Action Plan
Action Plan
School District Portal
School District 47's portal is a great tool for sharing resources with students and parents. However, it is greatly underused. Students can access materials (such as Kurzweil documents) set out by teachers and they can hand in digital assignments and create portfolios here. The district portal also has a 'Homedrive' for students to access school work from home to work on it. It also includes 'Onedrive' for students to create a Microsoft word document or Powerpoint, for example, on a cloud. My goal will be to continue to encourage Teachers, Educational Assistants and Students to learn to use the district portal and to realize its' benefits. My plan is to share my Kurzweil and Toolkit assignments with the school staff through the district portal.
Small groups
My position has been increased for next year so I would like to schedule in time, 3 times per week, to work with small groups of intermediate students to work on learning to use assistive technology tools. Consistent time is needed with students to help them to feel comfortable using these tools. This year, I helped students get started at the beginning of the year but then as the students tried to use the technology in the classroom, things fell apart. The teacher did not know how to support and students became frustrated. Next year, it is important for me to pull out small groups but also to be present in the classroom to make sure that the use of technology is effective and not frustrating.
Staff Meetings
I am going to speak to my administrator about placing technology as a standing item on the agenda of staff meetings. This gives all of us an opportunity to share assistive technology tools that we have found and that others may find useful. It also gives staff an opportunity to express frustrations if something is not working well. During this collaboration one of us would likely know how to help resolve a problem or how to find the support.
School District
I shared the extensions that we learned about in this course with the school district technology staff. They are now looking into installing them on all student laptops over the summer. I am going to continue to advocate to make assistive technology tools available to all students. Currently, only designated students have access to Kurzweil, for example. Yet, there are so many other students who would greatly benefit from using this tool.
A person has also been hired to try to promote assistive technology in schools and I will continue to meet with her on a monthly basis and to promote the use of her services in our school. By request, she has also come in and worked with an Educational Assistant to meet a student's specific needs.
Education
A huge problem in implementing assistive technology tools in this district is that staff either does not know about the technology or does not know how to use it. Although the intermediate teachers attended a Kurzweil training session by SETBC, they did not have Kurzweil installed on their computers so they had no opportunity to practice using it. I advocated to have Kurzweil installed on all intermediate teacher's computers.
There are also a lot of teachers afraid of using technology. While we can not force teachers to use technology, such as Kurzweil, we can share our excitement at these amazing tools available and gently encourage. I have met with teachers a couple of times this year to show them how to use Kurzweil or how to set up portfolios. I am going to continue to make myself available for these purposes.
The district has offered Pro-D to try to encourage the use of assistive technology but it has been poorly attended. I think that asking a district technology staff member to come and work with a small group of teachers is more effective. I'm going to see if I can set this up for next year.
Since our online sessions on Google Chrome Extensions, I have been spending time with parents after school based team meetings to share these amazing tools. I also taught my Grade 6/7 class how to install and use these great tools.
Myself
I thought that I knew a decent amount about assistive technology before taking this course but now I feel I really didn't know that much! I feel overwhelmed with all that is out there and available to use. It is going to take some time to absorb it all and I am going to continue to look for assistive technology tools to meet the needs of all learners.
School District Portal
School District 47's portal is a great tool for sharing resources with students and parents. However, it is greatly underused. Students can access materials (such as Kurzweil documents) set out by teachers and they can hand in digital assignments and create portfolios here. The district portal also has a 'Homedrive' for students to access school work from home to work on it. It also includes 'Onedrive' for students to create a Microsoft word document or Powerpoint, for example, on a cloud. My goal will be to continue to encourage Teachers, Educational Assistants and Students to learn to use the district portal and to realize its' benefits. My plan is to share my Kurzweil and Toolkit assignments with the school staff through the district portal.
Small groups
My position has been increased for next year so I would like to schedule in time, 3 times per week, to work with small groups of intermediate students to work on learning to use assistive technology tools. Consistent time is needed with students to help them to feel comfortable using these tools. This year, I helped students get started at the beginning of the year but then as the students tried to use the technology in the classroom, things fell apart. The teacher did not know how to support and students became frustrated. Next year, it is important for me to pull out small groups but also to be present in the classroom to make sure that the use of technology is effective and not frustrating.
Staff Meetings
I am going to speak to my administrator about placing technology as a standing item on the agenda of staff meetings. This gives all of us an opportunity to share assistive technology tools that we have found and that others may find useful. It also gives staff an opportunity to express frustrations if something is not working well. During this collaboration one of us would likely know how to help resolve a problem or how to find the support.
School District
I shared the extensions that we learned about in this course with the school district technology staff. They are now looking into installing them on all student laptops over the summer. I am going to continue to advocate to make assistive technology tools available to all students. Currently, only designated students have access to Kurzweil, for example. Yet, there are so many other students who would greatly benefit from using this tool.
A person has also been hired to try to promote assistive technology in schools and I will continue to meet with her on a monthly basis and to promote the use of her services in our school. By request, she has also come in and worked with an Educational Assistant to meet a student's specific needs.
Education
A huge problem in implementing assistive technology tools in this district is that staff either does not know about the technology or does not know how to use it. Although the intermediate teachers attended a Kurzweil training session by SETBC, they did not have Kurzweil installed on their computers so they had no opportunity to practice using it. I advocated to have Kurzweil installed on all intermediate teacher's computers.
There are also a lot of teachers afraid of using technology. While we can not force teachers to use technology, such as Kurzweil, we can share our excitement at these amazing tools available and gently encourage. I have met with teachers a couple of times this year to show them how to use Kurzweil or how to set up portfolios. I am going to continue to make myself available for these purposes.
The district has offered Pro-D to try to encourage the use of assistive technology but it has been poorly attended. I think that asking a district technology staff member to come and work with a small group of teachers is more effective. I'm going to see if I can set this up for next year.
Since our online sessions on Google Chrome Extensions, I have been spending time with parents after school based team meetings to share these amazing tools. I also taught my Grade 6/7 class how to install and use these great tools.
Myself
I thought that I knew a decent amount about assistive technology before taking this course but now I feel I really didn't know that much! I feel overwhelmed with all that is out there and available to use. It is going to take some time to absorb it all and I am going to continue to look for assistive technology tools to meet the needs of all learners.