For Teachers By Teachers

Got a good lesson plan, written an interesting article, just want to share ideas? Send your contributions to utilization@hectv.org and we'll review and upload it to this page.

How to Fix I.T. (Instructional Technology): A Personal Technology Growth Plan

This paper is the culmination of a collaborative effort of a graduate class at UM-St. Louis called Instructional Technology and Educational Reform. In this class, we struggled with the following questions: 1) How do teachers develop better instructional practices?; 2) What is classroom technology?; and 3) Why should the teacher use technology? We reflected on our teaching experiences and realized that teachers, at all stages of their careers, have a desire to improve the effectiveness of their teaching. However, we also realized the obstacles teachers face using technology in their classrooms. Therefore, we offer an organized four-stage plan for educators to develop a Personal Technology Growth Plan. Stage one of the plan involves designing a technology-based activity; stage two is practice and pre-assessment; stage three is implementation; and stage four is the assessment and evaluation of the activity. Finally, teachers will be given strategies for evaluating the effectiveness of the technology integration and finding time and support for professional development. The full paper can be found online at: How To Fix I.T.