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TECHNOLOGY PLANNING PAPER

TECHNOLOGY PLANNING PAPER

DANNIELLE NERAL

LOYOLA UNIVERSITY MARYLAND

TECHNOLOGY PLANNING PAPER

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TECHNOLOGY PLANNING PAPER

INTRODUCTION

In Baltimore County Public Schools, we use an online platform, like Loyola’s use

of “Moodle,” called “Schoology,” to store curriculum, resources, class materials, class

gradebooks, and area to submit assignments for students. It is my broad goal for this

to be used more schoolwide at my school, Westowne Elementary. Specifically, I would

like to see that each classroom teacher use the program to post daily curriculum

materials and daily formative and/or summative assessments. Thus, each student and

family member(s) will be able to daily see their progress and check on their academic

achievement as each lesson of each unit in the curriculum is completed. Teachers will

do their best to post material day by day so that students can easily and readily

access the material they need each day. They will also give feedback in class as

assignments are being submitted, so that students can go back and “redo” the

assignments they need to. Parents can then go on each night and check their

students’ grades.

I am choosing to set this goal as my intention for my plan because my school is

not utilizing Schoology to it’s full potential at this current time. I believe that if

teachers used the program more, students would be accelerating into the curriculum

at faster paces being that they are using technology more for outside entertainment,

games, etc. at home and are already more familiar with their devices than we are. It

will also set them up to be more successful in middle school, high school, and college

when most of their teachers and courses require them to be using the platform for

every assignment anyways. I also believe that when parents are more trained on the

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program, their involvement will increase as they have direct access to knowing each

and every assignment their student is responsible for.

Rogers Perceived Attributes

Using Everett Rogers’ five “perceived attributes of Innovations,” my plan can

be explained in more detail as to why I would want to implement it. According to

Rogers, the idea needs to be better than the technology that superseded it. From my

experience interning in Baltimore County and teaching here in the previous year,

there has not been a teacher who has yet to put all curriculum and materials online

on the platform. Although students are obviously required to be in school all day,

there has not been any class yet that has all material online. Even if there are some

activities performed in classes throughout the day (which there should be) that are

not on the platform, teachers can still upload material online for parents to see what

students are doing or for older students to review additional content at home.

Another attribute, compatibility, will need to match up with the curriculum

and developmental needs of each grade level. For example, Kindergarteners may be

completing letter identification activities on their devices, while fifth grade students

are going to be typing essays and uploading them to Schoology on their devices. It will

at each teacher’s discretion to decide how to adapt the curriculum and at which

times to place which activities on Schoology. The complexity (another attribute) will

also depend on the grade level, as teachers want to match up the activities they are

assigning with the grade level curriculum, but also the individual needs of each

student. One advantage to using this platform is that teachers can identify subgroups

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of students to differentiate material to and assign certain content to certain groups of

students. The teacher can then actually create separate rubric and feedback for the

modified assignments then too.

The trialability of this plan will be ideal in that teachers will be able to try

something new with the platform every day. If they teach multiple courses, they can

even have multiple opportunities to try new things and techniques even within the

day. Based on individual students, teachers can also try different kinds of activities

and assessments based on what works best for them. With having experience with the

program, I know that there are fill in the blank and multiple-choice options which

may work best for math for example. There are short answer and essay options which

may work best for language arts courses.

The observability is this plan will be shown through the data of student

performance for each course. It will be interesting to see if student scores become

higher with more of their curriculum and daily content being posted online versus the

former paper forms. It will also be easily able to compare data across different

schools and see if our school performs better using more of this online platform than

schools who do not.

Ely’s Conditions

Over my time teaching at Westowne, particularly in Baltimore County, I have

experienced more and more of a push to better our data and increase student

performance. I believe as a teacher, knowing each and every one of my students will

help me to better plan and prepare lessons and materials for each class. The

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“dissatisfaction” of our given curriculum that is still having students perform most

activities using paper and pencil has me thinking that it is worth a try to develop

these activities to go along with our curriculum online. If this is something that is

worth possibly improving our data, it is worth a try.

As a graduate student in the Educational Technology program, I find that I have

the interest and skill to be able to teach the Schoology program to my students. I also

think that through professional developments and/or collaborative planning sessions, I

can help other teachers in my building and on my team become more familiar with

the program as well. In fact, most of my fourth grade students are most likely already

more knowledgeable on the technology than we as teachers from another generation

are.

Each student in the third, fourth, and fifth grade at my school already have

access to their own individual Chromebook to use each day so the accessibility of

using the program should not be a problem. Teachers in the primary grades will utilize

the program as much as possible, but as stated before, due to their social and

emotional development at the younger ages, it may be best for them to only plan and

prepare some of their curriculum using the software.

As I have started implementing the Schoology program more in my classes, I

have found that it actually is saving me time to use it. Most of the activities and

assignments can be automatically graded and inputted in the gradebook online. For

those assignments that are not automatically graded, I can create rubrics that I can

quickly click on the type of feedback I want to give to each individual student, saving

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me grading and planning time. Because there is a section in Schoology for teachers to

share materials, it may also be effective for teachers across grade levels to share

their lessons as well. This way, students in the whole grade can be accessing the same

content, without any confusion or differences in the content being delivered across

the grade.

The participation I have no doubt will have to take place in this plan as all

teachers and required to prepare lessons, grade, and provide to students and parents.

It is with my hope though that all parents and students see implementing more of the

activities on the Schoology platform as a positive way to increase student

achievement. There are some students who may say they do better using paper and

pencil for certain activities, so there will need to be certain accommodations

provided to scan in work, etc. for these students. Students who do complete activities

on the new platform should be rewarded with the achievement of high grades.

Parents should also be acknowledged for checking in with student progress on

Schoology. It is evident in our school that students who have parents who are more

involved tend to perform better in school.

There does need to be a commitment from teachers to implement the

increased use of Schoology. It does need to be something that all teachers are will to

try for a certain period of time to see if scores do increase. If not all teachers in

specific grades are committed, there may not be qualitative data to compare to see if

they plan worked. There should be someone from each grade who oversees leading

the plan and make sure that all classes are utilizing Schoology to the best of their

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abilities. This leader can also help to run collaborative planning and training sessions

so that all teachers can use the most that they can out of Schoology.

ACOT Model

The “Apple Classroom of Tomorrow” model explains different steps/ criteria in

implementing a plan like the one I have described so far, in which I believe our school

will do fine with. As far as the entry of the plan goes, our school already has access to

Chromebooks devices for students and has Schoology platform on all computers. This

should not be a problem to start out with. The adoption of the plan should not be a

problem for the principal, leaders of the teams, and the students. Who it may be a

problem for will be the teachers who have been teaching for a long time who may not

be willing to transfer some content over to an online version yet. There may be more

professional development and training sessions needed for these teachers.

The adaptation and appropriation should be no problem for teachers at my

school. Most teachers and young and are used to modifying and differentiation

assignments for students. If given appropriate time to plan and collaborate with team

members, teachers should be able to adapt our curriculum easily to the Schoology

way of presenting material. Appropriation may take more of a trial and error effect

as teachers learn best what is best for their classes, but will come in time. As

teachers teach some of the created content on Schoology they will be then be able to

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invent new material and will be able to even make it more improved the following

year.

Key Stakeholders & Their Roles in the Plan of Action

In order to propose the idea of my plan to my principal, I have created an

outline of the actions and responsibilities of everyone who will be involved in the

plan. It will be up to the principal to allow the implementation of the plan, then the

team leader for each grade to take action in leading their coworkers, and then the

individual teachers in teaching and overseeing the work done by students and checked

by parents.

Team Leader Teachers Student/ Parent

Responsibilities Responsibilities Responsibilities

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1st • Decide how much of • Attend PD with • Read handouts

Quarter the curriculum teammates to learn explaining plan
of School should be modified about plan • Attend usual
Year to be put on • Begin creating conferences where
Schoology content with team teachers explain
• Communicate with members to start plan
other county putting on • Begin to logon to
teachers and Schoology Schoology to see
curriculum writers • Continue posting where content will
to decide the grades online as begin to be posted
appropriateness of usual • Access student
the amount of • Create handouts to grades on Schoology
content that should give to parents and gradebook to
be put online explain to students become familiar
depending on the about new plan with system
grade/age level • Students begin
• Begin to develop completing teacher
examples of content created trial
that can be put on content
Schoology to share
with teachers
• Give PD to teachers
to explain the plan
and ask that they
begin creating
content to upload
for units and lessons
2nd • Hold PD with • Attend PD to learn • Continue accessing
Quarter teachers to explain about elaboration Schoology at home
how much content of Schoology (for parents) and
should be content per unit, on a daily basis in
transferred to online lesson, etc. and out of school
Schoology program • Attend monthly or (for students)
per quarter, per weekly sessions to • For Students:
unit, per lesson, per collaborate with Begin getting used
day, etc. other coworkers to daily activities
• Outline a plan for and create being posted to
teachers to have material together Schoology
time to collaborate • Have material
together each week created for at least
or month to design 40% of current
material together courses being
taught
• Continue to grade
as usual

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3rd • Hold PD to check in • Attend regular PD • Continue

Quarter with teachers in to collaborate with completing work
each grade to see team members on assigned in
how implementation content being Schoology
is going created for • Parents continue
• Review with county Schoology overseeing student
teachers on which • Continue creating gradebooks and
kind of data can be their own lessons communicate with
compared to other outside of PD hours teachers feedback
schools, across the and post to
county, etc. teacher resource
page on Schoology
• Have about 80% of
current unit
curriculum/lessons
with content
created for
Schoology
4th • Decide on data • Help collect data • Continue
Quarter collection to on the outcome of completing
determine outcome implementing classwork and any
of plan more Schoology assigned activities
• Make conclusions content • Parents and
and plan for the • Attend PD to share student give
following school year results and help feedback to
on how much decide on plan for teachers on the
Schoology content future school year accessibility and
will be used opinion on
• Hold PD explaining performance using
to teacher the plan Schoology more
for the following
year

Conclusion

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In conclusion, it will take the effort of all individuals involved in the plan in

order to see progress come out of the plan. However, I believe with this generation of

students always using technology and the effectiveness of differentiation and

modification available using Schoology and any online school platform for that matter,

there will be a positive outcome that can come out of implementing this plan. It will

take a school year (or a few) to see data change based on this plan, but will be

something that will be useful as technology will continue to be available to my

Baltimore County school in future years and students will only continue to have access

to more and more technology in and out of school.

REFERENCES

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David, D. C., Ringstaff, C., & Sandholtz, J. H. (n.d.). The Evolution of Teachers’

Instructional Beliefs and Practices in High-Access-to-Technology Classrooms First–

Fourth Year Findings. Apple Classrooms of Tomorrow Research.

Ely, D. P. (1990). Conditions that Facilitate the Implementation of Educational

Technology Innovations. Journal of Research on Computing in Education, 23(2), 298–

305. doi: 10.1080/08886504.1990.10781963

ROGERS, E. M. (1995). Diffusion of innovations (5th ed.). New York: Free Press.