Minutes

** JHU Columbia Campus ** ** January 20, 2011 ** **Attending** Allegany County: Nil Grove Baltimore County: Jolene Anticoli, Thea Jones Howard County: Doug Spicher, Julie Wray Prince George’s County: Tamara Henry, Lisa Spencer Wicomico County: Carla Lewis, Carmon Molnar Johns Hopkins University: John Castellani (part of the meeting) Towson University: David Wizer MSDE: Jay Bansbach, Jayne Moore
 * Educational Technology Think Tank **

** Background ** Jay – introduced the Wiki, set up for work group to share Asked to share evaluation instruments (in Wiki) Asked if they were the same as teachers or different/bifurcated? Put in any research documents you might have

** Maryland – Unique characteristics/roles, etc. **
 * Wicomico – assigned to schools; coaches; school-based; job embedded PD; model technology
 * Same evaluation tool as teachers (want to see instructing students, even though goal of instruction is modeling for teachers)
 * Wicomico – school based technicians to service schools; tech coaches do not provide technical assistance except when instruction is being stopped because of an issue – focus on being in classroom; meet with district coordinator weekly or bi-weekly (assigned by size of school and AYP)
 * Baltimore County – brought draft job description (Thea will put in Wiki)
 * Have had job description for 4-5 years since added positions to budget – Tech integration teacher at ES level
 * Started with .3 position, to increase with population of school
 * 108 ES; 23-30 principals have made full-time staffing (41.2 positions total, divided among schools)
 * Emphasize instruction; tech integration leadership for the school; technical support to teacher (but also have identified tech liaison in every school – not full-time; receive stipend; liaison is “parts and labor,” i.e. “fixer” of technology)
 * Jolene is both tech integration teacher and liaison; also teaches classes for every grade – was stated by district not to make Integration Teacher a special but…
 * Integration teacher cannot be a library media specialist
 * Would love to combine liaison and tech integration teacher and NOT have them be a special
 * Use standard teacher evaluation form but individual principals use their own sometimes
 * Counted in budget as a teacher
 * Howard County
 * Technology Teachers (ES); at least one in every building; main responsibility is to teach content with technology (number of students determines # of tech teachers – some schools have 2)
 * Certified ES teachers
 * 85-90% of job is instruction (all students get one hour/week; rest is PD; work collaboratively with media specialist)
 * Going into 4th year
 * Evaluated same as teachers; Instructional Technology Office asks Curriculum Office to do end of year report to provide overview of what products have been created; want to shift to portfolio (student)
 * Middle School
 * 5 MSs have Technology Support Teachers (goal is tech support to teachers)
 * Much of Doug’s job is troubleshooting technology, keeps busy with that because they have both platforms; plus he teachers 3 reading classes (one other MS tech teacher has same kind of schedule/role); one is straight tech support (PD) as envisioned; 2 – principals tweaked staffing to have part time tech support
 * Leadership is moving toward having tech teachers teach at least a couple of classes
 * High School – true technology support (PD, mentoring, model -only in one HS)
 * All evaluated same as teachers
 * 3 central office resource teachers
 * Prince George’s County
 * Had full-time instructional tech personnel; although there for PD, technical support issues required their attention; became technical rather than instructional support
 * Now have combination – tech liaisons (usually full-time teachers or coordinator in building); technology got older and tech liaisons couldn’t train on it and became “fixers”
 * High schools have dedicated tech person; MS share
 * Elementary Schools – now have tech liaisons to help teachers (system has district people come fix technology)
 * Technology teams serve coach’s role (traveling to schools or teachers come to them) – helps tech liaison
 * Allegany County
 * 2 infusion specialists (service all 23 schools)
 * In last two years, using train the trainer model (student info system; Microsoft tools, Exchange, etc)
 * PD to infusion specialists to tech trainers (on software – don’t do hardware fixes, etc.)
 * Tech coordinator in every school (generally library media specialist, but one is chemistry/physics teacher)
 * 6 technicians rotate among schools
 * ES – no technology educators at all (for instruction); do in middle and high school; every MS gets tech course through tech ed teacher HS – tech ed teachers for elective courses
 * Infusion teachers evaluated same as other teachers
 * Using Look to Learn (quick observation; calculates statistics)
 * Trend – less full time tech integrator/PD; sometimes lib media specialist shares role

** Job roles and responsibilities are all over the place for technology teachers/resource teacher (whatever the names). Some work with children, some work with teachers and staff, some fix the technology and some do some/all of the above. **

** Measuring student growth ** · Baltimore County - Do not have scope and sequence, which would help to address student growth; should be infused into all instruction · How show student growth? · Best way… student products matched to rubric in an ePortfolio · Look at student growth across content areas WITH technology imbedded · Incorporate technology into standards (not separate) · Jolene – really loves job because gets to work with kids and adults; on shared drive, students can look at their electronic folders to see what they have done over the last 4 years; liaison work is just part of the territory (not main function of job)

** Probably want to come up with consistent name for tech integration teacher ** ** Role of central office support (to liaisons) is critical (trainings, meetings for tech integration teachers) **

** Challenge: How do you measure student growth in technology resource teacher’s evaluation when main function is to support teachers and help them learn technologies and infuse them into their instruction? **

** Look for any particular certif. area? **
 * Howard County ran program where offered certification in leadership for the integration of technology
 * Full-time Masters Degree program cohort (Howard trying to get together)
 * Encourage certificates; resume boosters, not a “certification requirement.”
 * Baltimore County – If principals have an opening, often filled within the school
 * On 9th JHU cohort for Masters
 * Allegany – 2 openings for technology education; hired because had background in technology and became certification teachers
 * NOTE: technology education is NOT the same as educational/instructional technology
 * Baltimore County – look for strong teachers rather than specific certification area
 * When PGCPS was looking for people, held job fair; when hired in 1993, based on technical experience as well as background in instruction
 * Want to define by differentiation between technology integration, instruction to students, and technology support. Need to be looking at certified teacher/school library media specialist
 * Tech leader/tech infusion specialist/extending classrooms
 * Challenge with hiring non-instructional people because of approach (non-instructional)

** MD Council on Educator Effectiveness Questions: **
 * ** How would you identify and measure reasonable growth, in your specific field, at various levels (4-8 in particular) **
 * Difficulty- We are getting kids at different levels. So what would “reasonable growth” be? Environment plays a role, access to technology, prior skills building, etc.
 * If do PD – measurement of growth would be on teachers they work with rather than students
 * When talking about student growth, grades 4-8, not all districts have “tech classes” or access to tech instruction (not mandated in COMAR).
 * If no tech coaches in schools, what teachers are doing with technology will vary greatly
 * Access to technology is a huge considerate (barrier)
 * If no mandated teacher technology training, teachers may not have appropriate skills
 * Need consistent tool to measure growth related to //MD Teacher Technology Standards//
 * Needs to be in COMAR (mandated at State level)
 * Portfolio measures to capture range of student products (aligned to //MD Technology Literacy Standards for Students//)
 * Will be interesting to see what other states are coming up with
 * What defines technology in the curriculum?
 * Howard County uses tool developed in-house for teacher technology competency (from proficient to beginner); developed for students; would show growth over time; applicable to every child but tailored to student needs and to **content (Julie will put tool in Wiki)**
 * BCPS – implementation levels for technology integration (scale from nonuser to integration into curriculum to student use of technology) – Rubric; **Thea will put in Wiki**
 * Howard – past 2 years; at single grade level, selected responses – final product with rubric; difficult to sustain; built 3rd and 4th grade assessments, but rethinking – maybe portfolio is way to go
 * But how do you evaluate the portfolios?
 * Project – end of 8th grade, for example; identified tech content at each grade/subject (Capstone Project)
 * Project at end of __each__ grade (if only at 8th, more summative than formative, so you cannot intervene); technology integration teacher can help teachers with this
 * If looking at assessment of technology integration teacher, how bring back to the evaluation of the tech integration teacher when that person is working with classroom teachers rather than students? Tech integration should not be evaluated on something he/she has no control over. Plus, we don’t want to send the message that the technology integration teacher is responsible for all technology literacy (should be the responsibility of all teachers in all content at every grade level).
 * When student standards were written, there was an adjunct piece that was list of skills
 * ** [Note: Jay will put link to tech standards in Wiki] **
 * Common Core Reading/ELA – addresses skills, including keyboarding
 * Has to be “living measure” because technology changes so rapidly.
 * NOT about the technology – about the learning (technology is the tool) - can’t tease out who/what made learning happen


 * ** Can you identify multiple measures that can fairly measure student growth in your field while taking into account teaching and student diversity? **
 * Addressed in other questions


 * ** How can your specific field of instruction be beneficial to the growth of students in other fields of instruction and how is that measurable? **
 * E.g. If use editing software in English, or a graphing software, do students really understand the tool? What is the measurability of that? Living assessment – development of a product? Don’t really want to be measured on that (process is more important than product)
 * Reflection piece; critical thinking; inquiry
 * End measurement might be a portfolio, but portfolio has to be multiple pieces – show content knowledge, skills, process (include reflection)
 * BCPS science fair – part of judging is whether student used technology and how (students reflect on that); evaluation done by person evaluating the science project (content teacher)
 * Artifact analysis
 * Certification such as MOUS certification for students


 * ** How would you define effective and highly effective in your field? Of the items you identified, how are they outcome measureable? **
 * Look at students’ performance
 * Professional skills
 * Talk with people working with (attended one of your PD sessions, for example)
 * Teacher practice changes (observation); working together
 * BCPS – 9 points (**Thea will put in Wiki)**
 * Teachers using technology appropriately
 * Look at requirements for National Board certification
 * Carla (nationally board certified) – year to year growth; NB is more of reflection; renewal process is over a 10 year period (looking at growth over time); Likes idea of portfolio based on NB – written reflection with products to support
 * Howard – exemplary program documents for every content; identifies what would make it highly effective (or not) – **Julie will put in Wiki**
 * NCATE standards (for library media) to provide context – check CoSN, ISTE (school-based technology person)

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