Technology+Initiative

Our assignment for the EDT6040 class was to investigate a technolgy need at our school and to develop a technology initiative to implement this new technolgy in our school or district. Using the website U.S. Department of Education Institute of Educational Sciences as a guide, we were to create a website laying out the details of the plan. We were expected to create a technology committee to investigate possible initiatives, survey the faculty (or colleagues in business) to determine their needs, create a budget for the initiative, research current trends and determine the rationale for the adoption of this initiative, and develop a concrete plan of implementation keeping in mind standards, adoption and diffusion issues, and security and maintenance. Once we were finished with our website, we were asked to create a professional growth plan.
 * Description**

After determining the scope and magnitute of the assignment I quickly got to work in forming my technology committee. I wanted to find a diverse group of teachers, administration and IT people to gather as much information about the initiative as possible. We discussed some possibilities in our initial meetings and decided that we needed to create an implementation plan for our new administrative software, Blackbaud. Once we had determined the board topic of our initiative we needed to develop a survey to determine what aspect of the Blackbaud program the teachers were most interested in implementing. We created a survey to ask questions about interest in serving in a pilot group, what aspect of the program teachers were interested and how and when they would best like the training. After analyzing the results of the survey the committee decided to create an implementation plan that included professional development for the pilot group. Having determined the initiative, I set about creating the website. After initially experimenting with a GoogleSite, I quickly switched to PBworks as it was much simplier to navigate. Putting together the website was done in pieces with each page creating a new part of the plan. Starting with the introduction and rationale for the initiative, I quickly moved on to methodolgy and results pages. The discussion portion of the website took considerble time to complete as there were many different parts to complete. The actual implementation plan, how we are going to being our pilot program in the fall, took time as well. The last piece of the puzzle, the professional growth plan, enabled me to reflect on this past year (the EDT classes) and look towards the future.
 * Process to Complete the Assignment**

Our assignment was to create a technology initiative. Determining the technology initiative was relatively easy as I had been working with the administration since the fall to find a different administrative software package. I was surprised by how many parts of the technology initiative I had never considered before. I didn't realize how much went into planning and creating a technolgy initiative for a school. Issues such as adaption and maintenance were things I hadn't thought would be a part of the plan. I think having the committee to bounce ideas around really helped me focus the initiative and create a solid plan. Creating the website was tedious but only in the details, PBworks was simple to use and I will use it again in the future. After completing the assignment I feel that I have a better understanding of everything needed to implement a new technology initiative and have started to think about other initiatives that are needed at my school.
 * Reflection**


 * Link to the Technology Initiative**

Blackbaud Implementation Plan

Resources for this project are located on the Resources page of the PBworks cite.
 * Resources**