Teaching and Learning in Texas

Of the four areas of the Texas Long Range Plan for Technology, I would like to discuss the first area, Teaching and Learning.

The focus in this area is for all teachers and learners to have access to relevant technologies and resources anytime and anywhere. Once access is granted, real-world problems and solutions should be addressed in a collaborative fashion using research based strategies. During this process, communication will be constant and in a variety of formats to accommodate diverse audiences.

Texas has always been a leader in many areas within the United States and technology is definitely one of them. In 1988 the Long Range Plan for Technology was adopted to address the changing economy and the demands it made on the citizenry of Texas to be more educated and competitive on the global stage. Locally, Manor ISD being in the back yard of the capital has been lucky to have people with the forward thinking vision to incorporate technology into the district education development plan. This school year and last, Manor ISD has made a big push to increase our focus on technology through increasing infrastructure and providing effective and strategic professional development for administrators and teachers.

Now that schools have a certain level of technology infrastructure, I believe the trend now is to have wireless access. This past year, my campus increased their wireless access from the office area to the whole school. Over the summer we purchased a COW (Computer on Wheels) and now students are doing more collaborative and engaging work using our wireless access. It makes it too hard to have “wired” computers because there is not enough space in the average classroom for more than a few computers of which only a few students can work at a time. Also, if you want to do a project outside of the classroom walls, you could not do that with a “wired” computer.

My recommendation for improvement in the area of Teaching and Learning would simply be to provide as much relevant professional development as possible. This professional development needs to be “learning while doing” sessions. An active network of collaboration and support with fellow teachers needs to be made available so that generation and implementation of ideas won’t be so daunting.