EDET 678 Emerge Tech Week 11 Blog

EDET 678 Emerging Technologies

Week 11 Blog

Essential question:  What specific policies will help your district prepare students for current and emerging technology use? How can you help lead your district in creating these policies? 

            My district, Dillingham City School District, has various policies to incorporate and implement the use of technology in the school and classroom. These policies do allude to emerging technology use in the schools but not in detail. The following is in the philosophy section of DCSD’s Board Policy Manual. The philosophy supports using new technology in order to teach students technology literacy, to communicate through technology, and to gather information that can be analyzed and evaluated.

“5. Access and utilize information and technology:

·      provide the current technologies in each classroom, so students will be technologically literate

·      communicate in the global society with computers, video, audio and other technologies

·      use technology to gather, analyze and evaluate information and opinions

·      use computers to process and organize information

·      evaluate the uses of technology and its impact on society and the environment” (DCSD, Board Policy Manual)

            In order to develop policies that support current and emerging technologies in the classroom, the developing team needs to know the philosophy and goals of the district so that the vision flows smoothly to a place the whole community can support. From there a team needs to be created with all stakeholders being involved such as “parents, IT staff, teachers, principals and superintendents.” (Winske, 2014) The team that is created would greatly benefit if they look at other district policies that support current and emerging technologies. Alberta Government has great policies that support emerging technologies. For example, “technology is used to support student-centred, personalized, authentic learning for all students.” (2013)

            If and when I am on the committee to develop and strengthen my school district’s technology plan and policies, I would encourage us to look at the Horizon Report or put in a policy that requires the tech team to look at the trends of technology in education. For example, the Horizon Report has a long-term trend of redesigning learning spaces (2016). With the report saying this, then the tech team should be looking at ways to implement this emerging education philosophy that can be supported by technology such as a makerspace. DCSD’s Technology Plan does have some great policies that can be built upon to support the use of emerging technologies in the classroom.

Resources:

Adams Becker, S., Freeman, A., Giesinger Hall, C., Cummins, M., and Yuhnke, B. (2016). NMC/CoSN Horizon Report: 2016 K-12 Edition. Austin, Texas: The New Media Consortium. Retrieved from http://cdn.nmc.org/media/2016-nmc-cosn-horizon-report-k12-EN.pdf

Alberta Government (2013). 2013 Learning and Technology Policy Framework. Edmonton, Canada: School Technology Branch. Retrieved from https://education.alberta.ca/media/1046/learning-and-technology-policy-framework-web.pdf

Dillingham City School District. Board Policy Manual. Dillingham, AK. Retrieved from https://boardpolicyonline.com/?b=dillingham

Dillingham City School District (2014). District Technology Plan FY 2014-FY 2017. Dillingham, AK.

Winske, C. (2014). Tips for Creating Technology Policies for K-12. Tech Decisions. Retrieved from https://techdecisions.co/compliance/creating-an-acceptable-use-policy-for-mobile-learning-initiatives/#