Tech Leader Assessment

I have been having fun with this assignment. I visited a new website: enGauge: http://www.ncrel.org/engauge

This website assesses a school/district's technology readiness. Here is what I worte in my discussion post for my class:


This survey was eye-opening for me! Our district is the second largest in the state and yet as I was answering questions about the different uses of technology I realized the differences in the technology available from building to building. Each of our schools have a technology budget and use it for varying things. Not every building has a computer lab, a fact I found out when I came to my new building. Computers in the classroom are a wonderful thing, but there are times when students need to be working together in a lab setting.

I found the questions on the use of technology based on gender, race and SES status to be very interesting. I have found in our Title I buildings more technology money is available for use. I have never thought to monitor the use of computers by the three categories above, but that might be an interesting issue to investigate, especially without the use of a computer lab.

This survey is something every district or school should use. It can help a school or district to begin to formulate a technology curriculum or focus. A very useful website.



There were other websites to visit that were given to our class. They are:

http://mytarget.iassessment.com - My Target

http://www.bsu.edu/edtec/nets/profile-it - Profile iT


Thanks!

Student Information Systems

The latest module our class worked on is Student Information Systems. It was interesting to read about the different systems that other districs are using. It was also interesting to hear about systems being used in the business community. One of my classmates, Karen, works in the business field and had some different operating systems that were geared more toward employees than students. They were:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NetWeaver - This link gives the definistion of NetWeaver, which she discribes as a tool used for training employees.

http://www.pedagogue.com/ - This link goes to Pedagogue, which is used to train employees.

These would be worth exploring for professional development purposes for shool districts.

At Ball State we use Blackboard for course work and various other information.

Moodle - http://moodle.org - is a course management system - a free Open Source software package designed using pedagogical principles to help educators create effective online learing communities. This site is definitely something districts need to explore.