Comprehensive Classroom Technology Plan Essay

Introduction For many schools across the country there have been many studies on what type of communication is best for students, teachers, and parents going into the 21st century. Many school districts have chosen the (CMC) technology which is the Computer mediated communication and it has dramatically changed the ways for students to interact with their professors, especially for communication outside of the classroom (which is better choice pg1). For my future classrooms this along with the phone and paper is my preferred communication method of choice. Class Website From many studies students who are older prefer asynchronous communication such as email can effectively help students in solving problems outside of the classroom. Recently synchronous communication such as a virtual office hours using online chat was also widely used in the class room. (Which is a better choice page 9) For a school website to exist the schools must first follow these four objectives. 1: An introduction to who the school is. 2: An interface of outside resources 3: Publisher of good works 4: A Data resource. (Tech Trends vol 49 num. 6 pages 1.) Most schools already have websites that display this information however what would need to be created is simply a white board that parents and faculty members who are involved with the kindergarten level can access. White board A whiteboard is simply a website that parents and faculty members alike can log onto and check what is happening in the classroom as well as grades. For kindergarten I propose that this whiteboard would have a white page with buttons at the top that will take them to different links. These buttons are laid out in a simple tool bar layout. |Teacher |Student List |Grades |Work for week |School Calendar |Current curriculum |Classroom policies and | |Contact Info. . | | | | | |procedures | Tool Bar Buttons A: Teacher contact info. – This will have my contact information and the hours I am available as well as my vision and mission statement. B: This will have the student’s names that are listed in my class as well as their parents Emergency contact information only visible to faculty. C: Will list the current grades for each subject for the quarter or semester that we are currently in. D: This will have any subjects or work that we are working on for the week so that parents can visually see what we are doing in class. E: This will have a classroom calendar will subject time slots as well as break schedules, lunch times, and other time slots as needed F: This will have my classroom curriculum for the semester and will be constantly updated as it changes G: To me it is important for parents to know the behavior system that you as a teacher put into place as well as any school policies regarding anything from parent –teacher conflict ,kids misbehaving, lunch procedures, etc. All of this involves the webmaster for the school simply using basic html web creating code to create. The information that is based on the website is simple text with minimal visualization. Email/phone The other form of communication that I would have my parents use would be email system as well as phones. Most parents who are in the current age of computers and 21st technology are familiar with how to email and use smart phones as well. I would use this system to keep parents informed in any behavior issues as they occur. The phone system would be not only an emergency behavior contact system but also an important communication tool for any parent to contact me. Technology hindered parents Now there are parents out there who may be ESL parents that are not familiar with how to access the whiteboard or email. For these parents I would suggest sending out monthly handouts that explain A: How to use the white board and email. B: my contact information as well as the schools. C: Since I am pretty fluent in computers I would also try an hold a 1hour class free to parents a month to show them not only the benefits of technology but how to access our whiteboard for student and classroom information. Of course C is based on the amount of computers that our school district has provided us because as we all know some rural schools are still not able to provide a computer lab. How would I setup communication for this school? Non Computer lab school. For a school that doesn’t have a computer lab or website I would revert back to the old fashion way of creating a folder for my students to take home every Friday that would encompass all the information that would be normally available on the website. School Website security Since I am a teacher obviously computer security would be the webmasters job. However I would ask parents to join the schools computer website by creating a username and password so that they would have access to the resources available on the classroom whiteboard as well as the schools website. Faculty For the white board I would ask my fellow teachers to setup a development team to keep the specific kindergarten audience in mind. They would submit a design as to what appropriate sites, cultural analysis, content organization for a culturally responsive website, as well as development of the site and constant site evaluation. (Tec trends Vol 49, number 6 pg. 35) Eventually after the site was created and used for a year I would ask the development team to go back and perform an analysis to see how convenient the site use was for parents and faculty. Then I would ask this analysis information to be passed around to other schools as well as school districts in hopes that it would spread across the state as well as country. I would recommend using all of this analysis with the website http://teacher. scholastic. com/homepagebuilder/ to build the whiteboard and website for all schools. Conclusion As you can see my vision for communication for the 21st century framework not only includes technology of old (paper, phones) but a computer mediated  communication website that provides all the details of myself as a teacher plus the classroom information for my class. This type of technology will help not only the student to parent communication about what is going on in class but also the parent to teacher communication about my vision and mission statement as a teacher. I believe a white board is what every classroom should have in education for classroom of the 21st century References. Author A: Lei Li1Author B: Finley, John1Author C: Pitts, Jennifer1Author D: Rong Guo1 (2010). Which is a better choice for student-faculty interaction: synchronous or asynchronous communication? Journal of Technology Research; Sep2010, Vol. 2, p1-12, 11p, 5 Charts Author A: Miller, Susan1Author B: Adsit, Karen I. 2, 3 Author C: Miller, Ted4 (Dec 2005) Evaluating the Importance of Common Components in School-Based Websites: Frequency of Appearance and Stakeholders’ Judged Value. TechTrends: Linking Research & Practice to Improve Learning; Nov/Dec2005, Vol. 49 Issue 6, p34-40, 7p, 5 Charts Author A: Walters, Marlenel Author B: Fehring, Heather2 (2009) An investigation of the incorporation of Information and Communication Technology and thinking skills with Year 1 and 2 students. Australian Journal of Language & Literacy; Oct2009, Vol. 32 Issue 3, p258-272, 15p, 1 Black and White Photograph, 6 Diagrams, 1 Chart Website: http://teacher. scholastic. com/homepagebuilder/