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Executive Summary

This strategic plan is for Nodaway Valley Elementary School in Greenfield, Iowa. The

focus is using technology in literacy to improve FAST (Iowa reading) scores. To improve these

reading scores we have to first figure out how technology is already being used during literacy

time in each classroom. To do this the school will use an assortment of tools to determine their

needs. These tools include: teacher surveys, classroom observations, professional development

opportunities, teacher interviews, testing students and previous years FAST data. By using these

tools the school was able to determine their current needs.

Using the data gathered Nodaway Valley was able to determine their needs. Nodaway

Valley needs to use technology in every classroom, become a 1:1 technology school with iPads

and Chromebooks and to use technology to improve FAST test scores. This is a 2-3 year strategic

plan for K-5 students. Teachers will have professional development opportunities to become

more familiar with new technology to use in the classroom. In this plan you will find a

technology vision, technology evaluation, technology needs assessment, three year technology

action plan, and an evaluation plan.

Introduction

This strategic plan is being implemented at Nodaway Valley Elementary School.

Nodaway Valley Elementary School is a small school in Greenfield, Iowa. NVES has eighteen

teachers, twelve paraprofessionals, one secretary, one master teacher, a technology coordinator,

one custodian, one principal, and one superintendent. Nodaway Valley Elementary serves grades

pre-kindergarten through fifth grade students.

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Nodaway Valley Elementary needs to perform a strategic plan to see where we are at with

our technology use. We currently have access to iPads and computers but grades K-2 are not 1:1.

Grades 3-5 are 1:1 with Chrome books. Some of the teachers at Nodaway Valley use technology

everyday in literacy, math and social studies but they also have teachers that don’t use

technology at all. The goal of this plan is to find out where our teachers are and make a plan to

implement literacy based technology. Currently Nodaway Valley does not have any type of

technology plan in place. Some teachers don’t use technology at all in their classroom. By

implementing this strategic plan Nodaway Valley can enhance student learning with technology

and raise Fast literacy scores.

Technology Vision

Stakeholders

The stakeholders at Nodaway Valley Elementary School include teachers, administrators,

paraeducators, custodians, office staff, community members, parents, school board members, and

students. The teachers that will be involved in this strategic plan include twelve grade level

teachers, four special education teachers and four specials teachers. Nodaway Valley Elementary

School principal Connie Lundy and superintendent Dr. Casey Berlau. At Nodaway Valley

Elementary we have seven paraeducators, two custodians and one office secretary that will also

be impacted by this strategic plan. All community members, parents and students are

stakeholders in this strategic plan as well. The last stakeholders in this plan are our school board

members. We currently have six school board members. I have assembled a team of teachers,

administrators and a parent to meet with and get feedback from throughout this entire process.
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Purpose

The purpose of this strategic plan is increase literacy scores on the FAST aReading and to

have at least 75% of our students above benchmark. To achieve this we will increase technology

use in literacy to improve decoding skills, comprehension and students overall reading. Every

year students take the FAST aReading test three times a year. Once in the fall, winter and spring.

In the past two years our individual grade level scores have slowly went up which in turn has

increased our overall school scores. However, we believe that by increasing technology use in

the classrooms the students will learn more and they will be more comfortable taking a

technology based test. We would like to increase our scores now so that in the long term our

students become better readers and reach benchmark.

Technology Vision

To develop the technology vision for this strategic plan I consulted a team of teachers,

administrators, and parents to decide what we wanted out of this plan. During the meeting we

discussed our technology needs and our FAST testing for our literacy. After discussing these

needs we then came up with the vision statement below.

The vision for this strategic plan is to increase technology use in our literacy programs. It

is our goal to increase our FAST aReading test scores to 75% of our students testing above

benchmark. To increase these scores we will increase technology use in all literacy classrooms in

grades kindergarten through fifth grade. We will use computers, iPads and the CleverTouch in

every classroom increase improve our aReading scores. By implementing this plan we will be

able to increase our technology use and our FAST aReading scores.
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Technology Evaluation

Questions

Below is a list of questions that have been placed in order from most important to least

important. The strategic planning team sat down and put the questions in order of what we

thought was the most important to the least important. The questions below helped us gather data

on the types of technology being used in the classrooms at Nodaway Valley during our literacy

time in grades kindergarten through fifth grade. The questions were asked in a variety of ways

including surveys and teacher interviews.

1. What types of technology is being used in each grade level?

2. What apps are being used during language arts time?

3. What skills are being enhanced with these technologies?

4. Is every teacher using academic technologies in class?

5. Are the academic technologies being used enhancing the students learning? And how can we

tell?

6. Are we using quality apps in language arts that will support students with comprehension

and decoding skills?

7. If technology is not being used how could we use it to support aReading in this particular

grade/class?

8. What percentage of the day do teachers actively use technology to teach language arts?

Barriers
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Some barriers that were encountered throughout this evaluation were that we had a hard

time getting answers from all teachers for the surveys, scheduling for teacher interviews and

teacher observations, and the test scores took awhile to get for all of the students. The main

barrier was that we didn’t get all surveys back from all teacher. This skewed the data we

collected because we are missing some of the teachers answers.

Data Gathered

The data sources being used for this evaluation are classroom observations, teacher

interviews, obtaining test scores for each grade level, look at school technology inventory and

teacher surveys.

1. Classroom observations- Teachers that were not interviewed were observed during literacy

time. One teacher from every grade level was observed on their technology use in the

classroom during literacy time.

2. Teacher interviews- One teacher from every grade level was interviewed by a member of the

strategic planning team (made up of four teachers including myself). We had a series of

questions to ask each teacher and interviewed them concerning the technology being used in

their rooms.

3. Obtained test scores- aReading FAST test scores for all grade levels were obtained from Mrs.

Lundy, NVES principal, so that we can compare them from year to year and to see where we

are starting.

4. School technology inventory- The school technology inventory was looked at after talking

with our technology director. We met with the technology director and reviewed/discussed

the technology available in the elementary.

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5. Teacher surveys- teacher surveys were made and sent out using Google Forms to every

teacher. Teachers filled them out and they were automatically sent back to me.

Analysis and Findings

After collecting all of the data from the sources above the strategic planning team along

with Mrs. Lundy sat down and looked at the data collected. We looked over test scores, the

teacher surveys on Google Forms, teacher interviews, and classroom observations. Each person

was assigned two teachers to collect data on. This way we all had the same amount of data to

collect. We took turns discussing what we learned about the technology being used in classrooms

from the data collection we did.

What we found out is the majority of the technology being used during literacy time in

grades kindergarten through second grade is during small group rotations. iPads are being used

for only listening to reading in K-1. In second grade the technology is used for listening to

reading as well as word work on the iPad. All three grades also use the CleverTouch to project

and for word sorts as a whole group.

In grades 3-5 the technology use differed quite a bit. In these grades Chrome books are

being used in writing and reading in the literacy block. They are used for research, listening to

reading and typing their writing. Grades 3-5 also all use the CleverTouch to project onto.

Technology is used more in the older grades but still not being used as much as you would think.

Technology Needs Assessment

Participants
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The stakeholders/participants in this strategic plan are all literacy teachers, special

education teachers, administrators, paraeducators, students, school board, and special teachers.

All of these stakeholders and participants in this strategic plan play an important role.

All teachers including special education, specials and literacy teachers are on the front

lines trying to integrate technology into literacy time for the students. They are all teaching

literacy in someway in their classrooms and are working really hard to integrate useful

technology.

The students are receiving the lessons with the integrated technology. This directly

impacts them and their learning. Students are more engaged when technology is integrated. This

makes them want to learn more and helps them learn in different ways. The school

administrators and school board members are stakeholders because whatever happens at the

school reflects on them and goes through them. They approve everything that happens in the

school. They would like to see literacy scores improve with the use of technology in the

classroom.

Questions

1. How is the technology in your classroom used to enhance student learning?

1. Classroom Observations- One teacher from every grade level will be observed to see

how the technology being used is enhancing the student learning in the classroom.

2. Teacher Surveys- All teachers will be sent a survey to ask them how the technology they

use in their classroom enhances student learning and why they think it enhances it.

2. What types of technology do you use during your literacy time?

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1. Teacher Interview- During the teacher interviews teachers will be asked what types of

technologies they would like to start using in the classroom.

2. Surveys- All teachers will be sent a survey asking what types of technologies they would

like to use in their classroom and if they would like a tutorial on how to use these

technologies in the classroom.

3. What types of technology would you like to start using or that you would like to have

tutorials on to use in your classroom?

1. Teacher Interview- One teacher from every grade level will be interviewed and asked

questions about the types of technology they use in their classroom during literacy. They

will need to be specific about the types of technology they use in writing, whole group

reading, small group reading, vocabulary, and intervention times. The teachers that are

interviewed will be different than the teachers that are being observed in the classroom.

2. Technology Classroom Observations- One teacher from every grade level will be

observed during literacy time. The teacher that isn’t interviewed will be the one being

observed. During the observation the technology being used will be written down and

how it is being used will be written down.

Prioritization of Needs

To prioritize the needs for this strategic plan we used the MoSCoW method during one of

our meetings. We sat down and and discussed our needs with a partner and then shared them out

as a group. After sharing out we used the MoSCoW method to separate the needs into must have,

should have, could have and won’t have this time. Each category had its own chart paper. This
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allowed us to see the actual needs we needed, what we should have, what we wanted but weren’t

an absolute necessity and then what we won’t have this time but could have in the future.

Needs Statement

The Nodaway Valley Technology Strategic Plan for Nodaway Valley Elementary School

will benefit students in grades kindergarten through fifth grade in literacy. Nodaway Valley

Elementary is 1:1 with Chrome books in grades 3-5. Kindergarten through second grade have at

least 12 iPad’s in each classroom for students to use. Each classroom also has a CleverTouch TV

to use with students.

After conducting teacher interviews, classroom observations and surveys the strategic

planning committee looked at our needs as a school. Nodaway Valley has all of this technology

at our fingertips, but doesn’t use these devices to the fullest. Our first need is technology

tutorials/classroom observations for all teachers. Some of the teachers on the staff do not know

how to use the technology in the classroom. Tutorials for all teachers would allow them to use

more technology in the classroom. If teachers could observe in other classrooms to see how other

teachers use technology in their classrooms they could get more ideas on how to use technology

in their classroom.

Another need NV has is to use technology in small group rotations in every grade level.

This means that technology could be used in listening to reading or word work to enhance

learning during this time. At this time we have students in fourth and fifth grade that only read

during small group rotations. By incorporating technology into these rotations students will be

able to enhance their learning and it will let them explore technology.
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Our third and last need is a website or app that works for every grade level with phonics,

grammar, punctuation or word manipulation to use in every grade level either in small group,

individually or whole group situations.

If all of these needs are addressed we will be able to enhance literacy lessons with

technology. Hopefully by using more technology during literacy we will be able to improve our

FAST testing and have more students make benchmark.

Three Year Tech Action Plan

Needs

Currently only about 40% of our teachers use technology in the classroom during literacy

time. The upper grades use technology to type documents and to research projects and some of

the lower grades have been using technology for listening to reading during small group time.

However, not every grade is using the technology we currently have. Grades 3-5 are one to one

with Chromebooks and grades K-2 each have 13-14 iPads in the classroom to use. To bridge this

gap we need to become a 1:1 technology school for all grade levels. We are already half way

there but we need to become 1:1 with iPads in the lower grades.

Another need we have is that the teachers do not know how to properly use technology in

the classroom. Because of this we need a person to plan technology specific staff development. If

we could plan staff development that will give teachers the tools to succeed with technology in

the classroom our technology use would go up along with our literacy test scores. We also need

to create a computer literacy test for each grade level. We will use this test analyze how our

technology use is impacting our literacy scores.

Action Plan
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Hardware/Software

Because our upper grades are already 1:1 with Chromebooks we will just need to keep those up

to date and running smoothly. Our younger grades already have 13 iPads in each classroom. We

are going to use our grant money we have left over for technology to purchase enough iPads to

become 1:1. We will need to purchase roughly 45 iPads to become 1:1 in grades K-2.

Staff Development

We will hold a technology specific staff development once a month according to what the

teachers have indicated the need or want. This staff development will show teachers how to work

current technology, introduce new apps, websites and technology to them. Teachers will be able

to fill out a survey on what they would like to learn. If needed we can break teachers into small

groups and teach each group a different type of technology. This will allow us to help teachers in

specific areas that they are having trouble with. Our lead team will plan and implement these

staff development days.

Facilities/Maintenance

We are going to keep all technology we currently have up to date and working smoothly. Our

technology coordinator Jane Woodside and her high school students will be in charge of all

technology maintenance on laptops, Chromebooks, iPads and CleverTouches. We have a

technology budget of $5,000 a year to replace or fix our current technology. Jane will use her

office and technology storage facilities to work out of.

Financial Planning

To make sure we will be able to implement this strategic plan throughout the three years and

after we are going to apply for another technology grant for the coming years. We currently have
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a grant to buy the new iPads for this project that we just got. If we apply for a new grant we will

have enough money to replace some of the older models when they start to go out. We also have

$5,000 in maintenance for our technology budget. If needed we can submit a proposal to the

board to acquire more funds for technology. We haven’t needed to do this in the past because of

the grants we have received. We are also given permission to buy apps as needed for the

classroom after we have filled out a form and submitted it for approval.

Documentation

Equipment Cost Total

iPad (45) $299.00 $13,500.00

Maintenance N/A $5,000

iPad Cases $20.00 $900.00

Apps N/A As needed

Timeline

Method Fall Spring Fall Winter Spring Fall Winter Spring Weekly
2018 2018 2019 2019 2019 2020 2020 2020
FAST x x x x x x x x
Testing

Observation x x x x x x
s

Literacy x x x x
Test

Self x x x x x x x x
Evaluations

Survey x x x x x x

Teacher x x
Interviews

Small x x x x
Group
Testing
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Progress x
Monitoring
Data

Gather data x x
for what is
needed

Start Plan x x
Process

Professional x x x x x x x x
Developme
nt

Evaluation Plan

Evaluation Plan

The three main things we will do to evaluate the action plan are surveys, teacher

observations and checking FAST data for improvement each fall, winter and spring. Surveys will

be sent out using Google forms to evaluate our staff development. The survey will ask the

teachers questions on previous staff development and where they want us to go with the

technology staff development.

Teachers will be observed at least once a semester to see how technology is being

implemented in the classroom. After being observed the teacher will conference with the

technology coach about how they are implementing technology in the classroom. This will be the

time for teachers to ask questions about technology and to learn more about how they can

implement technology into the classroom.

The last evaluation will be collecting the FAST data from the FAST literacy tests. FAST

tests are taken every fall, winter and spring during the school year. The data will be analyzed to
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see if any improvements are being made because of the technology being used in the classroom.

The data will be compared to previous years as well.

Survey

1. Has the technology staff development done so far been helpful? Why or why not?\

2. How could we improve future technology staff development?

3. What types of technology would you like to learn about?

4. Would you like to observe a lesson in another classroom that uses a certain type of

technology?

5. What type of technology would you like to observe being used in the classroom?

6. How has the technology staff development helped you so far?

7. Which types of technology have you implemented into your own classroom?

8. Which technologies are not of use to you that we have learned about?

9. Would you like to be split up into small groups based on grade levels for technology staff

development?

10. Please add any other comments or suggestions here.

Timeline

Evaluation Person/ Fall Winter Spring Fall 2020 Winter Spring

People in 2019 2019 2020 2020 2021
Charge

Surveys Technology x x x x
Team

Teacher Connie & x x x x

Observation Marilyn

FAST Data Connie & x x x x x x

Marilyn
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