This course has given me many opportunities to step into the shoes of a school technology leader. One of the first tasks was to create a shared vision for my current school. This gave me the opportunity to research and collect data on our current school level technology implementation and the technology vision of the district. This gave a great understanding of the current expectations for technology on both the school level and district level. The next part of this course was an analysis of the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats for our technology vision. By analyzing each of these, I was able to gain an understanding of where the school stands. This analysis helped me understand the availability of hardware and software. I also have a much greater understanding of how to identify potential weaknesses or treats of a technology plan. Next, I developed an action and evaluation plan. This gives me a much greater ability to be able to get a future plan up and running.
Another portion of this course focused on writing a grant proposal. This is an essential ability of a school technology leader. It will be impossible for a school to afford every technology resource that is needed or desired at a given school. There are also foundations and community members who would like to opportunity to support the school. The technology leader should be able to identify these resources that are needed and be able to communicate the benefits that this tool would provide to the school. There truly are unlimited possibilities for teachers and students when technology leader is willing to seek our support for potential technology resources.
Another tool used throughout this course was an RSS feed reader. An effective technology coach should constantly be on the hunt for the latest trends and resources that are being used and introduced. An efficient way for them to do this is by using an RSS Feed Reader. The Feed reader provides users with the ability to subscribe to blogs, websites, or any resource that publishes an RSS Feed. This allows users of the feed reader to receive all updated information in place instead of having to visit each of these resources individually. A similar resource to these feed readers is using Twitter. Teachers are constantly trying and sharing awesome things. We need to use these tools that are available to us to learn about all of these resources. I am not much more prepared to support the growth of technology throughout my school.