Why Educational Technology Leadership?

I have always been interested in technology and didn't know that I could make a career out of it. Growing up , we only hear about certain jobs but I am excited to be able to merge two of my passions into one. Technology is a universal language and the world is constantly improving tech tools. It is imperative that schools integrate technology to produce global citizens. 

REC Model

The "R.E.C" Model is an unofficial basal for my purpose in education. In my experience in education, I have interned in Huntington, Nacogdoches, and Arlington. Post graduation, I have worked in the North Forest and Acres Home areas of Houston. These experiences were drastically different in yet they have common connections. Students learn best when they are taught by people they like. 

Rigor through Relationships

Education through Engagement

Curriculum through Culture

(R. Pearson, 2013) 

Teachers are what's working in education

"It is teachers who have created positive teacher student relationships that are more likely to have the above average effects on student achievement." John Hattie (2009) 

Transformational Leaders

Following them has I have fallen in love with Professional Learning Networks through social media! I have a few that I feel capture the essence of what it means to be a movement in education. You should take a look at how amazing they are! Following them and attending professional developments led by them has lit a fire that continuously burns under me! Through them I am able to build, grow and transform into a leader, motivator and better educator.

Technology Based Careers

Technology in high demand Image (2013) 

"The use of digital tools has increased, often dramatically, in 517 of 545 occupations since 2002, with a striking uptick in many lower-skilled occupations, according to a study released Wednesday by the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank(CNBC, 2017)." The total number of jobs represented only represents 90% of the workforce in Americe, so 94% of the 90% represented has technology integrated.
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Emerging Issues in Digital Learning

As we are working through this Covid-19 virus, educators have been thrown into digital learning with little to no training. I am amazed but not surprised at how resilient educators are. This does not excuse the lack of training that teachers have. Teachers have had to transform their traditional class into a digital learning classroom in the matter of days. In the past, I've been an instructional technology specialist and have implemented professional developments that provide a guide to integrate and implement technology in the classroom. I am a proponent for digital learning but I am firm in the belief that it needs to be equitable. There are many students who live in areas that have limited internet bandwidth and whats more common is areas that have limited resources to purchase technology, hot spots or even steady internet service. We, as an educational system, are doing our scholars a dis service by requiring learning to be completely online. Districts have decided on digital learning without providing technology and internet resources, which is detrimental to esteem and instruction. I hope the movement after this crisis is over is that there will be more emphasis on providing ongoing training for technology integration and implementation. " Equity is a lot harder than access. Achieving equity in distance learning requires leaders to focus on student populations who often already have reduced opportunities for academic success in our traditional in-person education model. Our current model has struggled to effectively serve students with special needs, English Language Learners (ELL), homeless and migrant students, students who are academically behind their peers, Black, Latinx, and Native American students and students living in poverty​(C. Seale, 2020)."

Visakh  Madathil  said "Education is riddled with inequality. In the same city, it is not uncommon to find schools with widely disparate instructional quality, equipment, and outcomes mere minutes away from each other. Rather than providing a solution to wealth inequality, education now reinforces it. Technology plays a role in creating this inequality in our classrooms, but it can also help overcome it.

Inequality in education is detrimental to society. It's proven that neighborhoods where children are from play a vital role in future incomes, primarily because of educational outcomes." He also goes on to state "Education Week Research Center analysis found that instructors in lower income schools are less likely than their counterparts at higher income school to receive technology-integration training. Instructors often struggle to explain the technology tools in their own classrooms to their students, leading to thousands of students not being able to fully access resources.

Fluency with technology is important for students as they progress through their careers. It opens opportunity and knowledge and allows students to maximize educational opportunity. Instructors must be properly trained first before any gains are realized. Schools need to become properly prepared to embrace any technology they hope to adopt, but they current aren't." ( Madathil, 2019)

Core Beliefs and Impacts

I am firm in my belief of digital learning but I don't think it should take the place of paper and pencil but really enhance instruction. In order for digital learning to be productive and possible it has to be equitable not with only accessibility but understanding how to manipulate technology. 

"The payoff of implementing more technology usage into the daily agenda in my math classroom has paid off dramatically. Since,increasing technology usage in the classroom my scholars mastery of fifth grade math Teks has improved over 12% since last semester. Scholars are grasping a deeper understanding of the curriculum at a faster rate as well. Before I would spend more time completing the curriculum each school year and was unable to give more individualized instruction. Student engagement during lessons also showed a dramatic increase, resulting in a decrease in off task behavior.
-Albertha Thomas 

Integrating Technology

At School:
​Educational Technology [High-Tech Tools for the Classroom

1. Google Classroom - A free web service used by an estimated 30 million teachers and students, Google Classroom is designed to help teachers more efficiently create, distribute and grade assignments, boost collaboration, offer instant feedback and foster seamless communication, all in an easy-to-use, paperless format.
2. Celestia - Do any of today's students still dream of growing up to become astronauts? Well, the odds figure to be astronomically higher if they are using Celestia.space, a free outer space simulation tool that lets students travel the solar system and "explore our universe in three dimensions." Celestia's educational applications are nearly infinite, enabling students to pair a comprehensive written Astronomy lessons with a virtual journey "through a vista of galaxies, stars, nebula, planets, moons, asteroids, comets and spacecraft."
3. Flipgrid - What if a teacher could pose a question or prompt, and then have students respond to it with short videos? That's the idea behind Flipgrid, which its creators describe as "the leading video discussion platform for millions of Pre-K to Ph.D. educators, students and families in 180+ countries." Co-founder Chris Miller said in a video describing the technology that, in addition to being an empowering way to "amplify" student voices, teachers use Flipgrid to "share their best practices and (success) stories with other teachers around the world."
4. Book Creator - Assigning books to read has always been a fundamental aspect of education; empowering students to create their own books is a way to take learning to a whole other level. With Book Creator - an app that students can use to imagine, research, create, publish and share their own books - students can easily combine text, images, audio and video to tell interactive stories, create reports or build digital journals or portfolios. Teachers can also use the app to create instructional books, as well as build libraries to easily share the work.
5. Wonder Workshop - How do you make it fun for students to learn about computer science, coding and robotics? Introduce your students to Dot and Dash, a pair of lively, light-blue robots brought to life by Wonder Workshop to help kids learn to code. Complete with a growing library of in-app puzzles, standards-based lesson plans and annual robotics challenges, the Wonder Workshop platform is envisioned as "a foundation for 21st-century learning."
6. Newseum ED - Produced by Newseum, the Washington, D.C., news museum, this service features countless historical artifacts and documents, video lessons, interviews and more, as well as thoughtful lesson plans designed around the content. Ideal for helping educators give students a more richly textured look at history, civics and more, NewseumED.org says it is focused on "strengthening civil society through First Amendment and media literacy education."
7. io - A K-12 music education software program, Solfeg.io engages students using a web-based audio player that visually displays melody, chords and the rhythm of a song simultaneously in real time. Complete with educational exercises and video tutorials, the service draws on a vast selection of popular songs students know and love. Teachers are able to use it both to create "an exciting hands-on experience" for their students and as "an effective approach in explaining music theory behind it."
8. Insert Learning - This tool, enables teachers to take any page on the internet and easily add instructional content, questions, videos and interactive discussions in order to engage students and deepen their understanding of the topics in question. It was invented by two high school teachers who wanted to create a richer learning experience for their students by turning the internet into "an interactive learning experience."
9. Prodigy - Described as "the most engaging math platform in the world," Prodigy.com has created free, curriculum-aligned, Grade 1-8 math games and activities that are used by over 20 million students, teachers and parents. The service also generates real-time reports, so teachers can see at a glance what their students are working on, what skills they are mastering and where they might need more help.
10. Quizizz - "OK class, time for a pop quiz." In the old days, these words might have made students squirm. However, Quizizz aims to make formative assessment more fun by enabling educators to easily create engaging quizzes or choose from millions prepared by teachers around the world. The multiplayer quizzes at Quizizz are enlivened with gamification elements like avatars, leaderboards, funny memes and additional features designed to maximize student engagement. (10 ways to integrate technology,2019)