Activity 2f
C & I 335
Summer 1998

Tammy McLane
Argenta-Oreana CUSD #1
Argenta, IL 62501

Technology Plan

The Argenta-Oreana District Technology Plan was first written and approved in spring 1997. It is now in the process of being revised to align with the ISBE guidelines. It is an integral part of our SIP that was written and approved in February 1998. The vision statement is

To provide a secure, yet vibrant, learning environment for students, teachers, parents, and community members that includes technology as one of many transparent tools available for encouraging and modeling lifelong learning.

This supports our SIP motto of "Partners in Lifelong Learning".

Some parts of the tech plan that I think are particularly important follow:

There are four requirements which equipment purchased by the district should meet after phase 1 of this plan:

  1. Compatibility—the new equipment should work with the current equipment, network, software, etc. or stand-alone for a specific use.
  2. Value per dollar—the new equipment should be as powerful as possible for the available funds. Multimedia is a necessity now except for areas such as Accelerated Reader.
  3. Ease-of-use—the new equipment should be user-friendly in order to cut down the cost of professional development.
  4. Sustaining resources—the new equipment should have matching funds or available monies for accompanying software, repair, maintenance, and professional development.

The half-life of technical knowledge is perhaps 3 years. Accommodations for keeping the technical staff up-to-date on technology should be considered.

Encourage faculty who attend technology conferences and workshops to present their finding to the building or district when they return.

Community access:

Civic clubs could meet in a school computer lab where students could demonstrate and /or teach the members how to make electronic presentations, how to create a flyer, how to develop a database for the club’s records, etc.

Family Computer classes could offer basic computer classes in the schools’ labs for the parents and invite students to help or learn along with parents. This would encourage families to spend time together. It would give the students a chance to show the parents what he/she has learned in school. It would get the parents involved with technology and alleviate their fear of the unknown.

Parent Place in ELC could provide software demos, Internet access, and hands-on practice for parents.

High School Library/media center could remain open for students, parents, community members, home-schooled students, and parochial school students until 6:00. This would provide an educational environment after school for students who need tutoring, research assistance, or just somewhere to go. However, this situation would call for the hiring of a library aide or assistant.

Offer to train and/or make the computer labs available to local businesses that have no training area of their own in return for donations of money, time, expertise, or equipment.

Increase the number of Richland Community College off-campus classes offered in Argenta and Oreana.

Ask for volunteers to supervise and/or assist in computer lab settings.

Library adult volunteers will help with Internet searching.

Implementing the tech plan will be an important step toward meeting many of the needs in our District SIP. Those needs include the following:

Evaluate success of technology not by test scores, but by drop in absenteeism, by activity in classroom, by self-confidence in students, etc.

Our district is so small that we do not have separate plans for each building.

Unfortunately, our vision will take lots of money and time. Most classrooms do not have even one computer permanently stationed in the room. When we do get more than one computer in a classroom then we will need to upgrade the electrical system. On the other hand, our district is fortunate to have the structured cabling done. Every classroom has a phone and at least one data connection ready for network/Internet access.

Goals 2000 grant is helping to implement our plan by providing computers in a central, easily accessible location for teachers, portable workstations with projection devices for classroom use, computers for resource and title I teachers, a graphic arts and design computer, laptops for teachers to checkout overnight or on weekends, a technology "media center" stocked with instructional videos, magazines, books, Internet references, and upcoming conference announcements.

A Library grant was recently awarded to Argenta-Oreana for more Internet stations. SIRS (for reference materials) is also on order so we can use the HS and Jr HS computers as information providers.

Staff development is a necessity.

Dream classroom