Assignment 5

Write a blog explaining the parts of a technology plan. (example: Mission, Vision, etc...) What do you think the purpose of a technology plan is? Do you think a technology plan is beneficial? How might a school utilize the information from a technology plan?

The technology plan describes what the school plans on accomplishing with their use of technology. I was surprised that the plan went above and beyond 'students will be able to use a computer and the internet effectively' and went on to combining it with the vision of the whole school. The plan went on to specific departments, costs, etc, and was so much more detailed than I ever thought that it would be.

I think that the purpose of a technology plan is to help the school have a common ground on which to make decisions about lessons, units, training, discipline, etc. I think that if someone is planning a lesson dealing with technology they have a place to reference to have some focus. Also, I think that the school can set up discipline guidelines according to the plan because if a student is not on a site that supports the plan, then again, the school has a common ground to go to in order to make decisions about these situations.

In terms of it being beneficial, I think that it is to a point because, like I said before, there has to be guidelines about the technology. As a coordinator, you need to know the money, the departments, the goals, mission, vision, etc. I think that it may have started off as a formality, but then quickly evolved to a necessity for every school once technology exploded over the past twenty years. I think that it is going to be even MORE important in the next twenty years.

I think that schools can use the information in the technology plan to stay within boundaries, keep focus for anything dealing with technology, and help set up a support plan for anyone dealing with technology (which is anyone from teachers and students to parents and secretaries).

At my school, we have a shared network drive for teachers, and then again for teachers AND students. We can access the shared drive from our homes, and the students can access the teacher/student shared drive from their house. This has actually been a big deal lately because they deleted our teacher only drive and combined it with another drive. So they actually have not deleted it, but just moved it which was a huge deal because people who did not read the email were completely lost. The teacher/student drive is for teachers posting assignments, etc, that students can access at any time, but particularly when they are home and missing school.


For the AUP, we had to sign that we read and understood them sometime during the year. I knew that we had one, but tracking it down this late in the year was hard because I thought it was online. The students had to sign the handbook/AUP slip at the beginning of the year, but I doubt any of them read it. The educational system enforces the AUPs because I teach a computer programming course, and two of my students cannot use the internet because they violated the AUP.

Our school uses the Outlook email system, and we can access it from home. We are supposed to check it every day, and that is the primary source of communication in the district. I check it multiple times a day, and from my house just to make sure that I do not miss anything. One of the big things that is new is that we have to check it before school starts just in case we have anyone in ISS. If we have a student there, they need work before eight o'clock so that they have something to work on all day.

The most important thing that I have leared is that I need to be fully aware of the AUP. I don't want to make one silly mistake and either get in trouble, or get a student in trouble by giving them the wrong information. I think that this is such a huge thing because the more technology increases, the more there is a chance to access information that should not be accessed from school, or stumble across somewhere that a students should not be. This chapter really opened my eyes as to how important the AUP really is.