The Junior High Technology Team project came about for several reasons and was designed to fulfill several goals we set up for the Wood Dale School District.  As I thought through ideas for my Edpsy 387 Major Project and toyed around with different pieces of technology, I came to the conclusion that I wanted to develop a project that would have the ability to meet the needs of all our students and teachers throughout the district.

Similar to what I state on the purpose page of this web site, the Technology project centered around a group of Junior High students whom I wanted to both challenge and benefit in all their special areas. Equally, I also wanted to develop a program that would not only benefit the students who were in it, but would also benefit the rest of the students in the junior high and elementary schools. Over the years, I have seen many great programs in a wide range of school districts, but unfortunately I haven't seen very many programs that use older students as facilitators in the process of teaching educational technology to both Teachers and Students. We set out to hit our  overall goal of being able to develop a program that we could use for years and years to come in all of our schools.

With any form of education and teaching, it is always important to take a step back throughout the process in order to be able to properly reflect upon what you have done up to that point.  The reflection provides the teacher and the students with an opportunity to either continue on with what they have or to redirect what ever their doing in a direction that they feel is better suited for that particular project.

Throughout the Technology Team Project, I felt it was necessary to do project reflections both on my own and as a team at least once every two weeks.  Through these reflections we were able to solve many problems, as well as, we were able to head off some problems before they ever fully developed.  I was also able to gather a great deal of information from the students, both verbally as well as nonverbal.

One major idea I realized through the reflection was that in many cases doing more and putting a lot on the plate isn't necessarily the most beneficial thing to do for a project of this size. An example of this has to do with the fact that originally I set out to do 4 or 5 programs this fall and to have them all up and running by now.  However, during one of the reflection periods, I was able to look and see that it wasn't going to be possible.  While the students had a vast knowledge of select programs, I believed strongly that they lacked enough knowledge to be able to teach any one particular class at that time.  I informed them that it would just take time, time, time.

With the time constraint and other minor issues, I decided to change one of our goals so that we only focused on Two programs to learn and one program to teach before the winter break.

Along with my trepidation's about the students, I also had a few worries about how things would be received when students worked with teachers.  To my surprise, the teachers were very responsive and grateful to have the students working with them on PowerPoint.  I think the use of kids provides a real world use that teachers can see and thus feel the program is more viable than they might have before.  However, while the teachers who came and were apart of the program received the ideas very well, I do believe it will take sometime to gain the interest of some of the teachers that aren't as willing to learn technology.  This was somewhat expected, however still very disappointing.

Have I met ALL the team goals we set out to obtain?  No, but do I someday expect to meet all the goals?  Of course I do, I think that like with many projects, the Technology Team is one that is on going and will continue to grow and change as we bring more and more teachers and students into the mix of things.  It will just be a slower process than I had expected, things take time.

I believe the Technology Team program is an incredibly beneficial program for not only those that are in it, but equally as rewarding for those that are able to be apart of the classes that are taught.  I'm really excited about the future of this program once it is completely off the ground and a few of the time glitches are fixed.  I certainly believe from what I've observed and gathered from students and teachers that if run properly and used appropriately, this program can and will be a huge help to us and the district in the area of educational technology.

In order to truly meet the lofty (but definitely obtainable) original goals that were set up for the project, we will be continuing the program throughout the remainder of the year and hopefully for years to come.  The Technology Team Project has opened my eyes to what kids and teachers can do when they work together in roles they are typically not accustomed to.  Being able to have students be teachers and teacher be students allows teachers to feel the frustration and success that students feel when using technology.  It also provides the students with an opportunity to better understand how teachers feel when students don't listen, pay attention, or understand at all what was just said. As we continue to reflect and adjust the Team, things will only get better and I envision the Technology Team being a major part of the District Educational Technology Plan for years to come.