Instructional Technology Plan (2026 - 2029)

At Sharon Springs CSD, technology is not an add-on; it is a tool to help every student learn, grow, and succeed. Our 2026–2029 Instructional Technology Plan reflects our commitment to providing personalized, engaging, and future-ready learning experiences for all students while maintaining the strong, family-like culture that defines our school community.

Grounded in our vision of using technology to meet each student’s unique needs, this plan reflects our district’s commitment to cultivating the skills, habits of mind, and ongoing professional learning necessary for educators and students to use technology with purpose. More than access alone, we aim to ensure technology strengthens what lies at the heart of education, meaningful human connection, sustained curiosity, and the development of critical thought, while improving instruction and expanding equitable opportunities for every learner. 

The vision of the Sharon Springs Central School is to provide a supportive and creative learning environment, which challenges our students to achieve excellence as a way of life. Embedded within this vision is the district's vision for instrucitonal technology: 

Dynamic technology will be leveraged purposely in meeting each student’s unique needs and abilities, as students engage in learning experiences that will ultimately allow them to fully participate in our society (i.e. be future ready) and become their best self in the service of an intellectually and morally good life and good society.

• Authentic and Real-World Learning: Learners* will develop flexible skills, practice transferable habits and apply relevant knowledge in meaningful contexts that reflect the way they might be found and approached in the future workplace.

• Collaboration: Learners* will work together synergistically to solve problems, create products, and complete tasks through compromise, negotiation, and delegation.

• Communication: Learners* will communicate by connecting and sharing ideas through a variety of modes based on how well the message matches the medium in which they are transmitted through.

• Creativity: Learners* will develop and revise ideas with attention to originality.

• Critical Thinking: Learners* will analyze, synthesize, evaluate, and organize information in ways that generate new understanding.

• Global Learning:  Learners* will experience viewpoints beyond their own (overcoming the geographic isolation intrinsic to our rural district), using their developing understanding of cultural and global complexities to impact the world around them.

• Personalized Learning: Learners* will own their learning by setting goals, sharing these goals, making choices about how their learning is expressed and monitoring their learning. Learners will use a variety of technological tools for learning as they consume, curate, produce, and share content.

*Learners include all school-based stakeholders: students, teachers, and administrators.

Together, these priorities create a comprehensive approach that:

• Improves instructional quality and consistency

• Personalizes learning for each student

• Builds critical thinking and real-world skills

• Ensures equitable access to technology

• Provides reliable learning opportunities both in and beyond the classroom

By investing in our teachers, our students, and our infrastructure, Sharon Springs CSD is creating a learning environment where technology helps every student thrive; today and into the future.

Goal 1. Enhancing Teaching with AI for Personalized Learning

We are supporting teachers in using tools like Google Gemini and Gemini Notebook to:

• Differentiate instruction based on student needs

• Provide timely, specific/personalized, and standards-aligned feedback

• Create more responsive and engaging learning experiences

This work ensures that every student receives the right level of support and challenge, helping each learner grow.

Goal 2. Building Student Skills for the Digital World

Students will learn how to:

• Evaluate online information for accuracy and bias

• Think critically about digital content

• Use AI tools responsibly to support (not replace) their learning

By embedding these skills across all subjects, we are preparing students to be thoughtful, informed, and ethical users of technology in school and beyond.

Goal 3. Upgrading Technology for Reliability and Creativity

To provide consistent, high-quality access to learning tools, we are:

• Replacing outdated wireless systems and increasing internet speed

• Transitioning away from costly cellular data plans to a stronger internal network

• Moving from 1:1 iPads to classroom sets of laptops in high school. This shift supports more creative, hands-on learning (such as multimedia projects, design, and problem-solving) while also improving long-term sustainability.

Goal 4. Strengthening Consistency in Digital Learning Platforms

At the middle and high school levels, we are improving how teachers use platforms like Schoology and IXL to:

• Provide consistent access to assignments, materials, and feedback

• Support flexible, hybrid learning environments

• Offer students multiple ways to demonstrate their understanding: This ensures that all students experience a clear, organized, and supportive learning environment; regardless the classroom.

As a small, rural school, we take pride in knowing our students well and supporting them as individuals. This plan reflects that commitment: leveraging modern tools while staying true to our values of hard work, problem-solving, and community.

We look forward to continuing this work together with our students, families, and community.

Sharon Springs CSD: Small School. Big Opportunities. Future Ready.

The process for developing our instructional technology plan started with our end users – students.

Students were asked a series of questions within the following domains:

• Functional skill development opportunities at SSCS

• Multimedia skill development opportunities at SSCS

• Research skill development opportunities at SSCS

• Critical Use of technology opportunities at SSCS

 Next teachers were asked a series of questions within the following domains:

• Functional skill development opportunities provided within their instructional practice/curriculum

• Multimedia skill development opportunities provided within their instructional practice/curriculum

• Research skill development opportunities provided within their instructional practice/curriculum

• Critical Use of technology opportunities provided within their instructional practice/curriculum

The results of these surveys were then discussed and analyzed by an Technology Committee (made up of an administrator, 2 elementary classroom teachers, 2 secondary classroom teachers, CSE Chair, school counselor,  the head of IT, 2 student council members, & the head of the PTSO).

The technology committee held regularly scheduled meetings that met for an hour each month.  In addition to standing agenda items (i.e., What’s working well? What’s not working well? How cane we grow from what’s working and address what’s needs to be improved?), the following core topics were addressed:

• Current Technology Infrastructure (hardware, software, & district-sponsored subscriptions to learning platforms/applications)

  • Core Question: What are we using? Why are we using it? How is it supported?

• Affordances of each “Core” Educational Technology (i.e. Schoology, G-Suite tools, i-Ready, newsela, etc.)

  • Core Question: How do each of these tools support student learning?

• Technology Mediated Learning Experiences: Synchronous and (not ‘versus”) Asynchronous

  • Core Question: How can technology help overcome the most difficult challenges of in-person instruction (i.e., time, place, and pace)?

• Learning From the Remote Instruction (emerging best practices in remote instruction)

  • Core Question: Why and how should remote instruction be more than just turning on a camera in a classroom?

• Engaging in Critical Use of Technology (“Going Beyond How to Use and Into How to Engage”) 

  • Core Question: What does it mean to be a critical user of technology? How to we establish and reinforce “critical use of technology” throughout our K – 12 school?

• Using Technology to Ensure Students are Gaining Future Ready Skills

  • Core Question: How can schools prepare students for emerging industries?

• Using Technology to Engage Students in a More Equitable and Flexible Education

  • Core Question: Now that we can provide 1:1 devices, how do we use this access to create more equitable and flexible structures within our systems to meet ALL students needs?

• Developing a Vision-Drive, Mission-Driven Plan That is Practical

  • Supporting a plan with targeted professional development (that is accessible asynchronously and synchronously) 

  • Supporting a plan with technology coaching

  • Supporting a plan with dynamic tools that are flexible, durable and supported

Staff Plan 

This technology plan will be supported by

• Two district administrators overseeing the execution of entire plan: the Superintendent (Mr. Tom Yorke, tyorke@sharonsprings.org) and the Business Official (Mr. Anthony DiPace, adipace@sharonsprings.org)

• A Chief Information Officer (Mr. Tom Reynolds, treynolds@sharonsprings.org) 

• A Technical Support Specialist (Mr. Joshua Bivins: jbivins@sharonsprings.org)

• A Principal (Mrs. Stephanie Fuller: sfuller@sharonsprings.org)

• SSCS will also continue to consult with Capital Region BOCES in carrying out this plan.

Investment Plan

Staffing costs are included in the annual district operating budget and supported by various private and public grants as they become available.

Hardware and software purchases to carry out this plan will be funded by the SMART Schools Bond Act. Any cost over this amount will be purchased through Capital Region BOCES from our yearly general budget, grants or with our fund balance.

Professional Development costs associated with this plan will be funded under Title 2, Part A “Supporting Effective Instruction” under ESSA. Any cost that exceeds what is available through Title 2, Part A will be purchased through Capital Region BOCES from our yearly general budget, grants (specifically the REAP grant), or with our fund balance.

We will remain transparent throughout all fiscal processes, while meeting the needs of each of our students.