Details+from+Program+Director

Return to Tech Assessments

Hi Lisa,
 * From: ** Roy Winkelman [mailto:winkelma@coedu.usf.edu]
 * Sent:** Thu 4/24/2008 3:29 AM
 * To:** Nielsen Lisa
 * Subject:** Re: Technology Integration Matrix

Funding was EETT. There's a lot of federal money that flows through the states on its way to local districts. Florida has done a good job at ensuring these funds are used in ways that not only meet immediate local needs, but also provide broader statewide impact. In the long run, all of the districts in Florida benefit from this approach. Some of the statewide impact dollars come to the Florida Center for Instructional Technology at the University of South Florida; others are designated for the Florida Center for Interactive Media at Florida State University. The FLDOE, FCIT, and FCIM are all working seamlessly to build out a robust set of tools supporting technology integration in the state. The Technology Integration Matrix is one such tool. The Inventory of Teacher Technology Skills, the Student Tool for Technology Literacy, our Lesson Plan Tool (nearing completion), the Florida Innovates Survey, an Action Research Tool (underdevelopment), and others are all designed to complement each other.

Here are a few FL URLs to peruse: http://www.flinnovates.org/sttl/ http://www.flinnovates.org/info/index.htm http://tools.fcit.usf.edu/myedu/index.php http://www.flinnovates.org/survey/ http://www.flinnovates.org/survey/

Dr. Kate Kemker is the "mastermind" behind Florida's approach to technology integration at the state level. As a doctoral student here at USF, she developed many of the underlying concepts for Florida's program. This is especially true of the Tech Integration Matrix.

The TIM production process was a bit demanding. We wanted a tool that would immediately make sense to teachers, so we selected five categories that would be familiar as best practices to anyone in education, regardless of their experience with technology. The levels across the top are not "bad to good" indicators, but instead follow a natural flow of deepening technology integration in the classroom. The "Entry" column doesn't indicate that a teacher is bad or a poor integrator, just that she's starting out. We believe that folks do generally have to work their way across the scale, but that we can suggest good practices for an entry level teacher to replace the bad practices that she might otherwise fall into. The goal remains to move her across the scale toward transformation, but we can be happy to support her as an entry level teacher and then suggest what she could begin doing to move to the adoption level, and so forth. We'd love to believe that we can get all 205,000 teachers in the state to transformation, but we'll settle on infusion for most of them and transformation for as many as possible. After developing the indicators, we then had to find 50 examples of lessons across the state--25 for 1:1 access and 25 for shared access. Easier said than done. I'm not totally sold on all of the choices we had to go with to complete this project by the grant deadline, but I do believe that it's a good tool and a good starting place for teachers to self-asses. In the coming year, we intend to begin a program of updating about a third of the lessons each year, to improve the "match" of the videos to the indicators and to keep up with technology. Ultimately, we will incorporate this tool with the Teacher Inventory from FCIM and use the results to prescribe the most appropriate PD to take the teacher to the next level, whatever that may be. The TIM also needs to be seen as a part of the broader plan of providing not only assessment, but also PD and digital assets to support technology integration in the classroom. For an introduction to what we are doing with PD, see our Florida Digital Educator program: http://etc.usf.edu/fde/index.html. For a glimpse of the digital assets we are making available, see the main FCIT site at: http://fcit.usf.edu/. We believe that students should actively use technology to build their own learning, not click through some sort of programmed learning. Of course, if they are going to build their own learning, they need some raw materials to build from--and we need to teach them to respect copyright at the same time. No small task. Hence, we have any, growing collections of digital assets. Students can utilize any of the elements here to create their own reports, presentations, websites, and other publications. In particular check out the Clipart site (gets 800,000 to 1,000,000+ hits per school day!), Exploring Florida (for photos, maps, and other assets), and Lit2Go (for nearly 3,000 audio files). Since you've joined Audible (I do always take a moment to check out anyone I'm providing an extensive answer for), you might want to check out the Lit2Go site for yourself. Or, if you are an iTunes user, go directly to our iTunes site: http://deimos3.apple.com/WebObjects/Core.woa/Browse/usf.edu.1273192868

My days here at FCIT are a bit hectic and I'm never really sure when I'll be in my office instead of running up and down stairs. And on Friday, I'll be hosting three separate standards revision meetings (Social Studies, Health, and PE). Just give me a call whenever you have a moment Thursday or Friday and there will be a 50% chance that I'll be in my office to take it at that time. If I'm not in, try back in 15 minutes or so and eventually we'll connect. I also work LATE, so evenings are fine. Heck 3 in the morning is fine.Office: 813-974-3284. If after several attempts, you can't reach me at above, call reception at 813-974-1640 and ask someone to track me down. Regards, Roy Winkelman Director, Florida Center for Instructional Technology College of Education, University of South Florida Office: 813-974-3284 winkelma@coedu.usf.edu