Action Plan for Technology

CENTRAL OFFICE

Jim Hirsch - Associate Superintendent for Academic and Technology Services
The Associate Superintendent for Academic and Technology Services oversees and manages the operation of the Technology Department which includes Instructional Technology and Technology Operations.

Mary Hewett – Executive Director of Instructional Technology
Instructional Technology consists of student database managers, cluster support teams, and Learning Media Services.
The student database managers' responsibilities include supporting our district wide classroom electronic gradebook and attendance system (Pinnacle), and the School Messenger automated calling system.
Each cluster support team consists of a technology coordinator and technology specialists. The coordinator role includes assigning work direction to the technology specialists, collaborating with technical support services and telecommunications to provide needed services to the campuses and providing overall planning leadership to the cluster schools. The role of the specialist is to act as liaison between district program needs in curriculum, technology and the campus needs. Specialists are also assigned a particular curriculum area to support. They support campus initiatives as diverse as creating Internet pages to integrating a video image device into a social studies unit of study and everything in between. In addition to supporting an identified curriculum content area K-12, we ask the specialists to also be "generalists" when it comes to various curriculum and grade level applications.

John Alawneh – Executive Director of Technology Operations
Technology Operations directs and manages the services provided by the Technical Support Services Department as well as coordinates all of Plano ISD district wide systems integration with CIMS and Prologic Technology Systems, Inc. Specific systems included TEAMS, CIMS, eSchool Solutions and Curriculum Planners.

Kathy Dry – Student Record Officer
Student Records provide coordination, support and training to each campus, and all central office staff requiring access to student record information such as grades, transcripts, attendance, discipline, scheduling, and health & immunizations. It is also responsible for coordinating the coding for the state (PEIMS) reporting and the federal (Civil Rights) reporting coordinating with various departments such as Special Education, Bilingual/ESL, Gifted/Talented and Title I. Student Records conducts regular audits of elementary attendance records, and all campus entry and withdrawals. Other department responsibilities include maintaining the street index system, coordinating and processing grade reporting and campus scheduling assistance.

Dan Armstrong – Director of Technical Support Services
The Technical Support Services department is responsible for the installation, maintenance, and support of the district's computing systems, networks, and data communications technologies, including hardware and software. The department also coordinates all facets of the district telephone system, cellular and paging services, voice mail, long distance service as well as the district cable access television system.

Steve Durbin – PBX Manager
Telecommunications work to meet the telecommunications needs of the district staff including all facets of the district telephone systems, cellular and paging service, voice mail, and long distance service.

Jim Macaluso/Mark Fetchko – Cable Access Television (CATV)
Cable Access Television (CATV), through close coordination with Library Media Services and our local cable provider, work to insure cable access television service to all district facilities and each classroom.

Randi Weaver – Help Desk Supervisor
The Help Desk provides centralized phone help for technical support. All problems that require on-site support are entered into a tracking database and assigned to the appropriate group for resolution. Once calls are entered into the database, they stay on an open call list until fixed, ensuring that we do not let problems "fall through the crack". During school year 06-07, the Help Desk handled over 30,000 calls.

Dan Savage – Deployment Center Supervisor
The primary responsibility of the Deployment Center is to maintain a large inventory of computers, computer components, printers, and data communication equipment for our network needs. This group also moves computing equipment as required throughout the district.

CAMPUS LEVEL

Renee Godi – Campus Principal
Campus Principal is to make sure that ample amount of professional development is available/required within their campus. The campus principal should work hand and hand with the district’s technology director in order to provide resources needed for classroom teachers to be successful. Also, the campus principal needs to monitor data such as AEIS and STaR charts to make sure the campus in on target with state required TEKS technology requirements. Any problems with the flow of technology to the campus should be reported to the district.

Lois Schock – Campus CTA
The campus CTA will basically take care of all the campuses technology needs. The campus CTA can load software needed on a particular computer or help with minor technology problems. Any large scale problems will be reported to the district’s CTA.

Patrick Davis – History Department Chair
The subject department head will work closely with the campuses SBIC to make sure all technology needs are being met within their department. Department heads also need to assess test scores to see if technology is working the current way it is written into the curriculum.

Russell Budai – Texas History Classroom Teacher
It is the classroom teacher’s job to use the technology in the classroom. Professional development strategies have hopefully be taught for ways to implement technology into the classroom.


Professional Development Planning

Blog training for all staff - Administration will start a blog for all updates. This will take the place of the e-mail Monday Memo and now the Monday Memo and all other important announcements will be posted on the admin blog. Teachers will be responsible for checking the blog each week and can post comments and questions for all to see. Hopefully, this will help reduce the amount of repeat questions due to e-mail.


Pinnacle Gradebook Training – Training each year for our gradebook system called Pinnacle. Every year something changes on Pinnacle and we are not trained for the changes. When it is time for grades then we always have a problem. Just an hour training each year could easily stop this and keep parents update with parent portal. Parent portal allows parents to view their student’s grades.

SAS Information – We have a very good Student Assessment System in place in my district. However, there are many teachers who do not know anything about it. Currently, you can access all of your student’s test scores. Test such as TAKS, MAP, CoGat, etc. This is very useful information when you are trying to meet the needs of students and each teacher should be taught how to access and upload any scores they need. Also, teachers need to be taught what their current target scores are for their subject.

My.pisd.net Training - mypisd.net allows teachers to post calendars, assignments and messages to students and parents. This web based site allows parents to check grades, stay in contact with teachers and check when assignments are due. This is a great tool for my school district, but teachers are not using it. This could take care of countless e-mails. The main reason teachers do not use it is because they do not know how. This training will get teachers on track for using mypisd.net for their class and it will be mandatory that each teacher maintains a mypisd.net page starting the 2nd six weeks.

New Technology Training – As new technologies are implemented, staff members are required to attend training seesions, or demonstrate competency, before the technology is introduced into their classroom or office enviroment. The district offers a multitude of courses that range from introductory offerings to advanced, content specific classes.

Evaluation

PDAS
My Learning Plan – this is an electronic portfolio of our Professional Development
STaR Chart, AEIS, AYP (adequate yearly progress) Report
Staff sign-in sheet for Professional Development
Attendance sheet
Minimum of 30 hours Professional Development each year
Scope and sequence for core classes