Technology Committee and Planning

Technology Planning Process

This technology plan was created through a collaborative process with faculty, support staff, administrators, Board of Education, and the community. Members of the District Technology Committee attended meetings and work sessions between August 2013 and December 2015 to continue to develop the various components of the plan.

In order to provide a technology program that will continue to support and enhance the educational and administrative programs in our district, the committee developed this on-going plan.

In addition to discussions and presentations within the District Technology Committee and meetings throughout the District, a wide range of additional information was used in the development of this plan. This information included staff meetings, reviews of research, and other technology planning literature, such as the federal E-Rate planning guidelines, the ISTE planning tools, and the Partnership for 21st Century Skills framework.

The Instructional Technology Department has updated its goals and redefined its mission and vision for the current and future school years.

The District established through the strategic planning process a vision, mission and belief statements, which led to the corresponding implementation plan for the next phase of technology training and acquisition that includes objectives for each area.

This planning document reflects the vision for instructional technology implementation in each critical area. For each area, the vision process will establish the District’s expectations, appropriate measures of implementation success, and implementation roadmap for the upcoming school year, and existing and emerging technologies to support the goals and proposed timeline.

Some examples of the questions that will be addressed as part of the vision and planning process include:

• How can we encourage and train teachers to use technology in powerful ways?
• How can data be housed and collected in a more meaning and impactful way?
• How can teachers integrate more technology into their curriculum?
• How can we expand our infrastructure to support all of the instructional technology needs and goals?
• How can we provide students and staff with the appropriate number of devices?

This technology plan is intended to mesh with all Pickerington Local School District’s instructional technology and curriculum initiatives, as well as to support our District's mission, vision and belief statements.

The plan was developed from the strong belief, supported by research, that technology can significantly enhance the learning environment and improve teaching and learning. Furthermore, technology is seen as a critical component of our efforts to adequately prepare our students. This technology plan defines the vision and objectives for continuing to move our students and the Pickerington Local School District forward in the 21st century.

The committee members recognize that as they continue planning during the ongoing technology implementation phase, they will provide support across schools in the following areas:

• Matching devices with instructional needs and curriculum goals
• Matching software and accessory purchases with instructional needs and curriculum goals
• Creating the vision and policies to be used by schools and departments to determine how technology will be distributed to instructional areas
• Implementing and tracking the priorities for technology leases and purchases
• Providing professional development for instructional and non-instructional staff
• Evaluating the effectiveness of current and new instructional technology tools.

Possible Future Technology Impact

The Technology Committee understands that the world of technology is ever-changing and to forecast the future use of emerging technology is difficult. With that idea the technology committee points to the following technology trends for making future recommendations.

• Mobile devices continue to gain market share
• Desktop computers become less important
• Cloud based software continues to impact in usage of software and instructional technology tools
• Users expect access to information and data anytime/anywhere
• Significant growth in importance of 1:1 environments
• Students have choice between online and traditional learning
• Paperless, digital lifestyle (books, news, media, video, images, music, etc)
• Leveraging of social media in the classrooms
• Bring your own device (BYOD) will gain importance
• Gamification in digital curriculum
• Anytime/Anywhere digital learning