I began reading the Texas Long-Range Plan for Technology Progress Report and was overwhelmed by the amount of information it contained. I had no idea it was so immense. I was also unaware of many of the programs in place by TEA and the ESCs to assist districts in meeting the challenges of bringing our educational technology into the 21st century.
I wish my district was involved in the Technology Immersion Pilot program. We have a large percentage of at-risk and economically disadvantaged students and I believe that providing access to a computer 24/7 would have a huge impact on learning. Reducing the ratio of students to computers to 1:1 would be an amazing opportunity to reach beyond the school building walls.
I was also unaware of the Vision 2020 program as well. I would have loved to be one of the participants. I can see the application of distance learning as a real means of offering a wider variety of courses for students. Teacher sharing would benefit smaller districts. Can you imagine a small district such as mine being able to offer Spanish, Latin, German and French instead of just Spanish? It would be awesome. Foreign language is just one area that could be immediately impacted by access to this type of technology.
The Connections program also grabbed my interest. I work directly with at-risk students and dropout prevention is always on my priority list. Being able to engage students in such dynamic ways and offer more flexible scheduling would surely be a benefit to the students I encounter.
I am going to explore these programs further to see how I might be able to bring them or something like them to my own campus.
No comments:
Post a Comment