Technology Facilitator Standard V: Productivity and Professional Practice

Handheld computing devices can be classified as productivity tools to facilitate communication and collaboration among learners. These handheld devices are also tools to increase productivity (Williamson, 2009).

I fully understood the concept that these tools served as productivity tools. However as a more usual practitioner in the use of productivity tools, I never thought of them as also being a barrier to productivity. The tools serve as a barrier to productivity because of the time taken to learn to use the productivity tool itself. I've never considered myself to be a digital native because I didn't grow up using such tools, however as a usual practitioner, this is exactly how I am viewed upon by digital immigrants (Prensky, 2001).

I have used my daily duties to bridge the discrepancy between my old and new learning. I've had the opportunity in my district to write news articles about how Irving ISD uses technology in the classroom and improves upon resources available to students. In 1:1 Symposium - Sharing What Works, I wrote about the IISD 1:1 laptop program, and how other technology "thinkers" categorize state initiatives for learning, how technololgy is integrated in the classroom, and how classroom technology still has a long way to go (MacVeigh, 2009).

Each week I use social media such as Twitter, YouTube, Facebook and Neighborsgo.com to communicate and collaborate with peers, parents and the larger community in order to nurture student learning. For example, each week I upload to the Dallas Morning News the entire text of our weekly district newsletter. Previously, we simply sent an email to the newspaper, and they printed the portions of our newsletters that they saw fit. Two years ago, the neighborhood supplement of the Dallas Morning News initiated an on-line version, and noted to the served communities that if they wanted news in the paper, they should upload text to the website (What is Neighborsgo, 2009).

With reference to the above social media applications, we are becoming much more able to leverage our announcements in Twitter to engage action in the community. We've gained more than 1,200 followers on Twitter, almost 40 friends in our fledgling Facebook fan page, and have garnered 2,547 views on YouTube.

Each day our department scans and emails education-related newsclippings to each administrator in the district. Previously, we were cutting these news clippings out of the newspaper, taping them to sheets of paper and having photocopies printed in our district printing office. The need to reduce printing costs and promote a more environmentally-friendly mindset, our department decided to scan the clippings and email them to district administrators.
The process of printing paper copies of the newsclippings amounted to roughly 90 multiple page packets per day per week. At the end of the year, a digest of all Irving ISD-related news items was again printed in book form and distributed to each school. After numerous complaints from various recipients, as well as the increased costs associated with printing, we decided to purchase a flat-bed scanner that would help us digitize the news clippings for email distribution. Once the scanner arrived, it was my task to teach everyone in the department how to use the machine. Since beginning the scan and email process in late November/early December, we have yet to receive one complaint that recipients are no longer receiving hard copies of news clippings. On the contrary, we have received nothing but positive feedback...both for our nod to preserving the environment, but also for the ease of reading items that can be "zoomed in", and also that it can be disposed of after reading with the click of the mouse.

In my role with the Irving ISD public information department, I call together a group of campus representatives from each school. These representatives -- most often a vice principal, senior teacher or instructional technology specialist -- are appointed by the school principal to serve in the additional duty of Public Information Network (PIN) representative. The director of public information, cable television specialist, and myself (public information specialist) discuss the procedures we ask the PIN reps to follow in sending their school news to the district for publication in district newsletters and for airing on Irving Schools Television. Traditionally we simply give the PIN reps a printed procedures manual as well as a "gift" to thank them for serving in this additional duty. We frequently have 75 percent attendance at these meetings and have to visit the individual campuses the next day to brief no-shows in person and give them their manual and gift. This year I decided to "sweeten the pot" a bit and develop a professional development session in Eduphoria that would award attendees with an hour of professional development credit. Since I had never set up a course in Eduphoria before, I visited with the district professional development department to have my Eduphoria account changed to that of teacher/manager. Once the account was changed, the professional development department secretary helped me establish my course and showed me the various tabs in Eduphoria that I could use to customize my course, invite attendees, take attendance during the meeting, and after the meeting to award professional development credit.

I used Eduphoria to attach a PDF of the course materials (PIN procedures manual) to the invitation so that my PIN reps could view the manual prior to attending, download the document to their computer, or have it available to refer back to in it's stored location in Eduphoria. Once the meeting is complete, I plan to mark the PIN reps who came as having attended and allow them to print of their professional development credit. At this point, I don't plan to issue credit to those PIN reps who did not attend, but they will not be penalized either. As far as Eduphoria goes, it will simply be as if they had not even been invited. Perhaps in the future as I refine the professional development session, I will be able to convince the director of professional development that the course is worthy of district or campus exchange days, thereby allowing my hour of credit to count toward time allowed to be taken off from work during a professional development day. For the time being, I'll keep my professional development session as informal as possible.

MacVeigh, M. (November 4, 2009). 1:1 Symposium - Sharing What Works. Irving ISD District Weekly. http://www.irvingisd.net/districtweekly/weekly327.htm

Prenksy, M. (October, 2001). Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants. On the Horizon: MCB University Press, Vol. 9 No. 5. http://www.marcprensky.com/writing/Prensky%20-%20Digital%20Natives,%20Digital%20Immigrants%20-%20Part1.pdf.

Williamson, J. & Redish, T. (2009). ISTE’s technology facilitation and leadership standards: What every K-12 leader should know and be able to do. Eugene, OR: International Society for Technology in Education.

What is Neighborsgo? (2009). Neighborsgo: Dallas Morning News. http://www.neighborsgo.com/index.php?page_id=167&message=site_page_help.