Martha R. Smith FRIT 7738 Dr.

Downs Effingham County BOE Technology Center Evaluation Spring 2012

Table of Contents

Executive Summary Effingham County Board of Education Technology Center Staff and Duties Effingham County Technology Labs Tech Thursday Tech Thursday Evaluation Conclusion Quarterly Report Appendix

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Executive Summary The Effingham County Technology Center is located in Springfield, Ga. It consists of a technology lab on location and another located on the southern end of the county at Marlow Learning Center. The technology center employs approximately twelve full-time salaried and hourly workers. Those workers maintain the technology in the Effingham school system and provide training to enhance technology skills and other technology programs. The stakeholders of the center are the staff, parents, and students of the Effingham County Board of Education. Both labs are available for technology and curriculum training throughout the year. These trainings can take place during and after the school day has ended. The center has a staff of eleven who conduct trainings and provide assistance with technology in the school system. Tech Thursday is a popular program conducted through the Effingham Technology Center. Each Thursday, various technology workshops are provided to employees and parents of the Effingham County Board of Education. The workshops are set up according to requests made by parents and board employees. The programs at the Effingham Technology Center are essential to ensuring our systems students are prepared for the future. The knowledge of the people who work through the Effingham Technology Center is an asset to every employee, parent, and student of the Effingham County School System.

EFFINGHAM COUNTY BOARD OF EDUCATION TECHNOLOGY CENTER The Effingham County Board of Education Technology Center is located the Board of Education in Springfield, GA. There are currently twelve people who work in and throughout the center. The center provides training for school system employees as well as occasional parent trainings throughout the year. Recently a second center was opened to provide better access to the Effingham BOE staff located on the southern part of the county. With this addition, more training and staff can be added to enhance the technology of our entire system. Most of those trainings are conducted through the ETC labs, but on occasions, can be moved to the school if training is more convenient to a particular school. The staff at the lab not only work to ensure the lab is fully functional, they provide trainings during the year, both during and after school, conduct/set-up virtual field trips for students, and they are also responsible for maintaining the labs and technology at 14 different campuses, 2 preschool centers (both of which are currently not in use to try to save the county money), and the Effingham County BOE Transportation Center. I was able to shadow three different Instructional Technologists this semester. On each occasion what I participated in was completely different from the other. During my first shadow event, I was able to shadow Gregg Miles while he conducted Effinghams first EFFTECH day. The technology workshop was provided on a teacher workday. We had about 150 teachers participate in the trainings provided during the day. Not only did I teach one class, I was also able to sign teachers and other workshop participants in, direct them to their next session, take pictures of sessions,

lead presenters to the room where their class would be located, and learn what it takes to put an activity like EFFTECH Day together. On my second shadowing day, I observed Instructional Technologist, Justin Keith, in action. During the day, I was able to see him set up a virtual field trip at South Effingham Middle School with NASA space center. He showed me what he needed to do to set up the field trip so that it would be functional when the students arrived. We stayed throughout the field trip in case there were any technological issues. The students were able to communicate with the NASA specialists by using video and s microphone. The event was successful and all involved (including myself) were quite excited. The rest of the day we went to two different schools to install PRS systems in various classrooms. It was a long process because most of the computers and programs needed to run the PRS system had to be uninstalled and reinstalled to ensure functionality. I was able to help him with a few of the classrooms, but even with that, we were only able to install about 5 systems before it was time to leave at 4:30. My final shadowing day was with the Instructional Technology Coordinator, Jeff Lariscy. His job, of course, is more administrative. During my visit, he showed me some of the various programs he is responsible for. He went over the process and purpose for applying for RFPs, and he took me through the State Media Festival process since our system had just picked forty students to advance to the state competition. In addition, I was able to see him verify the timesheets for the employees of his department. He explained how some of them are salaried workers and others are hourly workers, and how that can sometimes create issues within the department. He also showed me what he has to do on the day of a board meeting to ensure that all goes off without a

hitch. Furthermore, we were present at the board meeting in case there were issues with the computers and monitors. Mr. Lariscy doesnt get to work in the field as much as he would like, but he is an expert with the phone systems which the schools use, so we went to Marlow Elementary School to fix an issue with a phone line. It must be noted that everyone at the ETC has a very different and important responsibility to our school system. All of them work very hard to make sure all aspects of technology are successful both in and outside of the schools.

Staff and Duties

EFFINGHAM COUNTY TECHNOLOGY LABS The Effingham County Board of Education technology labs are available to any division of the school system for various trainings. The labs can be used by school personnel to conduct training or representatives from larger companies can come to provide training on a particular technology system. The BOE technology center has access to a large pull down screen, a Promethean board, and an overhead projector. There are 26 HP computers with 13 inch flat-screen monitors. All school programs are loaded on the machines so that any school can use the computers without worrying if the need program is pre-loaded. The lab also contains two different printers, and if needed, the participants have access to both CPS and Promethean voting systems. The lab at Marlow Learning Center has a large screen and LCD for computer projection as well as 30 new HP computers with 17 inch wide-screen monitors. This lab also has several printers available should printing be needed. This lab is only about two months old. It has not been used very much as of yet, but that will change as we move into the summer months.

Tech Thursday One of the most important programs of the Effingham Technology Center is TECH THURSDAY program. Each Thursday, the staff of the ETC will conduct at least an hours worth of technology to teachers, paraprofessionals, and other staff at the center. The staff development may consist of basic word processing program training all the way to training from one of the companies from which our many 21st Century Classrooms derive. I have been able to observe (and be involved in) many of these trainings. On one occasion, I viewed training on Microsoft Excel with about twenty of the administrators in the county. The purpose of the training was to teach them how to use Excel to better the way they create and present their data. The participants were given instruction about how to create columns and combine the information in two or more column into another section of data. They were then taught how to take that data and create a visual in the form of a chart or graph. The participants were able to follow along easily with the instructor using the computer they have available to them. On another occasion, participants (mostly teachers) were able to learn how to use their school-provided webpage more efficiently. Participants were taught about incorporating the blog pages and other resources into their page, and they were able to learn about uploading documents and pictures into their page. Another activity the learned to do was create an assignment notification page so they could use the website to monitor homework and classwork activity prior to it becoming available to them through Parent Portal.

On another occasion, I was able to participate in one of the trainings myself. I was able to teach some of my colleagues about creating tests through our Promethean system. In the past few years, our Activstudio was upgraded to Activinspire. In do so, our staff no longer knew or understood how to create pre-prepared test using the system. Gregg Miles (one of the Countys Instructional Technology Specialists) and I worked together to teach them two ways they could give tests through the new system. Gregg showed them how to do an instant exam, and I showed them how to create an entire test (with answers) prior to them giving the tests. He found training videos, and I created a screencast for my part, so the participants would have a tool to use in case they forgot how to do an important step with the creation of these tests in the future. I was able to see other activities as well. I witnessed a presentation from a BRAIN POP specialist on using Promethean with Brain Pop. Apparently Brain Pop and Promethean have collaborated together so teachers can use both programs together as an educational tool. The teachers were excited about this because many of them use Brain Pop weekly in their lessons. They were excited to learn that they could use their activotes easily to grade a Brain Pop video lesson. Other trainings conducted through the center were the use of wikis, Photo Story 3, and Google Apps. These are just a sample of the trainings conducted at Tech Thursdays

during the year. Many others were conducted prior to January and will continue to be conducted.

Tech Thursday Evaluation I focused on the function, ease, and availability of the Tech Thursday program. Overall, the program is wonderful. Teachers, staff, and even parents can request workshops to be conducted to enhance the use of technology in our students learning situations. Gregg Miles and Justin Keith are in charge of setting up and conducting most training situations, although others may conduct trainings if it is centered on their expertise at the ETC (i.e. information systems and web design). Overall, all of the trainings I observed were conducted very well. On most occasions, the participants were able to follow along easily by using their assigned computer. On one instance, however, the participants were instructed to watch and not play on the computer. I think this should have been done differently because most people cant learn to use technology in that fashion. They need to be able to follow the same steps with the instructor as they move through the activity. I dont think many of the participants left the workshop with the confidence to go back and conduct the same activity on their own. One other negative is the way they have to sign up to take a class. They are notified of workshops through a monthly email sent out from information technology. On that email they are given links for the classes which are available. When you click the link, you have to sign into the district website. From there it takes you to the main page. This is where I think most people get lost. In order to sign up for the class, they must go to the Intranet then to Instructional Technology, and then to the Calendar. By this time, I am pretty sure most people have either given up because they had no idea

where to go to sign up for the class, or they have forgotten the date and name of the workshop for which they were going to sign up. I think this process needs to be evaluated. There are a lot of steps just to sign up for a class, and many of these people arent tech savvy and most dont want to spend a lot of time searching for something. I know this semester alone, I sent out at least twenty different email explaining how to sign up for a class either located at the ETC or at our school site. I would look at creating a technology class page that is similar to the course page we use for accessing PLU classes. That course page is located within one of the main tabs on the district home page. I think more people would sign up for classes if that change is made. Otherwise, I think the Tech Thursday program at the ETC is a very efficient and valuable program provided by the Effingham County Board of Education. As technology continues to grow within our school system and more funds are provided to use to add technology, I think it will flourish into a large and quite successful program. I believe that Tech Thursdays will expand and inevitably the technology skills of our students will as well because of it.

Conclusion The Effingham County Board of Educations Technology Center is a very effectively run system. The employees of the center are an asset to the success of the students. Without the employees and the center, our teachers and other staff would not be able to effectively use the technology which helps our everyday educational lives run so smoothly. Programs like TECH THURSDAY enable teachers and staff to learn about new technologies that will make education more meaningful to our students. This will help prepare them for their technological future.

Quarterly Report The third quarter was very successful for the Effingham County Board of Education Technology Center. During the quarter, the ETC conducted several workshops through the center and offsite at various school locations. Those workshops and participants are as follows: 1st Annual EFFTECH DAY- January 4, 2012 8:00-12:00- ECCA Excel Training- January 19, 2012 ETC Using Wikis in the Classroom -January 26, 2012 ETC Using School Websites More Effectively February 9, 2012 ETC Infinite Campus Training- February 16, 2012 ETC Creating Digital Photostories- March 1, 2012 ETC Creating Test in Promethean March 5, 2012 ECMS Embedding Video into Wikis March 8, 2012 ETC BrainPop and Promethean-Joined as One March 15,2012 ECMS 150 participants 20 participants 15 participants 20 participants 20 participants 10 participants 10 participants 9 participants 10 participants

The 1st Annual EFFTECH day was so successful and second event is already being planned. The full day event will take place in October on a teacher planning day. Various groups and people have already been invited to present the latest technology to our staff!

We are well into the planning stages for summer. Many great and exciting workshops will be provided to you for PLU credit. Such events include website design, photography editing, and using wikis to showcase student work.

Appendix

Interview Questions

What is your job title? What are the functions and responsibilities of your job? Who are the people who work under you and what are their duties What services do you provide to the staff, students, and parents of the Effingham County Board of Education?

Are your duties centered on only the Effingham Technology Center? How many years have you been with the ETC and over those year how has your job and its responsibilities changed?

Would you say the responsibilities of the ETC will continue to grow in the future?

Tech Thursdays- Evaluation Chart Event Name: Participants Equipment used Activities How did the participants respond to the activities given? Did the participants appear satisfied with the content of the lesson?