Technology Center Analysis

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Technology Center Analysis FRIT 7738 Dr. Hodges Written by: Summer Mahan

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Executive Summary This report provides an analysis and evaluation of the current status and the future goals of the Murray County Schools Technology Center. Methods of analysis include observations, interviews, and an analysis of already existing reports. The results of the analyses show that the Murray County Technology Center is making strides to reach it's goals and mission but has slowed down due to budget cuts. Recommendations for continuing to meet it's goals include: provide more on site training for teachers, replace out dated technology, financially prepare for future maintenance of technology.

Organizational Chart

Methods There were several methods used to conduct this report. Observations, interviews, and the analysis of already existing documents were all utilized for the report. See the appendix for the

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observation checklist and a list of interview questions that were asked. Analysis of the technology website as well as the existing technology plan was also used. The website used for this report is http://www.murray.k12.ga.us/?DivisionID=8663&ToggleSideNav=. The plan that was looked at for the report explains the background of the technology center, the goals, the stakeholders, the mission, and the future plans for the center as well as all of the technology for the school system.

Center Context and Goals The mission of the Murray County School System technology center is to provide quality support and services to the Murray County School District for the purposes of improving learning for all students and enhancing instructional and administrative effectiveness (Murray County Schools). It states it will accomplish this by promoting the use of technology, provide staff development, provide accurate data, and provide adequate hardware, network infrastructure, and technical support. Murray County Technology Department wants to see the integration of technology in the classroom to enhance teaching and the learning process. Murray County believes that integrating technology helps with the development of life long skills such as flexibility, critical thinking, collaboration, and problem-solving. The stakeholders for the Murray County Technology Department include the administrators, teachers, students, parents, and community members. The technology department wants teachers and administrators to have access to professional learning training to learn how to appropriately integrate technology into the classroom and how to use different software and hardware that is available to them. It wants students to have access to technology to help with the learning process such as interactive boards, computers, software programs, internet, access to grades, etc. Parents will have access to the county website, teacher websites, grades, get text message alerts, and be invited to see their child's work displayed. Community members will also have access to the website, text message alerts, special nights where work is displayed to see, as well as the opportunity to partner with the school to help

Technology Center Analysis funding for new technologies for the classroom.

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The staff for the Murray County Schools Technology Department starts with the Director of Technology and Student Services. This person is a part time position that is in charge of technology reports, budget, website, and system wide software that is not necessarily instructional for example, Infinite Campus, the system's grade book/attendance software. The next position is the Technology Coordinator. This person is in charge of the network. He keeps all of the software and equipment up to date, performs maintenance on the network, and keeps the teachers and administrators updated on network outages, etc. The next position is the instructional technology specialist. This person is in charge of all of the software and hardware teachers use in the school system. She searches for new software, evaluates the software already in use, and trains teachers how to use it. After these three positions, are the install team who is in charge of installing hardware at the schools, the lead technicians and the school technicians who are in charge of the day to day problems the teachers and administrators run into. There have been some cut-backs at the center over the past few years with all of the budget shortfalls and the team is not as effective as they would like to be. They have recently increased the internet band-width to make up for the increase of teachers and student use of the internet. There was a recent inventory of the software available to teachers to see what is and isn't being used to eliminate under-utilized subscriptions. Even with the cut-backs, there are many software programs for teachers can choose from to use. The computers are slowly being replaced as many of them are over five years old and are beginning to break down and the student to computer ratio is 5:1. Every classroom has an interactive board and every middle and high school classroom has a student response system.

Center Activities The technology center for Murray County Schools is a busy place. There are things going on

Technology Center Analysis there constantly. The main activities for the center is the day to day work of the technology

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coordinator, administrator, and instructional technology specialist. These three staff members are hard at work daily making sure all of the software for the school system is up and running. When schools have issues with the school system's programs or software, they contact one of these three people to look at the problem and fix it. The technology coordinator makes sure the school system's network is running properly and makes the necessary updates and maintenance. The technology administrator is only a part time position but she makes sure all of the programs such as the gradebook/attendance program is working properly and makes the necessary updates for those. Lastly, the instructional technology specialist looks for, evaluates, manages, and trains teachers on the software/hardware available to them for use in their classrooms. The center constantly has trainings going on in their computer lab. Teachers and administrators come to the center's computer lab for trainings on everything from smartboard/activeboards, ipads, student response systems, software, computer programs, etc. The instructional technology specialist is in charge of these trainings and is willing to do anything to help teachers integrate technology into their lesson plans. All you have to do is email her and she'll look stuff up for you and put something together for you or fix something if you're not sure how to do it. She created short instructional videos to post online as well. The specialist used to go from school to school for mini trainings but was no longer able to when the budget was cut. Now, all trainings are held at the center. Anyone in the school system can book the center's computer lab for use. So on top of what the center has going there, there is also other teachers and administrators who use the center for various trainings if needed.

Evaluation Overall, the Murray County School's Technology Department is meeting it's mission and goals.

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It wants teachers and students to utilize technology to support learning and based on the observations, interviews, and analyzing the technology report, it does seem that teachers and students are using technology in a way that enhances the learning environment. Students have access to computer labs for student projects. Some classrooms have student computers for centers. Each classroom has an interactive whiteboard for making interactive lessons and this makes for an easy way to integrate technology. Just like everything else, the technology center has been hit hard with the recent budget cuts and this has affected it's ability to reach the goals it has set out for. Teachers used to get on-site training for many different useful technologies both free and that cost money that the school system provides but when the budget was cut, these trainings were the first to go. Teachers now have to go to the technology center computer lab for trainings which require substitutes, which the system does not have readily available. Therefore, the trainings are usually only for new teachers who come in and need to know how to use the hardware in their rooms such as the interactive boards and student response systems. The budget cuts have also affected the number of computers available for student use. If student's do not have computers available to use, the system cannot meet it's vision of seeing students become proficient at using computer software and completing problem-solving projects using the computers. The schools are slowly replacing old computers so it may take a while to get all of the out dated computers replaced and more added to decrease the student to computer ratio. Even with these hurdles, the school system's technology department is fulfilling it's vision and mission, just not as effectively as it would without the budget cuts. It's just going to take longer to complete these things. It is also going to be harder to get teachers the training they need for new programs and to move them into the next step of using technology in the classroom. Some recommendations for improving the technology center is to provide teacher training at the

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schools again. There was never a clear answer given about why these trainings stopped as it didn't cost much money for the technology specialist to go from school to school. The only money cut I see is that the specialist's income was cut and she was given more responsibilities and didn't have time to go to each school like she did before. Another recommendation is to find a way to replace the old computers and to decrease the student-to-computer ratio. My last recommendation is to plan better for future maintenance of the technology the school's do have. It seems the school's got all of this technology (computers, interactive boards, student response systems, etc) but there was not any maintenance planned for an now that these technologies are getting old and not working, the school system is having a hard time replacing everything at once.

Technology Center Analysis References

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Murray County Schools. Murray county schools technology department. (2011, August). Retrieved from http://www.murray.k12.ga.us/?DivisionID=8663&ToggleSideNav Murray County Schools. (2012). Three-Year Technology Plan July 1, 2012 - June 30, 2015. Chatsworth, Georgia.

Technology Center Analysis Appendices Appendix A Observation Checklist A checklist used while observing one of the activities at the Murray County Schools Technology Center. 1. Who works at the technology center? 2. How is the technology center set up? 3. What activities are being held at the technology center? 4. Who is conducting the activity? 5. What is the activity? 6. Who is the audience of the activity? 7. How is the audience responding to the activity?

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Technology Center Analysis Appendix B Interview Questions

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The interview questions asked to the Instructional Technology Specialist of Murray County Schools Technology Department. 1. What are the jobs and job descriptions of the people who work for the technology center? 2. What type of activities go on at the technology center? 3. What is the mission of the technology center? 4. What are the visions/goals of the technology center? 5. Do you think the vision/goals of the technology center are being fulfilled? How could it be fulfilled better? 6. What is the current status of the technology center? 7. Who are the stakeholders of the technology center? 8. How could the technology center do a better job of meeting the needs of the stakeholders?

Technology Center Analysis Part B : Brag Sheet

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The Murray County Technology Center has had a great month! We have had a lot going on at the center as well as many exciting things going on for the school system itself. Read on to see the great activities that occurred at the technology lab and all of the wonderful additions to the technology in our school system. This is a summary of what has gone on during the month of October. Kara Leonard has done some great trainings this month at the technology center. She conducted the Activeboard training (day1 and day 2) for 11 of the elementary teachers. This training was a twoday training that took these teachers through all of the wonderful new updates for the system and they can now confidently use their interactive boards with their students. Kara also had the one day Clickers Training for 5 of the newly hired teachers in the school system. These teachers got a crash course on how to effectively use their student response system as well as how to get different reports that is crucial for intervention documentation. Look out for more trainings to come this year. The Murray County School System has had some great additions to technology this month. Gladden Middle School reported to have 2 new 21st century classrooms that include student computers and a teacher ipad added to their interactive SMARTboard. This is great news and we can't wait to see the response of these classrooms. Gladden has also reported that they will be replacing the teacher's laptops (that are over 5 years old) with brand new desk tops. These new computers should work much faster making things run a lot smoother for those teachers. Spring Place Elementary reported to have added some student response systems to some of their classrooms. This will add to the technology already being used and help teachers with grading and producing reports for their data notebooks. Last, but not least, North Murray High School has reported adding some new student computers to their computer labs to make 2 complete labs for teachers to bring students to in order to complete computer based projects.

Technology Center Analysis October has been a great month for the technology center as we continue to add to our

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technology for the education of our students. Remember, integrating technology is more than just projecting a presentation through a projector. You need to be having students use the technology and bring your lessons to life. If you need help with any of your software or lessons, feel free to contact Kara Leonard, your instructional technology specialist. And keep an eye on the technology website for more exciting updates and trainings!