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What kinds of support are needed to assure that 21st Century Learning can occur, and what are the best ways to provide that support?

Bucks IU's Answers

Category: not sure what was meant

• Planning and communication
• NEED TO HIRE THE PEOPLE TO APPLY THE STUFF
• Netsupport, netop
• Standardize

Category: directly related to how assessment and evaluation of learning and teaching can occur, and impacts on the ways it can occur

• know the expectations
• Rubric for expectations and degree of demonstrated mastery

Category: directly related the information that students need to learn

• What kids need to learn should drive integration
• Learning CANNOT be technology dependent

Category: changes to the roles/responsibilities of professionals involved in education

• -Principals and administrators should take the lead and demonstrate the use of technology, model it in faculty meetings and supervise, observe and assess teachers on their use of technology.
• Let them (teachers and students) take risks, innovate, fail, reflect, learn and move ahead… (aka - Administrative support)
• TIME!
• Kinds of support needed - Mentoring
• Kinds of support needed - Conference
• Kinds of support needed - Team teaching
• Kinds of support needed - Modeling in a friendly way
• Building level tech specialist
• Needs to be supported with research
• Districts need to provide manpower to support technology at building level, especially around technology and curriculum.
• Teachers expected to use tools, and monitored by admin
• Communication between educators and tech support to develop “what we need” into “what we have available”.
• Involve students as helpers
• Make pay more competitive for all IT people
• Get support close to the building
• Expect professional level support
• User groups at all levels
• Access to network drive from home
• students helping teachers? ala reverse mentoring
• emerging technologies
• transparent use of tech
• Technology Facilitator
• Example: “digital field trip” - how does Mrs. X get her kids to participate?

Category: Educational Governance, including PDE and school boards. Directly related to the support of education by society and the impact of education on society.

• SCHOOLBOARD MUST SUPPORT –and know investment will pay off
• State funding model has to change
• Plan for growth in new buildings
• Win over the board a barrier...
• Public support may be low for purchases... why not use afterschool resources for community benefit.

Category: directly related to the technology available and/or support for the technology

• in house support, where the resources are available
• Locally based Integration specialists – as important as the IT specialists…
• Support is available when/where needed
• Reduce the number of pcs per technician
• Spare equipment
• Immediate support for software, hardware, network, etc
• Sophisticated servers (fault tolerant)
• technical support for teachers
• total cost of ownership. As you go 1 to 1, you need to increase support funds and resources.
• Big Idea: Downtime is unacceptable! Have spares available for quick repair.

Category: Training needed

• -Teach the right people, not just the same people (administrators, people of influence, literacy and math specialists need to lead and demonstrate how you can meet the standards through use of technology.
• support that is readily available on the appropriate level
• workshops offered at convenient times, with in the workday
• Adequate level of support is available
• Instructional support available after/ instead of “one shot” workshops
• Model, mentor, pair teachers,
• Staff development opportunities
• Just in time training and support
• Application support - who is the expert? How does a teacher get there?

Edinboro's Answers

Category: not sure what was meant

• Willingness to learn is linked with the technology working well as it should. This depends on standards, testing cycles, benchmarks, anchors, etc. that are constantly changing
• Updated software may not be possible for each area and computer so maybe the importance of some things might need to be put off so funds can be used for some other items
• Informed decisions
• Teachers won’t use it if they are scared to use it – afraid it might not work, if it doesn’t work
• Are a lot of tools that you can use that will not take too much time: Deep freeze, Networked systems
• Mac vs Windows: Overall doesn’t seem to be an issue in education (single platform). Some educators will only use one or the other
• Mac vs Windows: Nice to have only a couple of popular operating systems – because it is easier to remember a few.
• Kids don’t care about mac or pc – they just want to use on. They will use it if they want to. They will find a way to use it if they have a need.
• Sometimes educators/administrators don’t want to spend the money to train with vendors – vendors may not sell it if they know it will fail.

Category: directly related the information that students need to learn

• Project based learning where requirements are given and media can be chosen

Category: changes to the roles/responsibilities of professionals involved in education

• We need to know what they know and what tools they
• Time
• Build a sense of community within school
• Use the train the trainer idea to help support training and technology. Use a combination of students, teachers, and techs (whatever is available) as tech support. Technology internships for students are one example.
• Work as a team to utilize the strengths of all parties to help solve as many problems and offer as much support as possible.
• You need the support of all of the administration in order to apply these ideas. Without that support none of it will work.
• Tech support – support for tech support people, have someone to go to the classrooms to ask the teachers what they are teaching and show them how they can integrate technology into the lesson. Show them (hands on) what to use and how.

Category: Educational Governance, including PDE and school boards. Directly related to the support of education by society and the impact of education on society.

• Harrisburg should quit deciding what is best for us, just give us the funding and we can apply it where our individual needs are, as we are all developing at different rates.
• Funding streams will have to be increased from the state level, supplied on a yearly basis, (technology subsidy) to support this new increasing need for schools – renewal of resources will need to be more frequent as well
• Money money money
• Look into other federal funded programs to shift money because it’s allowed
• Need stakeholders involvement
• College and technical internships, and utilizing any parents who are available and somewhat knowledgeable can help.

Category: directly related to the technology available and/or support for the technology

• More tech people will be needed
• Equipment will need to be updated and refreshed regularly as technology is upgraded
• Tech support - One person can’t take care of all systems through out school – need right amount of staff
• Mac vs windows – web based systems – can’t use certain cites
• Mac vs Windows: When building resources – usually need to limit the platform usage. Use one or the other.
• Mac vs Windows: Starting to shift to one open source
• Mac vs Windows: Support has to know how to fix both – that means training both

Category: Training needed

• Training and support
• Make funding known to people
• Professional development – can’t hurt to know both
• Mac vs Windows: How will we train, how will we budget both?
• Mac vs Windows: When will we train?
• Mac vs Windows: Vendors will come in and train for specific software
• Mac vs Windows: Even if you can budget training, when are you going to train?

Kings College's Answers

Category: changes to the roles/responsibilities of professionals involved in education

• Leadership
• Set-up student support groups
• Peer interaction
• Multi-tasking roles, rather than isolated roles that don’t cross lines of responsibility. Roles need to be coordinated, cross-trained.
• Informed support- teachers and stakeholders are educated enough in multiple aspects of the instructional use of educational technology to talk together.
• A technology budget is needed – use refresh method – creative budgeting – smarter on how we spend the money
• Partnerships and relationships with different vendors
• Emotional support - remove fear of technology!

Category: directly related to the technology available and/or support for the technology

• Technical Support
• Communication: Important all three (leadership, tech support, instructional support)

Category: Training needed

• Instructional Support

Mansfield's Answers

Category: not sure what was meant

• education needs more systemic change than any group
• there needs to be a paradigm shift from all directions
• is technology support from School Boards limited because today’s School Boards have not grown up with technology; have managed for many years without it? Will today’s students embracing technology as tomorrow’s School Board members feel the same way?
• is there a resistance to change? is it a fear of the unknown?

Category: Change in methodology

• Team teaching.

Category: changes to the roles/responsibilities of professionals involved in education

• Open Communication and Direction
• change will only occur when you can bring the School Boards online to value technology integration
• politics plays a key role in this; we need to become our own advocates
• look at the private business model--survival model
• district-leve research
• home-grown assistance; student apprenticeships
• Use of students to provide some of the support.
• Sharing cost between districts.
• Personality change to being a co-learner.
• More effective use of grant money
• Resident Technology Integrator: adaptations of new tools
• IT and “Experts” to share knowledge

Category: Educational Governance, including PDE and school boards. Directly related to the support of education by society and the impact of education on society.

• School Board / Federal and State Buy-In
• Funding needs to be there
• in order to change, we need a commitment from the state is a sharing partneship
• funding from state level for apprenticeships
• Partnerships with computer manufacturers

Category: directly related to the technology available and/or support for the technology

• communication tools is essentail
• more district-level help desk type support
• remote support
• Help fast. Fast help.
• Consolidate support systems. Remote access.
• Secure systems.
• Helpdesk
• Repository of Resources—online
• Repository of Resources—online: ideas already utilized by educators
• Repository of Resources—online: examples of utilization
• Resident Technology Integrator: bank of materials
• Hyrids--classroom setting with online capabilities (resources)--works the students into an online situation--TURNING POINT (software application)
• review content online
• assignments/remediation online
• library resources online
• more technology support people per building: troubleshooting, helping teachers development technology savy lessons

Category: Training needed

• Professional Development (Online) and Support (Knowledge-base/Helpdesk)
• train the trainer programs
• know where to go to get help.
• Progressive professional development: IT people
• Progressive professional development: Integrators
• Resident Technology Integrator: demonstrate the new tools

Seton Hill's Answers

Category: not sure what was meant

• We know how to utilize the technology and not the knowledge

Category: Change in methodology

• Users need to realize that if the technology is not functioning correctly, they need to be able to go to “Plan B.” They also need to have basic troubleshooting ability.

Category: changes to the roles/responsibilities of professionals involved in education

• Teachers need to take ownership of the technology in the classroom to try to do basic troubleshooting in their classroom. They don’t need to be technicians, but need to have basic troubleshooting skills.
• Teachers need support staff to help them writing lesson plans, etc, to help them use the tools effectively. We need to have educational leadership in place that can help them learn to use the new technology effectively. They also need time to work with the new technology beyond training. This “play time” is important for them to figure out the best way to use the new technology in their classroom.
• Immigrants need to understand the structure of the language of technology

Category: Educational Governance, including PDE and school boards. Directly related to the support of education by society and the impact of education on society.

• Staff, time, money, learning resource centers, more training

Category: directly related to the technology available and/or support for the technology

• Upgrades need to be rolled out in such a fashion that support continues to decrease.
• Peripherals need to keep pace with the computers themselves. If the peripherals are not reliable, then they will not be used by the teachers or students.
• The use of help desks and roving technicians who can quickly respond to calls for assistance to keep the educational process moving.
• We need to have preventative maintenance programs which look ahead to keep things working. For example, we need a way to keep track of bulb hours and have replacements on hand.
• Technology needs to be supported and up to date. ex: apple2e cannot be used to teach the technology of today
• more than one person- for tech support

Category: Training needed

• The tools themselves can provide support. There are more online training and tutorials available to assist the users. These decrease the amount of support needed on a person to person basis.
• We need more human resources for support to make sure we can support the teachers, students and administrators. In many cases this can’t be “outsourced,” but needs to be someone who understands educational priorities.

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