Strategic Planning for Tech Discussion Four

Areas of Work	STaR Chart Key Area	Resources Used to Determine	“Broad Area”
Increase student achievement in all areas including academics, extracurricular, and character.	Teaching and Learning	STaR Chart/Campus Goals	Customer
Build capacity in all district employees by recruiting, retaining, and training fully certified and highly qualified principals, teachers, and staff.	Educator Preparation and Development	STaR Chart/SWOT/Campus Goals	People
Build a college and career going culture throughout the district that promotes critical, creative, progressive, and innovative thinking	Leadership, Admin, Instructional Support	STaR Chart/SWOT	Financial
Become a district of choice in Kaufman County by improving student programs and services.	Infrastructure for Technology	STaR Chart/SWOT	Process

How do the areas of work you identified align with Olsen's " broad areas"?

The areas in the chart are from TISD district plan, I think they are fairly well aligned with the broad areas. Each of them are from a section of the STaR Chart so that is helpful.

Do they align with priority goals that MISD's addresses in its district and department strategic plans?

I think they are pretty similar to MISD district plan, wording is different and focus is shifted on some of them but overall similar goals.

Do you see alignment between those areas of work and the priority goals set by the school that you’ve selected in its strategic plan?

Yes I can see where the areas of work and the priority goals are aligned. They seem to flow from an idea to a step to implement the idea.

Now that you’ve conducted your SWOT, do the results prompt you to refine or change the technology areas of work that you identified in Week 2?

Somewhat, my responses from the SWOT were limited, I didn’t get a lot of response. I ended up using a lot from the example provided assuming it would be similar across schools. I think I will stick mainly to the stated areas of work and refine them in the details of implementation.

Data Doc Analysis 3 - Strategic Challenges & Advantages

Vision- With the use of technology students will achieve academic excellence and promote responsible, productive, and ethical behavior.

Mission - Increase the use of technology for every student, every day for 21st century learning experiences. 

Star chart summary

1.     Teaching and Learning 13                                                 Developing tech

2.     Educator Preparation and Development 12                          Developing tech

3.     Leadership, Admin., Instructional Support 12                       Developing tech

4.     Infrastructure for Technology 13                                        Developing tech

SWOT

Strengths-Administration support, Strong tech team, good support, iPads availability

Weaknesses- infrastructure, more devices, fixed mindsets, bandwidth

Opportunities- training, collaboration, eBooks, students allowed to bring own device

Threats- Lack of funds, cyber bullying, sexting, social networking

Strategic Challenges

1.       If we don’t address technology infrastructure, we can’t be the school we aspire to be. If we could only lay the groundwork for technology infrastructure, we could become a school characterized by academic excellence and widespread integration of technology resources.

2.       If we don’t address a lack of funds, we can’t be the school we aspire to be. If we could only increase funding, we would become a school that can provide 21st century learning experiences to every student.

3.       If we don’t address fixed mindsets, we can’t be the school we aspire to be. If we could only move towards a growth mindset, we could become a school that is utilizing every available resource and forging ahead in the use of technology in the classroom.

Strategic Advantages

1.       We can expand our administration support to overcome our fixed mindset. We can leverage our administration support given our relationship with our tech team.

2.       We can expand our training to overcome our fixed mindset. We can leverage our training given our relationship with our tech team.

3.       We can expand our collaboration to overcome our lack of funds. We can leverage our tech team given our relationship with administration support.

I tried hard to follow the outline but i'm not real happy with how it ended up. the sentences seem "clunky" and strange. I cant imagine actually saying them in real life. i don't know maybe i am misunderstanding the assignment, maybe it would be easier if i worked there and knew the day to day activities represented by the SWOT. like for strategic advantages i could do something like "we can use our support from the administration to push teacher with a fixed mindset to move towards a growth mindset." or "We can collaborate to overcome a lack of funding by using our tech team to do more with less." maybe this is just me complaining again. (i tend to do that and i am working on it) 

Data Doc Analysis 2 - Mission & Vision Statements

Our Mission

The mission of the Terrell Independent School District, a community of unique, diverse people, is to provide an exceptional learning experience in a safe, nurturing environment, challenging our students to achieve academic excellence and to be responsible, productive, and ethical members of a changing society.

I believe this is the district mission statement, I called up to the school to confirm this. A pretty interesting call. The first person I talked to didn’t seem to know what a mission or vision statement were. They were happy to transfer me to someone they thought might be able to give me a better answer though. The new person confirmed what I have above is the district mission statement but that was all they had. She didn’t know about the vision statement though. I told her I found the motto online and asked if that was what they were using. She didn’t know what the motto was so I read it to her but she didn’t recognize it.

The mission of the Terrell Independent School District, a community of unique, diverse people,- this part is just describing who TISD is and sees themselves as. I don’t think it needs to be included in the mission statement because it isn’t a mission, it is just who they are.

is to provide an exceptional learning experience in a safe, nurturing environment, challenging our students to– this is the meat of the mission I think. Provide an exceptional learning experience is something you do, the same with nurturing environment, something you need to provide, and finally challenging students, again something you need to achieve.

achieve academic excellence and to be responsible, productive, and ethical members of a changing society. – this is the result section, what they expect to happen if they achieve the last segments goals.

For a rewrite, I would just edit out the first part leaving the following

Our mission - is to provide an exceptional learning experience in a safe, nurturing environment, challenging our students to achieve academic excellence and to be responsible, productive, and ethical members of a changing society.

I think that keeps exactly with what they wanted to say and removes the part that aren’t necessary.

As I said there were some confusion at the school as to if there was a vision statement so I am using the motto.

Motto: 100% of JFK students will learn and achieve every day!

As for using this as a vision statement I think it works great. It is short to the point and gives an example of what needs to happen every day.

Overall from what I understand from the readings though the articles these are backwards. The mission statement should be short term goals (1-3) years where the vision statement should be longer term end results.

So with the renaming they would look like this

Our vision - is to provide an exceptional learning experience in a safe, nurturing environment, challenging our students to achieve academic excellence and to be responsible, productive, and ethical members of a changing society.

Our mission -100% of JFK students will learn and achieve every day!

I am wondering if I didn’t get them confused myself but as I reread it I think short term is mission and long term is vision so that should be correct.

edited mission/ vision after classmate suggestions

Vision- With the use of technology students will achieve academic excellence and promote responsible, productive, and ethical behavior.

Mission - Increase the use of technology for every student, every day for 21st century learning experiences.  

Data Doc Analysis 1: School Strategic Plan

Data Doc Analysis

Data Doc Analysis 31OCT2016

1. Select a school.

Terrell Independent School District http://www.terrellisd.org/

I picked this school because it is where my daughter will be going in a few years unless I can convince my wife to let me home school. I planned on looking at JFK elementary but it looks like most things are district based here.

2. Find your selected school's strategic plan.

http://media.wix.com/ugd/602059_a46d40c063c4441a8b9380e0257e21ea.pdf

It’s a 37 page pdf file, has goals for each school in the district, pretty impressive overall.

3. Download your school's 2013-14 Campus STaR Chart

Got it 1 page pdf

summary

1. Teaching and Learning 13
2. Educator Preparation and Development 12
3. Leadership, Admin., Instructional Support 12
4. Infrastructure for Technology 13

4. Compare your school's STaR Chart to the state.

1. Teaching and learning - JFK Elementary is developing tech in this area. 59.3% of Texas schools are in the same ranking.
2. Educator Preparation and Development – JFK Elementary is developing tech in this area. 68.7% of Texas schools are at the same ranking. This seems like it would be the easiest area to improve, no idea why it isn’t being done.
3. Leadership, Admin., Instructional Support – JFK Elementary is developing tech in this area. 38.6% of Texas schools are in the same ranking with most being in a higher ranking. Would like to see this improved, I think it is most likely due to funding and amount of it support.
4. Infrastructure for Technology – JFK Elementary is developing tech in this area. 30.4% of Texas schools are in the same ranking with most being in a higher ranking. This seems like a simple fix, as it appears to be hardware and funding related.

Developing tech, most scores were a two with two sections receiving a 3 score, range 12-13 in all categories. Of course, it would be better if TISD was ranked higher, it would be nice to see it in the Advanced tech category. I wonder if all possibilities for improving these scores are being looked at. #4 seems easy to improve with a grant of tech supplies from local merchants. Wal-Mart, Best Buy and Fry’s Electronics donate networking hardware to schools all the time. I wonder if they are being asked to help out.

Discussion 3 SWOT Analyses

JFK Elementary

Vision- With the use of technology students will achieve academic excellence and promote responsible, productive, and ethical behavior.

Mission - Increase the use of technology for every student, every day for 21st century learning experiences. 

SWOT analysis

Like most of the posts I looked at, I think just about every possible answer was included in the GSES example. So far I have only received two responses from my email request. The business director who doesn’t think she is the right person to help me out and the technology director who says he will help where he can but is covered up in projects now. I am impressed at getting these responses. The last time I did this class I didn’t receive any replies. I ended up going up to the school I picked to see if a personal visit would help. Unfortunately, it didn’t end well. So, any response is a big bonus in my opinion. That being the case I am just going to choose my own SWOT off the GSES example.

Strengths-Administration support, Strong tech team, good support, iPads availability

Weaknesses- infrastructure, more devices, fixed mindsets, bandwidth

Opportunities- training, collaboration, eBooks, students allowed to bring own device

Threats- Lack of funds, cyber bullying, sexting, social networking

I think this list is ok to start with. Most of it was repeated multiple times in the GSES example so I expect them to be fairly common. 

Discussion 2 Technology Areas of Work

William Loftin 11/9/2016 5:07:00 PM

week 2

Maybe it’s just me but I don’t see many differences between the three. Yes, the categories have different names and slightly different approaches but I think it is mostly just using different language to get to the same main point. If I had to make an honest assessment I would say they are the same thing and whoever created them was just rewording and tweaking what someone else had already done.

Maybe I’m a cynic but I think these were done by separate groups who each got paid way too much money for what is a regurgitation of an already existing plan. ISTE did a better job of hiding this because the focused on more base groups i.e. students, teachers, admin and others. But the heart of it is in my opinion the exact same goals and processes and the NAIS and STaR. I should look up which was published first to see who is plagiarizing who.

As for which should guide my schools mission/vision statement, I think it is obviously STaR as my school is in Texas and STaR is the standard for Texas. I don’t understand the question. It’s not like you can design a plan around a standard that isn’t applicable for your school. If you really felt the need to do so I admit it is possible. It seems like mental masturbation in that the standard you’re using doesn’t apply to your school. Kind of like kissing your cousin, it may feel good but everyone knows it’s wrong.

Discussion 1 Who should contribute?

Discussion 1                                                                                                                                                        31OCT2016

I plan on working on Terrell Independent School District, specifically the JFK Elementary school. I chose this school because It will be where my daughter attends in a few years, unless I can convince my wife to let me home school. TISD has a strategic plan district wide and it is broken down for each school. It’s a 37page PDF or I would just repost it here.

I think the technology department would be a great place to start with on developing a technology strategic plan. The principal and teachers would need to be included as well. Parents would make good contributors but I am not sure how to approach them. Many of them may have contacts in the tech industry or know of possible donors. A good avenue of approach to improving in school tech I think.

Micheal French                 Superintendent  

I believe the Superintendent would be the first person to talk to before you do anything on his school, start at the top I figure.

Renee Jones                      Principal  

Before considering a specific school, I think the first person to talk to would be the principal, they would be able to direct you to who to talk to further.

Cheryl Ragsdale                Business & Finance Director 

Finance director, money makes the world go around and always a good person to have in a discussion.

Shuck Wieland                   Student Services Director  

Student services is where I think I would be able to get in contact with students’ parents on possible leads on donors not to mention what the student need/want tech wise.

Rachel Frost                       Director of Communications and Marketing    

Seems like a good start point for approaching businesses for donations.

Stan Heisel                          Director of Technology  

Main contact I would think. Should have a plan and implementation schedule, everything I would need should be right here.

Hello (name and title)

My name is William Loftin, I am a graduate student at Texas A&M-Commerce. I am currently taking a class on Strategic Planning for Tech. I would like to use Terrell Independent School District, JFK Elementary school as the focus for my strategic planning for tech project. Would you be willing to give me some input as I work through my project? I don’t anticipate needing to take up much of your time but any guidance you could provide would be valuable to me. I will of course allow you full access to my final report.

Thanks,

William Loftin

Billiam.loftin@gmail.com

Cell 972.632.9884