EDLD 5352 Week 2 Blog Post 1

In the Educator Preparation and Staff Development section it states that in order to provide a 21st century education, educators must have the appropriate staff development to be able to communicate their expectations and the Technology Applications TEKS. They have to know the resources and what is available in order to get the information to the students. In our district, we used to have the INTEL Teach to the Future program. The program was good, just slightly outdated. We have designed our own Technology Institute that all teachers have to go through that introduces certain programs and Web 2.0 applications that can be used in the classroom. The people instructing are real, classroom teachers who have used the tools to teach their students. This model of the teachers teaching the teachers has been very effective and has made others who were reluctant to try new things actually have success. The part of the Long Range Plan that bothered me was about teachers not having access to the tools they need to fulfill the requirements. I think in order to improve in this area, the state budget has to be balanced and all schools should receive the same funding in the area of technology. I know several districts surrounding my own that do not have the technology we do simply because their budgets do not allow for it. Their teachers rely on grants and other areas to provide to them what is supposed to be mandatory. In this global marketpace, our students have to have the online learning opportunities to be able to compete with students around the world.