Texas STaR

When reviewing the STaR Chart information, I was most interested in the Educator Preparation and Development. I believe this is one the most important aspects of technology integration. If the teachers are not properly prepared then the students may be mislead and may experience difficulties later in life from the mis-education they received from an untrained teacher. My campus was one of the one thousand five hundred twenty campuses that are at the ‘Advanced Tech’ level. At this level our campus has integration of technology into teaching and learning and uses online resources regularly, sixty percent of our current staff meet the SBEC standards and twenty five to twenty nine percent of the technology budget is allocated for professional development. For our campus we have been at the ‘Advanced Tech’ level for the last three years, we have shown slight progress from last year to this year, but not enough to advance to the next level. In the state of Texas there were almost two hundred more campuses which reached the Advanced Tech level in 2008-2009 school year than the year prior. While the Advanced Tech is an ok level to reach, I worry about our campus still maintaining this level because Phase I will end next year and we are not at the Target Tech level. I am sure our campus administration is working hard to get us to this level, it may be beneficial for them to share the Long Range plan with staff and where we stand in relation to the other campuses in the state. In order for our campus to improve in this area, it is necessary for the staff to be aware of the teacher preparation that is available, especially if it is specific to their content area. Many times teachers don’t attend or take the courses because they are not aware that they are available, it may also be beneficial to offer incentives for teachers who that participate in the technology professional developments.