard aligned curriculum objectives and provide opportunities for student collaboration. All students by 8^th grade will have successfully completed one year of computer applications courses. Professionaol development will be scheduled , monitored and assessed for faculty and staff.

We have allocated 90% of our technology budget last year for meaningful professional development. The superintendent and the technology coordinator are responsible for  monitoring and assessing the professional development. Time and travel expenses are paid for by the district.

There are phones with voicemail in all classrooms. We have the three labs I mentioned previously. There are Smart boards in 4 of 5 classrooms at the elementary school as well as in the computer lab at high school. There are digital projectors in all classrooms. All teachers have laptops or desktop computers. We currently have 3.2 MBPS bandwidth, which is far from the 10 MBPS recommended by Oregon plan. Doubling this has been prioritized when budget constrictions allow. We use Edline, the company provides web hosting , content management, information portals grade books and storage. These technologies allow parents to access student grades and attendance.

        Most of our software is for productivity. We use Microsoft Office 2003 and plan upgrading to Office 2009 by 2010.

        Budget constraints are becoming more and more of an issue ech year. We have been fortunate with all stakeholders tightening their belts a little. We have allocated 90% last year for professional development. We use Erate for discounted tech services.  We have received grants for Smart boards and digital flip devices. We need to wait for increased bandwidth cost to become more affordable.

        There is scheduled pre and post training assessments scheduled for faculty and staff. The is a schedule of assessments for our infrastructure and hardware capabilities. We will utilize Simple Assessment to test technological literacy of 8^th graders. We as a district realize the importance of reliable assessments and have a committee of stakeholders continually reviewing and researching better, nore reliable and more accurate means of assessments.