ToolsForSchools

=Tools to Implement Technology Integration:=

[|Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction State Resources]
This page includes annual reports, grants, state technology plan, projects, and contacts.

[|Information & Technology Literacy]
"The CESA #12 Title IID Consortium has developed this website as a toolkit to assist your district in developing a plan."

[|Enhancing Education through Technology (Ed-Tech) State Program]
"The primary goal of this program is to improve student achievement through the use of technology in elementary and secondary schools."

[|One-to-One Information Resources]
"The Consortium for School Networking and the One-to-One Institute, a national nonprofit organization that grew out of Michigan’s Freedom to Learn school laptop program, teamed up to build this site. It offers a directory of schools and districts nationwide that have one-to-one computing initiatives in place, as well as research about such initiatives. Visitors can take away ideas for use in their own schools after reading about how other schools have tackled—or, in some cases, failed to overcome—the challenges of making these initiatives work."

Assessing the Situation:
The [|Metiri Group] has developed [|enGauge], "a framework for effective technology use" for schools and districts. EnGauge identifies six conditions essential for technology use effective for student learning: vision, practice, proficiency, equity, access, and systems. The well-referenced report, [|enGauge 21st Century Skills: Literacy in Digital Age,] also includes other skills such as Global Awareness, Creativity, and Self-direction and a section on one of our other topics, the Digital Divide. This is an amazing resource for schools to assess the use of educational technology and 21st Century skills. The [|Resources] page offers [|Success Stories] and [|Classroom Resources] (categorized by subject area) that are very informative. In a nutshell, enGauge provides resources for schools to make the changes that we're talking about in this class. In //Windows on the Future,// Jukes and McCain discuss being a quarterback (p. 87) and anticipating the future in order to educate today's students for tomorrow. enGauge gives schools a starting point and direction.

Calculating [|Total Cost of Ownership] and [|Value of Investment]:
"[|CoSN] launched its [|'Taking TCO to the Classroom'] project to provide school leaders with tools to help them estimate the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) involved when they build a network of computers and wire their classrooms to the Internet.... [|Value of Investment] in technology and Total Cost of Ownership for technology are related concepts and complementary, but different in focus. TCO looks at the installed (and optionally the planned) computer environment costs, while VOI looks at the anticipated costs and benefits of technology projects. The focus of a TCO assessment is to capture and understand of all of the costs incurred for a distributed computing environment for all or a part of the school or district. A TCO assessment helps district leaders to understand all of the costs that make up the networked computer environment, including equipment and software, direct labor, and user overhead. This information can be used to plan for better efficiencies and to help determine costs for planned projects, based on historical costs."

Making Decisions:
The [|CoSN] initiative, [|Vision to Know and Do: Data–driven Decision Making], "offers educators an opportunity to meet the challenge and use data as an effective tool for improving the learning process." **It references the [|National Education Technology Plan] which "calls upon states, districts and schools to establish a plan to integrate data systems; use data from both administrative and instructional systems to understand relationships; ensure interoperability; and use assessment results to inform instruction."** The [|Lemon Grove School District] (see Case Studies on the Research(ers) page for more info about Lemon Grove) used [|CoSN's] [|Data-driven Decision Making Initiative] to reevaluate their technology implementation plan. The [|summary] is listed under CoSN's Best Practices.

Read [|The Data Game] for some examples. "As school district officials invest in systems to do the necessary data collection and reporting to state agencies, they are also discovering that the information they gathertest scores, attendance, and demographicscan become assets in surprising ways. As long as districts need to compile all this stuff, why not put it to additional use? Here are several examples of schools doing more with data. They're turning data into knowledge and using it in ways they never realized they could" (p. 1).

[|School Data Tutorials] "Your teachers and principals have the data, but now what do they do with it? That is a question technology leaders are facing as schools collect and analyze more and more data and then try to use it to improve student learning. This site is intended to give educators the tips they need to analyze and use data intelligently. The tutorials highlight the Excel skills that are helpful when working with building- and district-level data, especially for use by data managers, principals, guidance counselors, and teachers."

Getting Connected:
[|E-Rate] "The Schools and Libraries Program of the Universal Service Fund", commonly known as ‘E-Rate,’ is administered by the Universal Service Administrative Company (USAC) under the direction of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), and provides **discounts** to assist most schools and libraries in the United States to obtain affordable telecommunications and Internet access."

[|Cable in the Classroom] "Cable in the Classroom (CIC) is the U.S. cable industry’s education foundation. Our mission is to foster the use of cable content and technology to expand and enhance learning for children and youth nationwide." On the [|How to Get Cable in Your Classroom] page it states, "Cable in the Classroom member companies have installed a free cable connection and provided free monthly basic cable service to more than 81,000 schools. In addition, many local cable companies also offer high-speed internet and digital telephone services to schools."

Setting Standards:
[|Information & Technology Literacy Standards] by Wisconsin's Department of Instruction

[|National Educational Technology Standards (NETS)] by the [|International Society for Technology in Education (iste)] On the left side of the NETS page there are some great links, including: NETS for Students, NETS for Teachers, and NETS for Administrators.

Integrating Technology:
Visit Help for K-12 Teachers to find out how you can get a FREE Wikispace Plus site that has no advertising and full privacy. There are also links for examples and teacher-specific help.