The three most critical discoveries that I made over this course is that an effective plan must be created, time must be given to thoughtfully look at that plan and communication within an organization can make or break the goals created once a plan is in place. The planning piece must include all stakeholders in order for the organization to have any the success. When discussing time, a well thought out plan has to have frequent revisions to the plan, that include goals and mini goals within the structure. Each goal must be written in such a way that there are clear steps building on the previous goal so that each person responsible knows exactly what they are expected of and what steps to take next. In order for this to happen communication within the organization has to be clear and concise with conversations happening a trustworthy manner to allow back and forth. With technology constantly changing, we too have to work in such a way that allows for quick, well thought out change in order for our students to receive the best education they deserve.
As a future technology leader this learning will help me immensely in remembering in order to go fast, we must first go slow. Instead of jumping ahead and making irresponsible decisions I will remember to first ensure we have created a plan collectively, look at which steps are needed next and as a unit move forward with the changes needed.
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Having an effective Enterprise Architecture is not an option for school districts any longer. In the past I can understand why there would be a separate education plan and technology plan as technology was seen as a separate entity altogether. Computers were used in a different room, called the computer lab. Students rotated through the lab maybe once or twice a week. Computers were not seen as a vehicle to learning but as a fun extra activity. I can remember a time when computer lab was used as a reward or punishment depending on our classroom behavior. However, now computers play a completely differently role in education. Thankfully they are now in each classroom. Each school in our district is almost at 1:1. This changes everything in terms of an education plan. Technology absolutely needs to be embedded in the education plan in order for admin, teacher leaders and teachers to see how both technology and curriculum are to be taught together. If we have them living on both documents, learning will happen in tandem as well. If we have them living in separate documents instruction will continue to be separate and technology will not be seen as a vehicle but as still an isolated learning task.
The assignment this week was to look at an area of technology and see it through the different “stages” of where the program lies within the organization. Since many conversations are being held around an effective Learning Management System I decided to look into that for the work this week. It was extremely valuable for me, especially in my position as an instructional coach to look at all of the different LMSs being used. Once all of the programs were written out it, it was very effective to see their “shelf life” in terms of building into the program more or retiring the program. As I mentioned in the summary of the assignment, I felt the biggest and most task that was the most valuable was viewing not which programs are being used, but how they are being used. Seeing all of the programs listed out is great but if we are not using them effectively and purposefully- why bother having the programs at all? Time and time again we come back around to the discussion of the importance of creating an effective system where all stakeholders are communicating together. Until then, we will still have programs being slightly used or not at all which creates waste and waste always negatively affects student achievement.
Overall I was very impressed with how Vista has taken the appropriate measures to ensure our students and teachers are prepared to successfully complete the CASSP. First, looking at our technology plan I noticed that any real gaps have been discussed. The biggest area is that of replacement costs once devices and wiring starts to diminish. There is a plan in place both as a system and as a budget item to ensure that these costs are covered once the need arises.
The other area that I was impressed is our bandwidth for each site. Each of our schools have wifi connection, including some lunch areas. A few years ago we were lucky to have a spotty wireless internet connection. I know this took a lot of planning and resources to ensure for this to happen. As we move toward true personalized learning it is quite easy to see this as the norm when in reality I know many districts are still struggling to ensure wifi for some of their classrooms let alone the whole district. Finally, the overall training and leadership with what tests are going to be taken when, and whom is another area that I thought has been thoroughly planned out. While this is more of a management decision and not necessarily a technology decision it is important to note that more than one department are part of the discussions. When I think about all of the discussions that we have had regarding a strong EA, ensuring that multiple stakeholders are part of the discussion has been evident. Vista is a shining example of this in terms of preparing for CAASP. In this module we looked several components of an application such as their purpose, and any process issues that are related to the application. Doing this assignment made me look at the application not just through the lens of how I have used or use the application but from a wider viewpoint. I imagined the conversations or process that someone else has already gone through when looking at each application to decide if they should renew the contract (if their is a price), cancel or continue looking to see if there is a better application to serve the needs of the user.
I think I may be a broken record but each week the assignments make me look at things from a perspective that I never looked at before. There are times that I am using an application and I think, “if only this program could mix with this other program to be able to merge the data.” Now I know that someone has probably thought of that as well. I imagine they went through a similar process as this assignment and decided it still served the best purpose for the students and staff. In this week’s reading we learned about a five phase roll out for application overhaul. Out of the five I thought the fourth step had key processes to the phases. The fourth step states, “ design, deploy staff and manage the implementation. Develop rules, workflows, forms and user interfaces, define organizational and governance structures. Create a development and test environment. Run tests. Seek user feedback. Manage and monitor risks.” ( Gartner Inc) As highlighted I believe the best any organization can do when looking to overhaul an area is to seek feedback. When we make decisions solely based on a conversation amongst individuals who may or may not use an application or system we are failing to fully support those who can guide us in that decision making process. If I were to lead this an organization that might face these important decisions I would certainly use this method. Creating a plan, workflows and monitoring the plan were other key factors that stood out to me that are extremely helpful and important when making decisions in regards to possibly overhauling an organization.In essence, I see it as a circular movement toward change. We must always be monitoring and reflecting when we incorporate change to assure the change was for good, and if not move towards a different direction before too much time and money has been wasted. Resources: Key Initiative Overview - Gartner Inc. (n.d.). Retrieved March 11, 2016, from http://www.gartner.com/it/initiatives/pdf/KeyInitiativeOverview_ApplicationOverhaul.pdf Working as a support teacher time and time again I see a gap in communication between what is suppose to happen in each classroom and what those in the district office are discussing and deciding. The important piece missing is often times district personnel have not been inside classrooms or front offices to really see the nuances of computer programs and applications to see how the intended use is often misconstrued by the actual use. My suggestion to clarify these programs would be to shadow a teacher and or office personnel to see and hear from those that are using the programs day in and day out to hear their suggestions and or frustrations. Unless we use the programs ourselves there will always be gaps based on our idea of usage versus actual implementation. Only then can we see where programs overlap, or are not necessary all together.
Student Online Personal Information Protection Act or SOPIPA recently took effect in California and New Hampshire. This law was created to help fill gaps that are currently in place with attempts to protect student data. However, even though SOPIPA is in place that doesn’t mean that student data is being thoroughly protected. The first steps that I would take is first to expose teachers that there is a law. I would make this either a mandatory training. Currently, in our district there is a mandatory training that HR makes each person in the district complete. The training can be completed online at your own pace. After the training there is a short quiz to prove completion of the training.
I believe we need to be more cognizant about what it is we are sharing with all of our staff members. If we are providing PD on how to use a digital program, we must also include information on how to make sure we are safely handling student data. We no longer can hold the information solely in the hands of IT departments, but yet those that hold that info must be able to share with admin or other district personnel the importance of getting that information out to teachers and staff. This week we had the choice of investigating further an initiative and how that initiative is being used in our district. I have to say so far this has been my favorite assignment. I loved a, having a choice in what I wanted to investigate and b how we presented the information changed things up a bit. Even though several other people chose the same topic I learned quite a bit from each of the presentations. I choose to investigate further NGSS, or New Generation Science Standards. One of the follow up questions to my presentation is how can we move to a data system that “tracks” for a lack of a better word how these standards are being taught. I could easily see the badging system in place as a checks in balance with student learning. However, from my point of view there are still several layers that need to be in place for this to happen for both teachers and students to both be successful in the classroom. Teachers need to be confident they know the content, the standards, and then technology. I know many districts are trying to teach all three at the same time but no matter how we look at it, we need to continually provide a lot of professional development, and collaboration time for our teachers. Which brings us back to the point of how important it is to have as many stakeholders in the important conversations as there can be. Also, there needs to be a constant reflection of what the current reality of what the business architecture looks like and where the district wants to head. Once that is laid out backwards planning of exactly how that will happen, by whom and by when is extremely crucial for success to truly happen. Before starting Module 3 I felt very overwhelmed thinking about putting together all of the information from my district. While the task was still very overwhelming I started to see gaps within the district. The hard part is I know everyone in each of their perspective departments works really hard and believe in what they do. Yet, what was so glaring is the work of every department overlaps into another department in some way. Some of the overlap is financial, some is serving students but no matter the overlap the need for a successful business architecture plan is crucial. I would say my district tries has improved greatly in ensuring the overlap does not create too many wasted resources but I can also see where some leaders have transitioned has left gaps and or a need to implement a better system. For example, in my department we have had four different directors within the last four years. Each of those directors worked tirelessly to improve the needs of our English learners. However, each of those directors also implemented new systems and much of the systems were different from the previous director. All of these changes take time to adjust and learn, which we all know time is money. I know there is not a perfect system and with each new director there will be new procedures implemented but creating future changes on a system that is as strong as it can be can eliminate unnecessary waste. This week we took a look at each of the departments within the district to identify their purpose, who it was that was a part of the department, key points that represent the department, budgetary items linking to that department and finally how they align with the mission of the school district. Overall this was a very eye opening assignment considering I thought I knew a lot about my district.
The most difficult part of the assignment was to see exactly how much money is spent in that department. For example, when looking at the budget classified individuals include bus drivers as well as human relations personal. These are both two different subgroups within my chart. The budget is not broken up between cost on maintenance of transportation vs. personal used to drive the buses. I found this across many aspects of every department. When discussing curriculum that uses technology does that fall under technology as a tool or a program? The technology department is a very large department that includes technicians as well as support staff in implementing blended learning. On the other hand there are also personnel that are used in technology that are not certificated and do not work with directly with students, yet are vital in making sure all of the programs run effectively throughout the district. I think overall the biggest lesson that I learned is that when looking at a district such as Vista Unified there are many, many overlapping responsibilities within each department. Due to this, how can we know for sure each personnel or item purchased is essential to running an effective educational setting so that expenditures are not being used ineffectively? When looking at our technology plan I can see that the plan has been created to be efficient and productive. However, when looking at many of our facilities I do not see quite the same care and detail being given. With that said, I was impressed with how business services lives within almost each department. Hopefully this means that the right hand is continually talking to the left hand when making decisions on how and where money is being spent and if it is truly necessary or if we are continually overspending because of lack of conversation. Finally, I was very impressed with the support and systems set up within my district. I am not in a position to say if we are using our budget effectively and efficiently but we truly are on the road to becoming the model of educational excellence! |
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April 2016
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