My Technology Readiness

During these assignments we have taken three assessments to determine our current level of knowledge about technology, our ability to implement technology into the accomplishment of the TEKS and to take a look at the future goals of technology in instruction. Because I teach in the CTE area of high school I have lots of access and support for the use of technology in my classroom. I scored fairly well on the first assessment in all four areas. The one area I have a weakness in is the creation of documents in a virtual setting. I do not have a lot of opportunity to work with those skills and thus the weakness. My students are incredibly competent in those areas and I make them part of assignments I give but I usually have to get assistance from the digital graphics teacher to give a good assessment of the use of the tools. The second assesment looked at how data regarding technology usage is gathered and used in our school and district. The teacher survey looked at how much we believed our campus and district were addressing the needs of the 21st century learner with the use of technology. The readings addressed issues such as the re-defining literacy in terms of the 21st century learner and the impact of technology. My district is most definetly looking at data and the impact of technology on the new learners, but the organization of education is a huge machine and does not move quickly or make changes easily. The third assessment was focused on our potential future role as an administrator and access and usage of technology. Our district has a large, very intricate data collection and storage system. While teachers do not have access to some data such as discipline, personal information, and other information; that information is shared with teachers on an as needed basis. I am familiar with the scheduling system and although I don't have access I have a fairly clear understanding of how it is built, accessed and used in the daily functioning of the campus.

The assessments were interesting and helpful to help identify areas of weakness but it was not as user friendly as I thought it should be. Some areas leave opportunity for answers that may lead to unclear conclusions.