Supporting teachers for implementing technology in classrooms

In this week’s reflection, I will touch on amount and multiple types of support I think are required by teachers for the successful implementation of technology into the classrooms, in addition to formal professional development opportunities.

Providing Resources

I believe that the most helpful resource of all is the time set aside for teachers to meet during the school day to discuss students’ achievement and improving pedagogy with technology. We may have the money for material resources (laptops, wireless, storage spaces) but the more valuable one is the human resources and time. Providing opportunities for teachers to meet once a week during PLC time to reflect, to set out agenda, to share ideas that are successful, and focus on students learning issues is critical. Like what was mentioned during today's training session with Mr Peter Seah on Facilitation, with the shared goals and responsibilities together with active participation, the learning will then be more fruitful.

I also believe that I need to work at staying knowledgeable about external resources which are of potential value to the school. Take for example, the need to read articles on technology use in classroom, and in tune with what is going on, and what works locally and what has failed. With such knowledge, I can then pass on and bring in the resources to address our teachers greatest need. This resource room should, however, not be me alone but our ICT PLC team, where teachers can go down to get one-on-one help, and its available all day long.

Through this substantial increase in support from within (ICT PLC team, ICT Trainers, TAs) and external (ETD, others schools, vendors), I hope to be successful in bringing resources to the teachers.

Managing Programs

I hope to stimulate many technology integrated programs into the classrooms during this “early adoption” period, coming up with technology integration ideas, running them by the ICT PLC team and making up the school wide projects. I think the big change should be in the delivery of the pedagogy for students’ learning. We are already preparing our students to use the technology (Baseline standards) on a weekly basis. At the same time, there is also a need to manage everything required to implement such programs as well as, a time-consuming set of activities that engaged many people at all levels (teachers, heads, and students).

Sharing Information

Sharing news, as we had done during staff meetings (ICT Time) I believe is important. To share information and talk about what was good and what would help our students and how it would align us with our goals – success for the students (collaborative, independent) learning. There is lots of opportunity to chat – Principal gets regular updates on technology. He passes it on to departments, I pass it on to my team, ICT PLC team passes it to other teachers, and teachers pass to students. All of these new responsibilities served only to sharpen our focus on achieving our goal.