Running Head: TECHNOLOGY IMPROVEMENT PLAN 1

Technology Improvement Plan for Dr. Phinnize J. Fisher Middle School

Sara Glenn and Joy Rohrbaugh
Coastal Carolina University
EDIT 760
June 24, 2018
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Technology Improvement Plan for Dr. Phinnize J. Fisher Middle School

Recent advances in technology present unprecedented opportunities for learning across

all school disciplines. The availability of technology can not only support day-to-day learning

activities but can also acclimate students to the world around them, preparing them to function in

a digital society. When technology is used appropriately in a school environment, all

stakeholders can benefit; however, if it is not implemented with a specific vision and purpose, it

will not have the desired effect. After a synthesis of overarching issues at Dr. Phinnize J. Fisher

Middle School, a STEAM middle school in Greenville, South Carolina, five overarching issues

stood out which need to be addressed.

The school’s mission and vision statements do not specifically mention technology or

how it will be used at the school to meet educational goals. There is no technology plan to let

stakeholders know how it will be used or to give faculty a guide by which to plan lessons. While

there is a technology committee in place, its purpose is vague and it neither meets regularly nor

makes any contribution toward the larger technological picture. Teachers lack a guide to help

them in their planning with technology and as a result, they do not incorporate technology into

their daily lessons with intentionality. If teachers began to follow a technology plan and use the

school’s technology with intentionality, the last overarching issue, the fact that students are not

using technology to connect with other cultures and learn how technology affects us on a global

scale, would also be solved.

To improve on the first issue, the omission of technology from the school’s mission and

vision statements, administration would need to explore the possibility of either incorporating

technology use into the current mission and vision, or posting a separate technology plan in the

same location as the mission and vision. The current mission and vision statements center around
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Fisher Middle School being a STEAM school and how this will affect the educational

experience. Both statements begin with: “The STEAM Middle School will…” (Fisher, 2014,

para. 1) or “STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Math) education seeks to…”

(Fisher, 2014, para. 2). The fact that Fisher Middle is going to espouse STEAM education comes

across as the highest priority when reading these statements, and fails to explain the

technology-rich environment which students will experience at the school. Based on feedback

from stakeholders, sentences should be added by administration to elaborate on how the use of

technology will help to achieve Fisher’s educational goals. When there is specific mention of the

part technology will play in Fisher’s mission and vision, this issue will be resolved.

The school’s lack of a specific, comprehensive technology plan is the next issue to be

addressed. Creation of such a plan would need to be a joint project between the administration

and the technology committee, a representative group of teacher leaders. After considering the

revamped mission and vision, which would hopefully now contain references to technology

integration, these administrators and teachers would pose a clearly thought out list of goals to be

achieved through technology use and recommendations for its use in the classroom. All teachers

would be made aware of the contents of this plan, with the school’s administration offering

professional development opportunities to familiarize teachers with the intentions behind each

tenet of the plan. By following these steps, a strategic technology plan for Fisher Middle School

could be developed, understood by the entire school community, and followed by the entire

school faculty.

To make the above two issues easier to fix, the technology committee needs to be

reinstated as a fully-functioning school committee. Currently, the committee has fallen into

inactivity, due to additional ongoing teacher responsibilities and a vague sense of the
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committee’s purpose. Several members of the committee have now taken jobs in other schools,

so the remaining members need to consider new candidates based on technology capabilities and

leadership qualities, and they need to have these new members approved by administration. The

committee then needs to meet to discuss a new direction and purpose, which should include

assisting in the creation of a new technology plan. Once this purpose and vision is in place, the

committee could sponsor targeted professional development to guide teachers in implementing

technology appropriately.

After the previous issues have been addressed, teachers will have a better idea of how to

intentionally incorporate technology into their classrooms. The issue of teachers not using

technology to its fullest capability would be mitigated with the help of a revised mission and

vision and a comprehensive technology plan. Teachers could complete a technology

self-assessment to determine what their level of comfort is and what aspects they might need to

improve upon. Through meetings and professional development opportunities presented by the

technology committee, teachers would learn the best way to reach educational goals through

technology and how to effectively use technology in their classrooms. These professional

development options would teach current technologies, introduce new options, and suggest tips

to make technology use more natural within the context of a classroom lesson plan.

Having a technology plan in place should serve to guide teachers as they attempt to

involve students in more cultural experiences, as well. After teachers are comfortable using

technology on a daily basis, they can begin to plan lessons which have a more cross-cultural

impact and expose students to global issues in technology. One simple idea for using technology

in this manner would be Skyping with a class in another country to meet other middle school

students and find out what effect technology has on their lives. Teachers could also connect with
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authors and other subject experts through Skype in the Classroom, adding a global and real-life

perspective to the school curriculum.

Teachers could plan virtual field trips and plan to travel virtually to areas of study,

museums, aquariums, national parks, and more. Students could also research other countries to

learn what it is like to live and learn outside the United States. The school administration should

ask for teachers to share their global lessons, activities, and connections for dissemination on

social media, at faculty meetings, or through school newsletters. School administration and the

technology committee will know that this improvement has been successful when they are able

to list and share information on multiple cross-cultural and virtual experiences for the students at

this school.

A successful improvement of the school’s mission and vision would result in greater

confidence, trust, and support from the school community. This increased confidence and trust

in what the educational leaders of the school are trying to achieve may also result in more local

funding for the school, more parent or community volunteers, and increased parent involvement.

When all stakeholders know, understand, and trust exactly what the school’s mission and vision

are and what the faculty is working to achieve together, the entire school community is likely to

benefit from a sense of cohesiveness and purpose. Greater parent support and community

involvement contributes to overall student success and learning.

A comprehensive technology plan for Fisher Middle School would end the guesswork for

teachers of how and when they should be using technology with their students and, instead,

allow them to understand and meet expectations for technology use. Teachers would have a

clear path for integrating technology into their specific classrooms, including the applications,

software, and websites they should be familiar with and make use of with their students. This
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technology plan would also empower teachers to self-assess their own comfort and skills with

technology and what areas they feel they may need support or training in to implement in their

classroom. Without a technology plan in place, this school runs the risk of the technology the

school invested in sitting in classrooms unused or, at the very least, unused to its potential and to

the expectation and vision of the district administrators when these purchasing decisions were

made.

A renewed technology committee with a fresh purpose, including the creation of

school-wide technology plan, will unite educational leaders at the school and provide an avenue

for teachers to share strategies and contribute to each other’s knowledge. Professional

development related to technology will be more purposeful and meaningful, as it will be

suggested and hopefully selected by this representative group of teachers. The school district and

local administrators will be more likely to fund future technology initiatives when they see the

success and student learning resulting from the intentional and meaningful use of the school’s

devices as part of the one-to-one technology initiative.

The ultimate goal of all of these suggested improvements at Fisher Middle School is

increased student learning and achievement. Students will be more prepared for challenging

coursework in high school and beyond if their middle school experiences have been purposeful,

and meaningful, and if their technology use has been driven by the curriculum and student

learning goals. They will be more prepared to enter the workforce of the future if they are

exposed to and familiar with cutting edge technology and well versed in working collaboratively

with peers and finding innovative solutions, two focuses at this school as part of their

project-based learning and one-to-one technology initiatives.

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Fisher Middle School already has a multitude of resources, including talented and

dedicated teachers, a strong STEAM and project-based learning curriculum focusing on

discovery, exploratory, and collaborative learning, one-to-one student devices, and school-wide

WiFi capabilities. With the technology already in place, this school can now focus on creating a

plan for purposefully integrating technology into the curriculum in order to increase student

learning. They can share that plan through the school’s mission, vision, technology plan, and

technology committee. These improvements will contribute to a shared and unified sense of the

technology’s purpose at Fisher Middle School and how it will directly increase student and

teacher engagement and achievement.

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References

Fisher Middle School Mission and Vision Statements. (2014). Retrieved from

https://www.greenville.k12.sc.us/fisher/main.asp?titleid=mission.

ISTE Standards for Administrators. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.iste.org

/standards/for-administrators.